Climate Research
I've been following the scientific literature regarding climate change for quite a while, and saved articles and studies I found especially interesting. These are almost entirely from major peer-reviewed scientific journals, government science research agencies, and mainstream media reporting on such studies. Dates are often visible in the entry's link. The list is in roughly chronological order, most recent at the top. To observe the accelerating pace of climate change, read this list from bottom to top, or if that seems daunting read just the last few years. To seek a specific topic use your browser's Search to find keywords on this page. To be notified when this list is updated, use one of the free page-change services; pagecrawl.io works well but there are many others. This list will be updated as I find more to add. Your suggestions and comments are welcome.
Those interested in the history of the climate crisis might like the 2000 and earlier section of this page, which covers discoveries, presentations and warnings from the early 1800s (beginning of modern climate science) until our current era.
The timeline of earth's average temperature is from xkcd. Click it to go to the original.
Go to displayed reports, articles, and studies published in:
2024 · 2023 · 2022 · 2021 · 2020 · 2019 · 2018 · 2017 · 2016 · 2015-2011 · 2010-2001 · 2000 and earlier
No sign of greenhouse gases increases slowing in 2023
Levels of the three most important human-caused greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide – continued their steady climb during 2023, according to NOAA scientists ... The global surface concentration of CO2, averaged across all 12 months of 2023, was 419.3 parts per million (ppm), an increase of 2.8 ppm during the year. This was the 12th consecutive year CO2 increased by more than 2 ppm ... atmospheric methane increased rapidly during the 1980s, nearly stabilized in the late-1990s and early 2000s, then resumed a rapid rise in 2007 ... “In addition to the record high methane growth in 2020-2022, we also observed sharp changes in the isotope composition of the methane that indicates an even more dominant role of microbial emission increase” [raising] the possibility that climate change is causing wetlands to give off increasing methane emissions in a feedback loop.
https://research.noaa.gov/2024/04/05/no-sign-of-greenhouse-gases-increases-slowing-in-2023/Searing heat is back across Southeast Asia and it’s not going away anytime soon
Home to more than 675 million people across 11 countries, the region has seen temperatures reach unprecedented levels – with little respite from merciless heat and humidity ... “We thought temperatures last year were unbearable but this year has beaten that – temperatures in Bangkok won’t drop below 30 degrees Celsius, even at night ... The trend is inescapable. The region has to prepare for terrible heat for the rest of April and most of May” ... In nearby Vietnam, the heat wave brought intense droughts to the south – driving temperatures up to nearly 104 degrees Fahrenheit and wreaking havoc on the country’s vital agriculture industry [where] rice fields and rivers have dried up, according to Vietnamese media reports, and farmers have been struggling without rainwater for their crops ... the world continues to blast through climate records, with deadly heat waves becoming the norm ... one of the most worrying characteristics of the heat wave now sweeping across the region is its prolonged duration - with no end in sight.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/10/asia/southeast-asia-extreme-heat-climate-intl-hnk/index.htmlThe Widest-Ever Global Coral Crisis Will Hit Within Weeks, Scientists Say
The world’s coral reefs are in the throes of [yet another] global bleaching event caused by extraordinary ocean temperatures, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and international partners announced ... Coral reefs are vital ecosystems: limestone cradles of marine life that nurture an estimated quarter of ocean species at some point during their life cycles, support fish that provide protein for millions of people and protect coasts from storms. [But] for the last year, ocean temperatures have been off the charts ... The news is the latest example of climate scientists’ alarming predictions coming to pass as the planet heats. Despite decades of warnings from scientists and pledges from leaders, nations are burning more fossil fuels than ever and greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise ... more than 54 percent of the world’s coral area has experienced bleaching-level heat stress in the past year, and that number is increasing by about 1 percent per week, Dr. Manzello said. He added that within a week or two, “this event is likely to be the most spatially extensive global bleaching event on record” ... Each of the three previous global bleaching events has been worse than the last ... “The feeling is like, ‘My God, this is happening,’” said Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a professor of marine studies at the University of Queensland who published early predictions about how global warming would be catastrophic for coral reefs. “Now we’re at the point where we’re in the disaster movie.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/15/climate/coral-reefs-bleaching.html
NOAA Coral Reef Watch https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/product/5km/index_5km_dhw.phpRecord hot March caps warmest 12 months on record — report
Europe's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Tuesday that March 2024 was the warmest on record, making it the tenth consecutive month to break heat records ... warmer than the previous March, and 1.68C hotter than an average March between the years 1850-1900, the reference period for the pre-industrial era. Above-average temperatures were recorded in parts of Africa, South America, Greenland and Antarctica. Sea surface temperatures also hit a "shocking new high," the report said ... "It's the long-term trend with exceptional records that has us very concerned," [said] Samantha Burgess, deputy director of C3S. "Seeing records like this — month in, month out — really shows us that our climate is changing rapidly," she added ... scientists say that greenhouse gas emissions are the main cause of the rising temperatures.
https://www.dw.com/en/record-hot-march-caps-warmest-12-months-on-record-report/a-68772772
reporting on a study at https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-march-2024-tenth-month-row-be-hottest-recordNorthern Permafrost Region Emits More Greenhouse Gases Than It Captures
Permafrost underlies about 14 million square kilometers of land in and around the Arctic. The top 3 meters contain an estimated 1 trillion metric tons of carbon and 55 billion metric tons of nitrogen. Historically, the northern permafrost region has been a sink for carbon, as frozen soils inhibit microbial decomposition. But rising temperatures contribute to thawing permafrost and enhance the biogeochemical activities that exacerbate climate change by releasing greenhouse gases ... Wetlands were some of the largest methane emitters, and lakes contributed substantially as well. Dry tundra was the biggest driver of N2O release, and permafrost bogs were a close second.
https://eos.org/research-spotlights/northern-permafrost-region-emits-more-greenhouse-gases-than-it-captures
reporting on a study at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GB007953Ocean currents threaten to collapse Antarctic ice shelves, study finds
A new study published in Nature Communications has revealed that the interplay between meandering ocean currents and the ocean floor induces upwelling velocity, transporting warm water to shallower depths. This mechanism contributes substantially to the melting of ice shelves in the Amundsen Sea of West Antarctica. These ice shelves are destabilizing rapidly and contributing to sea level rise ... In a departure from prior assumptions linking ice shelf melting primarily to winds over the Southern Ocean, this study underscores the significant role played by the interactions between meandering ocean currents and the ocean floor in driving the melting process. The Pine Island and Thwaites ice shelves are among the fastest-changing in Antarctica and are of particular interest due to their vulnerability to warming ocean waters ... their rapid melting and potential collapse pose a significant threat to coastal communities worldwide because of the resulting rise in global sea levels.
https://phys.org/news/2024-04-ocean-currents-threaten-collapse-antarctic.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47084-zAntarctica's sea ice hit another low this year—understanding how ocean warming is driving the loss is key
Even just a decade ago, sea ice reliably rebuilt itself each winter. But something has changed in how the Southern Ocean works and the area covered by sea ice has decreased dramatically ... The annual freeze-thaw cycle of Antarctic sea ice is one of the defining properties of our planet. It affects the reflectivity of a vast area of the globe, oxygenates the deep ocean, provides habitat across the Southern Ocean food web and plays a role in the resilience of ice shelves ... Continental shelf seas around Antarctica are special because of the presence of sea ice—but this varies in space and time. The US National Snow and Ice Data Center has developed a visualization tool to compare sea-ice conditions during different times. It shows that by the end of summer, the Ross Sea region holds only a few patches of sea ice. And this year, the patches were even fewer than in the past.
https://phys.org/news/2024-04-antarctica-sea-ice-year-ocean.html
see also https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/37/7/JCLI-D-23-0479.1.xml
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00768-3Climate crisis increasing frequency of deadly ocean upwells, study finds
A climate-disrupted ocean is pushing sharks, rays and other species to flee ever-hotter water in the tropics, only for them to be killed by increasingly intense upwells of cold water from the depths, a study has found. The paper, published in Nature Climate Change on Monday, found that shifts in ocean currents and pressure systems driven by climate breakdown were increasing the frequency and intensity of upwellings.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/15/climate-crisis-deadly-ocean-upswells-cold-water-study
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-01966-8The Flooding Will Come “No Matter What”
The complex, contradictory and heartbreaking process of American climate migration is underway
People have always moved as their environment has changed. But today, the climate is warming faster, and the population is larger, than at any point in history. As the U.S. gets hotter, its coastal waters rise higher, its wildfires burn larger and its droughts last longer, the notion that humankind can triumph over nature is fading, and with it, slowly, goes the belief that self-determination and personal preference can be the driving factors in choosing where to live. Scientific modeling of these pressures suggest a sweeping change is coming in the shape and location of communities across America, a change that promises to transform the country’s politics, culture and economy. It has already begun. More Americans are displaced by catastrophic climate-change-driven storms and floods and fires every year ... In a 2021 study published in the journal Climatic Change, researchers found that 57% of the Americans they surveyed believed that changes in their climate would push them to consider a move sometime in the next decade. Also in 2021, the national real estate firm Redfin conducted a similar nationwide survey, finding that nearly half of Americans who planned to move that year said that climate risks were already driving their decisions [and] when Redfin broadened its survey to include more than a thousand people who had not yet decided to move, a whopping 75% of them said that they would think twice before buying a home in a place facing rising heat or other climate risks ... “You see your community is going, and they tell you that this is going to happen no matter what,” Colette said. “So even if we are successful in what we do next, we will lose those places. I couldn’t believe what I saw, that this place I hold so dear and that I have such a long memory of, all of those stories are going to go. Who I am and what I am describing is going to be lost. It’s surreal.”
https://www.propublica.org/article/climate-migration-louisiana-slidell-floodingClimate crisis brings boomtime for British wine [but threaten to devastate typical wine regions]
The climate crisis led to the UK experiencing its second-hottest year on record last year, with rising temperatures creating increasingly ideal conditions for growing grapes in Britain. But extreme heat also threatens to devastate typical wine regions, such as areas of Spain, Italy and southern California, where harvests are predicted to plummet. “I don’t want to put a positive spin on climate change, because it’s not a positive thing,” says [UK winemaker] Pike. “For every degree it goes up here the temperature and the weather changes elsewhere. People who are growing in Burgundy are facing things they have never faced before because of the unpredictability of the weather.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/apr/12/its-a-sun-trap-climate-crisis-brings-boomtime-for-british-wineMorocco drought: Satellite images show vital Al Massira reservoir is shrinking
Morocco's second-largest reservoir that serves some of its major cities and has been central to farm irrigation is drying up; Al Massira Dam, which sits around halfway between Casablanca and Marrakesh, contains just 3% of the average amount of water that was there nine years ago ... the impact of the drought stretches across the country [and] has been exacerbated by evaporation which increases as the heat rises. Last year, Morocco recorded its highest-ever temperature of 50.4C on 11 August.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-68665826‘Alarming’ Ocean Temperatures Suggest This Hurricane Season Will Be a Daunting One
A key area of the Atlantic Ocean where hurricanes form is already abnormally warm, much warmer than an ideal swimming pool ... These conditions were described by Benjamin Kirtman, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Miami, as “unprecedented,” “alarming” and an “out-of-bounds anomaly.” Combined with the rapidly subsiding El Niño weather pattern, it is leading to mounting confidence among forecasting experts that there will be an exceptionally high number of storms this hurricane season ... One such expert, Phil Klotzbach, a researcher at Colorado State University, said in his team’s annual forecast on Thursday that they expected a remarkably busy season of 23 named storms, including 11 hurricanes ... All the conditions that he and other researchers look at to forecast the season [point] in one direction. If anything, he said, his numbers are on the conservative side ... “Crazy” is how Dr. Kirtman described it. “The main development region is, right now, warmer than it’s historically been,” he said. There is little doubt in his mind that we are seeing some profound climate change impacts, but scientists don’t know exactly why it is occurring so quickly all of a sudden. But it is happening.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/04/climate/ocean-temperature-hurricane-forecast.html
see also https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/04/it-could-well-be-a-blockbuster-hurricane-season-and-thats-not-a-good-thing/
reporting on a study at https://tropical.colostate.edu/forecasting.htmlWorld’s biggest economies pumping billions into [extracting] fossil fuels in poor nations
The G20 group of developed and developing economies, and the multilateral development banks they fund, put $142bn (£112bn) into fossil fuel developments overseas from 2020 to 2022. Canada, Japan and South Korea were the biggest sources of such finance in the three years studied, and gas received more funding than either coal or oil. The G7 group of biggest economies, to which Japan and Canada belong, pledged in 2022 to halt overseas funding of fossil fuels. US, Germany and Italy also provided billions in funding a year to overseas fossil fuel projects before the end of 2022-23, according to the report.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/09/worlds-biggest-economies-pumping-billions-into-fossil-fuels-in-poor-nations
reporting on a study at https://priceofoil.org/2024/04/09/public-enemies-assessing-mdb-and-g20-international-finance-institutions-energy-finance/Four decades of glacial data reveals substantial losses and water worries
An analysis of glacial data spanning four decades ... reveals significant losses in glacial mass and points out just how important this could be for the people and ecosystems that rely on the melt waters from these glaciers. It also highlights the flood risks associated with sudden catastrophic changes in the glaciers as they melt ... [glaciers] play a major role in sustaining river flow and supporting human activities such as agriculture and hydroelectric power generation, as well maintaining the natural, local ecosystems, wildlife, and habitats. The impact of glacial loss will be gradual, but with accelerating loss due to climate change there is the risk of melted glacial lakes suddenly release huge volumes of water downstream, which could devastate human settlements and the ecosystems in its path.
https://phys.org/news/2024-04-decades-glacial-reveals-substantial-losses.html
reporting on a study at https://www.inderscience.com/info/inarticle.php?artid=137781‘Simply mind-boggling’: world record temperature jump in Antarctic raises fears of catastrophe
[Scientists] recorded the largest jump in temperature ever measured [when the Antarctic] experienced a rise of 38.5C above its seasonal average: a world record. This startling leap – in the coldest place on the planet – left polar researchers struggling for words to describe it. “It is simply mind-boggling,” said Prof Michael Meredith, science leader at the British Antarctic Survey ... Glaciers bordering the west Antarctic ice-sheet are losing mass to the ocean at an increasing rate, while levels of sea ice, which float on the oceans around the continent, have plunged dramatically ... the Antarctic, once thought to be too cold to experience the early impacts of global warming, is now succumbing dramatically and rapidly to the swelling levels of greenhouse gases that humans continue to pump into the atmosphere. These dangers were highlighted by a team of scientists, led by Will Hobbs of the University of Tasmania, in a paper that was published last week in the Journal of Climate.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/06/simply-mind-boggling-world-record-temperature-jump-in-antarctic-raises-fears-of-catastrophePFAS ‘Forever Chemicals’ Are Pervasive in Water Worldwide, Study Finds
Over the last fifty years such chemicals have cut worldwide fertility in half, among other health effects
A new study of more than 45,000 water samples around the world found that about 31 percent of groundwater samples tested that weren’t near any obvious source of contamination had PFAS levels considered harmful to human health by the Environmental Protection Agency [which] “sets off alarm bells,” said Denis O’Carroll, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of New South Wales and one of the authors of the study, which was published on Monday in Nature Geoscience. “Not just for PFAS, but also for all the other chemicals that we put out into the environment. We don’t necessarily know their long-term impacts to us or the ecosystem.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/08/climate/pfas-forever-chemicals-water.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-024-01402-8Our Oldest Secret: We Have Been Super-Predators for 2 Million Years
Analysis can also help explain why it’s so hard for us to preserve our environment
New research has revealed one of the deepest and oldest secrets of who we are as a species. Humans are natural born killers: super-predators designed by evolution to subsist mainly on the meat and fat of large animals, and genetically hardwired to hunt our prey into extinction, says a new study on the eating habits of prehistoric hominins going back 2 million years. This meta-analysis collated information from some 400 previous studies, conducted over decades by unconnected scientists, and providing biological, genetic, archaeological and molecular data on the diet of our Stone Age ancestors. The overwhelming evidence gleaned from this research belies the common belief that humans are adaptable omnivores who won at the evolutionary game because of their flexibility and smarts. Instead, it supports a new paradigm of our evolution ... that we are specialized hypercarnivores who diversified our diet only at the tail-end of our evolutionary story, and only because we were forced to do so after killing off our main food source [which] can also help explain a number of problems that humans face today: from why so many of us have trouble digesting certain foods to why it’s so hard for us to preserve our environment ... The team investigated “The evolution of the human trophic level during the Pleistocene,” which is a technical way of saying that it tried to glean the position that Stone Age hominins occupied in the food chain – essentially, a prehistoric who-ate-who. Our very distant ancestors, such as the australopithecines and Homo habilis, had already started to move away from the typical plant-based diet of primates and incorporate more meat in their eating habits, the researchers say. But some two million years ago a new hominin emerged in Africa that would take the world by storm, and is believed to have eventually evolved into modern Homo sapiens. [Homo erectus] was the first member of our species to climb to the top of the food chain and become what zoologists call a hypercarnivore – a mammal that obtains more than 70 percent of its food from other animals. Since erectus, humans have remained at the top of the food chain ... “Most researchers hold the view that [prehistoric] humans could eat whatever they wanted: plants, animals, whatever was available.” From this assumption comes the idea is that Homo sapiens evolved and spread across the world because it was extremely flexible. But that paradigm is flawed, because it is largely based on studies of the behavior of modern-day hunter-gatherers. These groups have access to technologies, such as metals and controlled fire, that our ancestors didn’t have. Additionally, they have been adapting for tens of thousands of years to the depletion of megafauna, which forced humans to learn to hunt smaller prey and forage or domesticate plants. If we look at the evidence encoded in our own biology, a very different picture emerges. For example, the human colon is 77 percent smaller than that of the chimpanzee, while our small intestine is 64 percent longer. The colon is where energy is extracted from plant fiber, while the small intestine is where sugars, proteins and fat are absorbed. This means that after the human lineage diverged from the chimp line, around six million years ago, we progressively became more adapted at extracting energy from meat, and lost most of our ability to do so from plants. The same progression toward a carnivorous diet can be seen in the evolution of our teeth. Australopithecines, who lived from four to two million years ago, had big jaws and large flat molars, necessary features to grind large amounts of plant material. With Homo erectus, mandibles and teeth shrink to a size comparable to that of modern humans [implying] that by then we had migrated to softer food, like meat. Multiple studies of isotopes in the bones of hominins have also shown that humans subsisted largely on an animal-based diet until the end of the Paleolithic, less than 20,000 years ago ... It also perhaps is not a coincidence that Homo erectus was not just the first hypercarnivore in our lineage, but was also the first hominin to leave Africa and populate Eurasia. Several researchers have suggested that erectus may have been following the migration of megafauna ... finally, this image of humans as all-consuming predators reminds us of the destructive effects of our behavior can have on our ecosystem and the massive effort required to curb what seem to be our most primal instincts. “Humans are not a good caretaker of the environment, we are built to just go for the next animal and eat it.”
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-our-oldest-secret-we-have-been-super-predators-for-2-million-years-1.9680599
also available at https://archive.is/8DgNV
see also https://phys.org/news/2021-04-humans-apex-predators-million-years.html
reporting on a study at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.24247Record Heat in Europe, Asia Closes Another Extremely Warm Month For Planet
Heat was most widespread in Europe, where many countries set national high temperature records for March. But it was also unusually warm in Asia, parts of Central America and West Africa. Human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas is fueling this warmth ... Eight countries set national records for March warmth. Scores of high temperature records also were set in Greece, Turkey, Ukraine and Russia ... Japan bathed in midsummer temperatures to end March. Record heat also closed the month in parts of West Africa, Central America and several tropical locations around the world. A study published Friday in Science Advances found that heat waves are lasting longer and covering greater distances. NOAA says there is a 45.1 percent chance that 2024 will be the warmest year on record, surpassing 2023, and a 99.9 percent chance that it will rank among the top five warmest years.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/04/01/record-heat-europe-asia-climate/Potential for historically unprecedented Australian droughts from natural variability and climate change
Using simulations of Australian precipitation over the full past millennium (850–2000), we characterise the nature of multi-year meteorological droughts across Australia and include a particular focus on the Murray–Darling Basin (MDB), the largest agricultural region in Australia ... droughts to last longer in southwestern and eastern Australia (including the MDB) in the 20th century, compared with the pre-industrial period, suggests an emerging anthropogenic influence, consistent with projected rainfall changes in these regions ... simulations of droughts over the last millennium suggest that future droughts across Australia could be much longer than what was experienced in the 20th century, even without any human influence. With the addition of anthropogenic climate change, which favours drought conditions across much of southern Australia due to reduced cool-season rainfall, it is likely that future droughts in Australia will exceed recent historical experience.
https://hess.copernicus.org/articles/28/1383/2024/Zimbabwean president declares state of disaster due to drought
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has said the country needs $2bn in aid to help millions of people who are going hungry. The severe dry spell is wreaking havoc across southern Africa. Due to poor rains, more than 2.7 million [Zimbabweans] will not have enough food to put on the table this year, he warned. This season’s grain harvest was expected to bring in just over half of the cereals needed to feed the nation, he said. In southern Africa, Zimbabwe is the third country to declare drought a national disaster after Malawi and Zambia ... Rainfall in January and February was the lowest in 40 years, according to the UN.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/zimbabwean-president-declares-state-of-disaster-due-to-droughtCopernicus online portal offers terrifying view of climate emergency
Looking at the mass of information, there is only one conclusion: we are running out of time
As well as all the past data, it predicts where the climate is going [and] can call up the region where you live, so it is specific to what is happening to you and your family – and all the more disturbing for that. A separate part called Climate Pulse intended particularly for journalists is easier to operate. The refreshing bit is that the maps, charts and timelines from 1850 to the present day on the main atlas are entirely factual measurements, so there can be no argument on the trends. It then follows those trends into the likely scenarios for the next few years. Examining current temperature increases, it seemed to this observer that scientists have been underestimating for some time how quickly the situation is deteriorating.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/mar/29/copernicus-online-portal-offers-terrifying-view-climate-emergency
Full Atlas https://atlas.climate.copernicus.eu/atlas
Climate Pulse https://pulse.climate.copernicus.eu/NOAA gets dire warning about solar geoengineering
A U.S. company or citizen with plans to inject aerosols into the atmosphere is [only] required to fill out a one-page form with the Commerce Department 10 days before they do so, thanks to a law from the 1970s that requires reporting of efforts to modify the weather. That’s not enough, say academics and researchers ... “There’s no governance on the international level, national governance, there’s no state governance, there’s nothing” ... Scientists know that aerosol particles can cool the Earth’s surface because they temporarily reflect sunlight. But widespread questions remain about the scientific and geopolitical implications of injecting aerosols into the upper atmosphere to modify the climate. Geoengineering also doesn’t address other harms associated with producing and burning fossil fuels, such as local pollution and ocean acidification. And if a country or company were to implement a major geoengineering scheme, it would have to continue until carbon concentrations in the atmosphere fell to a safe level or risk triggering a catastrophic spike in global warming — a risk known as termination shock ... Harvard University announced last week that it ended a solar radiation modification research project after years of setbacks and opposition from critics. But the idea still has plenty of interest — and experts say it’s gaining in traction as the world appears on pace to exceed its climate targets.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/29/noaa-warning-solar-geoengineering-climate-00148573/California dominates U.S. emissions of the pesticide and potent greenhouse gas sulfuryl fluoride
Sulfuryl fluoride (SO2F2) is a synthetic pesticide [whose] rising emissions are a concern since SO2F2 has a relatively long atmospheric lifetime and a high global warming potential ... we provide an atmospheric measurement-based estimate of U.S. SO2F2 emissions [and] find that California has the largest SO2F2 emissions among all U.S. states, with the highest emissions from southern coastal California (Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties) ... emissions of SO2F2 from California are equal to 5.5–12% of global SO2F2 emissions.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01294-xIndia hydropower output records steepest fall in nearly four decades
Erratic rainfall forced further dependence on coal-fired power amid higher demand
The 16.3% drop in generation from the country's biggest clean energy source coincided with the share of renewables in power generation sliding for the first time since Prime Minister Narendra Modi made commitments to boost solar and wind capacity at the United Nations climate talks at Paris in 2015 ... India is the world's third-largest greenhouse gas emitter, and the government often points to lower per-capita emissions compared to developed nations to defend rising coal use. A five-year low in reservoir levels means hydro output will likely remain low during the hottest months of April-June.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/energy/power/india-hydropower-output-records-steepest-fall-in-nearly-four-decades/articleshow/108936440.cmsInsurance price hikes alone aren’t enough to offset rising natural catastrophe losses, global reinsurer says
Finance professionals lamenting the ever-increasing costs of insuring their commercial property portfolios likely won’t be surprised by the latest research from global reinsurer Swiss Re, which reported global insured losses from last year’s natural catastrophes (Nat Cat) totaled $108 billion, exceeding the $100 billion mark for the fourth year in a row. Combating these rising losses will require premium increases, risk management, and broader societal efforts, according to Swiss Re experts. “As weather hazards intensify due to climate change, risk assessment and insurance premiums need to keep up with the fast-evolving risk landscape,” Moses Ojeisekhoba, Swiss Re’s CEO of global clients and solutions, said in a statement. “Looking ahead, we must focus on reducing the loss potential ... not just to mitigate climate risks, but to adapt to a world of more intense weather.”
https://www.cfobrew.com/stories/2024/03/27/insurance-price-hikes-alone-aren-t-enough-to-offset-rising-natural-catastrophe-losses-global-reinsurer-says/
reporting on a study at https://www.swissre.com/institute/research/sigma-research/sigma-2024-01.htmlThe home insurance market is crumbling
As climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather, insurers are raising their premiums, or pulling out altogether
There were a record 28 weather and climate disasters with losses totaling over $1 billion last year in America, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. By comparison, between 1980 and 2023, the typical annual average for these events was 8.5 ... The main drivers are the higher costs insurers face, including from more severe storms; higher replacement costs; and re-insurance, the type of insurance used by insurers to limit their risks. These are passed on to consumers. So even if a homeowner doesn’t live in a high-risk area, that owner is likely paying a higher premium to cover people in the riskiest places [and] in some places most exposed to climate change, insurers have stopped issuing policies ... Homeowners who have a mortgage are not able to go without homeowners insurance as their mortgage servicer will require an escrow account for insurance. [But] 6 million homeowners chose to forgo homeowners insurance, according to a report from the Consumer Federation of America. That’s about 7.4% of all homeowners in the country, and amounts to about $1.6 trillion of unprotected value. CFA warned that the problem of uninsured homes is likely to get worse in coming years.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/29/economy/home-insurance-prices-climate-change/index.htmlNew satellite images show Northern California’s kelp forest almost gone
The kelp forest on the Sonoma and Mendocino coast has declined by an average of 95% since 2013. The research shows the unprecedented destruction was related to unusual ocean warming and that the kelp forest likely won’t recover any time soon ... The two warm water events that helped cause the kelp forest’s decline include an El Niño and what was known as warm water “blob” that together lasted from 2014 to 2016. Around the same time, a wasting disease struck the sunflower sea star population, leaving the purple urchin without a predator. Those urchins quickly took over, eating the remaining kelp ... water temperatures in the North Coast have returned to normal, McPherson said, and yet the bull kelp hasn’t recovered. It normally returns each spring. Bull kelp growth depends on cold upwellings in spring that bring nutrients to the surface, and those are reduced when water temperatures rise.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/environment/article/New-satellite-images-show-Northern-California-s-16001922.php
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-021-01827-6Antarctic Sea Ice Near Historic Lows; Arctic Ice Continues Decline; Antarctic Sea Ice Near Historic Lows; Arctic Ice Continues Decline
Sea ice at both the top and bottom of the planet continued its decline in 2024. In the waters around Antarctica, ice coverage shrank to near-historic lows for the third year in a row. The recurring loss hints at a long-term shift in conditions in the Southern Ocean, likely resulting from global climate change, according to scientists at NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Meanwhile, the 46-year trend of shrinking and thinning ice in the Arctic Ocean shows no sign of reversing. “In 2016, we saw what some people are calling a regime shift,” said sea ice scientist Walt Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “The Antarctic sea ice coverage dropped and has largely remained lower than normal. Over the past seven years, we’ve had three record lows.” Meanwhile, at the other end of the planet, the maximum winter ice coverage in the Arctic Ocean is consistent with an ongoing 46-year decline. “It’s only a matter of time. After six, seven, eight years, it’s starting to look like maybe it’s happening.”
https://www.nasa.gov/earth/antarctic-sea-ice-near-historic-lows-arctic-ice-continues-decline/Europe’s Warmer Weather to Continue in April After Winter Highs
The concluding winter has been exceptionally mild across Europe, reducing demand for heating and pushing power and natural gas prices down. Global temperatures continue setting new highs, with February being the ninth straight month to register as the warmest on record, according to Europe’s Earth observation agency Copernicus ... water content of mountain snowpack was down 40% as of March 5 from a year earlier in southern Alberta's St. Mary River basin. The nearby Waterton basin was down 27%, according to provincial and federal government data. Some 70% of Canada is abnormally dry or in drought, according to the government
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-28/europe-s-warmer-weather-to-continue-in-april-after-winter-highsHeat Waves Are Moving Slower and Staying Longer, Study Finds
As climate change warms the planet, heat waves are increasingly moving sluggishly and lasting longer, according to a study published on Friday. Each decade between 1979 and 2020, the rate at which heat waves travel, pushed along by air circulation, slowed by about 5 miles per day, the study found. Heat waves also now last about four days longer on average ... The longer heat waves stick around in one place, the longer people are exposed to life-threatening temperatures. As workers slow down during extreme heat, so does economic productivity. Heat waves also dry out soil and vegetation, harming crops and raising the risk of wildfires. These changes to heat wave behavior have been more noticeable since the late 1990s, Dr. Zhang said. The researchers also found that heat waves are becoming more frequent, to an average of 98 per year between 2016 and 2020, from 75 per year between 1979 and 1983.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/29/climate/heat-waves-longer-slower.html
reporting on a study at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adl1598The world is warming faster than scientists expected
Jim Skea, the chair of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said last year’s spike in temperatures was “quicker than we all anticipated” ... Writing in the journal Nature, [Gavin Schmidt, director of Nasa’s Goddard Institute] warned that the data could imply that a warming planet was already “fundamentally altering how the climate system operates” ... But a full explanation remains elusive, which underlines a compelling echo of history. Schmidt’s position at Nasa was once held by another scientist, James Hansen, whose 1988 testimony to the US Congress alerted the world that global warming had begun. The world did not entirely ignore Hansen’s warnings in the 36 years that followed, but nor did it take them anywhere near seriously enough. Oil company bosses may prefer to preach a message of business as usual. But neither they nor anyone else can afford once again to downplay what science is showing us about a climate threat that is now moving into uncharted territory.
https://www.ft.com/content/6f858196-0a9c-4f0f-9720-a0a81849a998One Of The World’s Most Important Ocean Currents Really Is Slowing Down
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) has slowed substantially since the mid-90s, a new study reveals ... AMOC is primarily the result of salty water left behind when sea ice forms sinking to the depths, leaving space for tropical waters to flow in. Many climate models suggest that as melting ice from Greenland floods the North Atlantic with cold but very fresh water, it will sit above more salty water instead of sinking. Without an impulse to the depths, water will stop moving south in the deep ocean ... Since [1994] AMOC has slowed. "If AMOC slows down, the heat exchange will be reduced, which in turn will affect the climate, causing hot areas to get hotter and cold areas to get colder," said Mishonov in a statement. Most climatic changes have at least some beneficiaries, but this one is likely to be bad for almost everyone affected.
https://www.iflscience.com/one-of-the-worlds-most-important-ocean-currents-really-is-slowing-down-73554
reporting on a study at https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2024.1345426/fullA Harsh Mongolian Winter Leaves Millions of Livestock Dead
An unusually brutal winter in Mongolia has left much of the country’s grazing land frozen and snow-covered, starving or freezing millions of animals and upending thousands of lives in a country where a third of the population depends on herding and agriculture ... about 60 million animals face starvation until new grass sprouts in May, imperiling the future of herding families ... the rising frequency of extreme weather events has made herders’ lives more precarious. Droughts, dust storms, heavy rainfall and flooding have all tripled in the past decade, as temperatures in Mongolia rise twice as fast as the global average.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/29/world/asia/mongolia-winter-animals-dead.htmlThe world’s broken market for medicines
Ninety-one per cent of drugs prescribed in the US and 70 per cent in Europe are generics [but] manufacturing issues, weak supply chains and low pricing have combined to create a “broken market” for these medicines ... “The whole system has a just-in-time principle and any rupture in that causes a downstream shortage,” says Rob Moss, a hospital pharmacy consultant in Utrecht, the Netherlands ... drugs manufacturing involves making active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) [which are] converted into finished dosages during the second stage of manufacturing ... For both manufacturing stages, the world relies heavily on Indian and Chinese factories [and] Indian and Chinese manufacturers own over half of the quality certificates needed for drug APIs to be used in Europe ... Like globalised supply chains for other goods, this adds an element of uncertainty. “The more you are dependent on a producer far away, the more vulnerable you are to facing medicine shortages" ... policymakers are discussing the geopolitical risks of Chinese and Indian supply. A goal of an upcoming Critical Medicines Act from the European Union is to reshore some supply and encourage drug stockpiling. Currently, there is little incentive for manufacturers not to source from cheap factories in Asia using just-in-time supply mechanisms. “It has surprised me that there is a lot of talk of “strategic autonomy” around chips and all sorts of digital technologies [in Europe] but not so much around drugs,” says Diederik Stadig, a healthcare economist at Dutch bank ING [but it's] doubtful that this will happen any time soon.
https://www.ft.com/content/6143300d-d11a-4b2f-898c-87c5dd0ff6ceClimate Change Ignites Global Infectious Disease Alarm
A team of infectious diseases experts called for more awareness and preparedness in the medical field to deal with the impact of climate change on the spread of diseases. Their article, published on March 20 in JAMA raises the alarm about the emergence and spread of harmful pathogens ... Changing rain patterns are expanding vectors’ range and their active periods. Shorter, warmer winters and longer summers are also linked to more vector-borne diseases. For example, diseases caused by ticks (like babesiosis and Lyme disease) are now occurring in the winter too. They’re also being found in regions farther west and north than in the past ... Another concern is malaria. The mosquitos that transmit the disease are expanding northward, a climate-induced change.
https://scitechdaily.com/climate-change-ignites-global-infectious-disease-alarm
reporting on a study at https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2816446Rampant Wildfires Are Threatening a Collapse of the Amazon Rainforest
Real-time satellite monitoring shows that so far in 2024, more than 10,000 wildfires have ripped across 11,000 square kilometers of the Amazon, across multiple countries. Never have this many fires burned so much of the forest this early in the year. Scientists worry this is pushing the region closer and closer to a tipping point, where widespread degradation and repeated burning of the forest will become unstoppable ... dry season temperatures are, on average, 2 degrees higher than they were 40 years ago ... patterns of rainfall have also changed [and] the Amazon has become “more flammable” as a result. A study found that the drought that has afflicted the Amazon Basin since the middle of last year is primarily being driven by climate change.
https://www.wired.com/story/rampant-wildfires-collapse-amazon-rainforest/The heat index — how hot it feels — is rising faster than temperature
The temperature alone does not accurately reflect the heat stress people feel. Even the heat index itself, which takes into account the relative humidity and thus the capacity to cool off by sweating, gives a conservative estimate of heat stress ... This leads people to underestimate their chances of suffering hyperthermia on the hottest days and of their chances of dying ... global warming is affecting the interplay between humidity and temperature [b ecause] in the past, relative humidity typically dropped when the temperature increased, allowing the body to sweat more and thus feel more comfortable. But with climate change, the relative humidity remains about constant as the temperature increases, which reduces the effectiveness of sweating to cool the body. While the current study didn't try to predict when [the environment] might generate a heat index high enough to make everyone hyperthermic, "we can see that there are times when people are getting pushed in that direction," he said. "It's not terribly far off."
https://news.berkeley.edu/2024/03/19/the-heat-index-how-hot-it-feels-is-rising-faster-than-temperature
reporting on a study at https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ad3144Climate Change Is Causing Trees To Struggle To “Breathe”
Trees are struggling to sequester heat-trapping carbon dioxide (CO2) in warmer, drier climates, meaning that they may no longer serve as a solution for offsetting humanity’s carbon footprint as the planet continues to warm, according to a new study ... under stressful conditions, trees release CO2 back to the atmosphere, a process called photorespiration. [This study] demonstrated that the rate of photorespiration is up to two times higher in warmer climates, especially when water is limited. They found the threshold for this response in subtropical climates begins to be crossed when average daytime temperatures exceed roughly 68 degrees Fahrenheit and worsen as temperatures rise further. The results complicate a widespread belief about the role of plants in helping to draw down, or use, carbon from the atmosphere.
https://scitechdaily.com/climate-change-is-causing-trees-to-struggle-to-breathe/
reporting on a study at https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2306736120Scotland’s 2030 climate goals are no longer credible
The Climate Change Committee [a UK government body] no longer believes that the Scottish Government will meet its statutory 2030 goal to reduce emissions by 75%. There is no comprehensive strategy for Scotland to decarbonise ... eighth time in the past 12 years that they have missed a target. “Scotland has laudable ambitions to decarbonise, but it isn’t enough to set a target; the Government must act. There are risks in all reviewed areas.” [said] Professor Piers Forster, interim Chair of the Climate Change Committee.
https://www.theccc.org.uk/2024/03/20/scotlands-2030-climate-goals-are-no-longer-credible/
reporting on a study at https://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Progress-in-reducing-emissions-in-Scotland-2023-Report-to-Parliament.pdfUN weather agency issues ‘red alert’ on climate change after record heat, ice-melt increases in 2023
The World Meteorological Organization said there is a “high probability” that 2024 will be another record-hot year ... “What worries me the most is that the planet is now in a meltdown phase — literally and figuratively given the warming and mass loss from our polar ice sheets,” said Jonathan Overpeck, dean of the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability, who wasn’t involved in the report. [Yet] “each year the climate story gets worse; each year WMO officials and others proclaim that the latest report is a wake-up call to decision makers,” said University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver, a former British Columbia lawmaker. “Yet each year, once the 24-hour news cycle is over, far too many of our elected ‘leaders’ return to political grandstanding, partisan bickering and advancing policies with demonstrable short-term outcomes,” he said. “More often than not everything else ends up taking precedence over the advancement of climate policy. And so, nothing gets done.”
https://apnews.com/article/wmo-un-climate-global-change-report-warming-2154285aabb0cf83dc9ca4015ea0016d
see also https://wmo.int/media/news/climate-change-indicators-reached-record-levels-2023-wmo
reporting on a study at https://wmo.int/publication-series/state-of-global-climate-2023Hypoxia is widespread and increasing in the ocean off the Pacific Northwest coast, study shows
Low oxygen conditions that pose a significant threat to marine life are widespread and increasing in coastal Pacific Northwest ocean waters as the climate warms ... "This confirms that these conditions are occurring across Pacific Northwest coastal waters ... with climate change, we are headed in a direction where this may be the norm" ... The new study, published recently in Scientific Reports, is based on data collected by an unprecedented number of research vessels and autonomous underwater gliders.
https://phys.org/news/2024-03-hypoxia-widespread-ocean-pacific-northwest.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-54476-0State Farm won’t renew 72,000 insurance policies in California, worsening the state’s insurance crisis
State Farm’s decision not to renew policies comes as thousands of Californians are finding it extremely difficult to insure their homes and commercial properties as companies increase rates, limit coverage or stop offering policies in areas increasingly susceptible to natural disasters ... State Farm reported a net loss of $6.3 billion in 2023 compared to a net loss of $6.7 billion in 2022. The lack of options has prompted thousands of Californians to purchase insurance from the [state sponsored] FAIR Plan as a last resort [but] the enrollment surge is putting a financial strain on the state insurer as it faces a potential loss of $311 billion, up from $50 billion in 2018 ... “We’re one bad fire season away from complete insolvency” said Assemblymember Jim Wood.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-23/state-farm-wont-renew-72-000-insurance-policies-in-california-worsening-the-states-insurance-crisisNations Are Undercounting Emissions, Putting UN Goals at Risk
The national inventories of emissions supplied to the United Nations climate convention (UNFCCC) by most countries are anything but reliable, according to a growing body of research. The data supplied to the UNFCCC, and published on its website, are typically out of date, inconsistent, and incomplete ... The data from large emitters is as much open to questions as that from smaller and less industrialised nations. In China, the uncertainties around its carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal are larger than the total emissions of many major industrial countries. And companies preparing data for its carbon-trading system have been accused of widespread data fraud ... As a result, say analysts, the world is flying blind, unable either to verify national compliance with emissions targets or figure out how much atmospheric “room” countries have left for emissions before exceeding agreed warming thresholds ... “The existing patchwork of greenhouse-gas inventories is ... rife with measurement errors, inconsistent classification and gaps in accountability.”
https://e360.yale.edu/features/undercounted-emissions-un-climate-change
reporting on a study at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4436504How plastic makers used recycling as a fig leaf
The plastics industry has worked for decades to convince people and policymakers that recycling would keep waste out of landfills and the environment. Yet from the early days of recycling, plastic makers, including oil and gas companies, knew that it wasn't a viable solution to deal with increasing amounts of waste ... making new plastic is relatively cheap. But recycling generally costs as much as or more than the material is worth, a director of environmental solutions at B.F. Goodrich explained at [an] industry meeting in 1992. The "basic issue," he said, "is economics." But the industry appears to have championed recycling mainly for its public relations value, rather than as a tool for avoiding environmental damage, the documents suggest. "We are committed to the activities, but not committed to the results," a vice president at Exxon Chemical said during a meeting in 1994 with staff for the American Plastics Council, a trade group ... Former industry officials have said the goal was to avoid regulations and ensure that demand for plastics, which are made from fossil fuels, kept growing. Despite years of recycling campaigns, less than 10% of plastic waste gets recycled globally, and the amount of plastic waste that's dumped in the environment continues to soar.
https://www.npr.org/2024/02/15/1231690415/plastic-recycling-waste-oil-fossil-fuels-climate-change
reporting on a study at https://climateintegrity.org/plastics-fraudAre we stressing the wrong metrics for climate change?
Experts say rising temperatures due to burning fossil fuels only explains part of the ways we're cooking our planet"Climate change is clearly well underway and represents a major, even existential threat that is not being adequately addressed" [but] when it comes to fixing climate change, humanity is missing a key point, one that [Dr. Kevin Trenberth, one of the world's foremost authorities on climate change] has repeatedly emphasized throughout his career: Warming and heating are not the same thing [and] if our species does not soon fully grasp both this fact and its implications, the consequences will be disastrous. It all comes down to a statistic known as EEI, or Earth Energy Imbalance, that measures the difference between the solar energy that reaches Earth and the amount which returns to space. [Even] if humanity reaches net zero in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, Trenberth pointed out, the planet will still be be much hotter than our recent past and present ... "At that point, there is no longer this close relationship between heating and temperature," Trenberth observed. "The temperature maybe stalls, doesn't go up anymore or not quite so much," but other issues caused by overheating such as problems with the water cycle will persist. Those problems will [still] lead to extreme weather events impacting millions of people.
https://www.salon.com/2024/03/08/are-we-stressing-the-metrics-for-climate-change/
reporting on a study at https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/10.1142/S2972312424750018The Oceans We Knew Are Already Gone
The alarming trend stretches around the world: 41 percent of the global ocean experienced heat waves in January. The temperatures are also part of a decades-long hot streak in the oceans. “What we used to consider extreme is no longer an extreme today,” [said] Dillon Amaya, a research scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ... many other changes will unfold alongside those hot ocean temperatures: stronger hurricanes, rising sea levels, unmanageable conditions for marine life. Our seas, in other words, will be altered within decades ... “the changes we’ve seen are more pronounced than any we had projected,” Fiamma Straneo, a climate professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, told me. If global warming reaches and stays in the range of 2 to 3 degrees Celsius above preindustrial norms, the West Antarctic ice sheet could “be lost almost completely and irreversibly” ... we can be confident that “we’ll be stuck with changed oceans for thousands of years,” Turner said ... if emissions decrease in the future, the oceans might return to their preindustrial state after that great burial. But that’s so far away, Turner said, that for us, the effects of climate change will be “effectively permanent.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/03/ocean-heat-wave-cosmic-choice/677672/Why Is the Sea So Hot?
A startling rise in sea-surface temperatures suggests that we may not understand how fast the climate is changing.
At the beginning of March [2023], sea-surface temperatures began to rise. By April, they’d set a new record: the average temperature at the surface of the world’s oceans, excluding those at the poles, was just a shade under seventy degrees ... temperatures remained abnormally high through the Southern Hemisphere’s autumn and beyond, breaking the monthly records ... Since the start of 2024, sea-surface temperatures have continued to climb; in February, they set yet another record ... does this mean that projections of warming, already decidedly grim, are underestimating the dangers? “It’s not like we’re breaking records by a little bit now and then,” Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami, said. “It’s like the whole climate just fast-forwarded by fifty or a hundred years. That’s how strange this looks.” It’s estimated that in 2023 the heat content in the upper two thousand metres of the oceans increased by at least nine zettajoules. For comparison, the world’s annual energy consumption amounts to about 0.6 zettajoules ... “I think the real test will be what happens in the next twelve months,” Wijffels said. “If temperatures remain very high, then I would say more people in the community will be really alarmed and say ‘O.K., this is outside of what we can explain.’” In 2023, which was by far the warmest year on record on land, as well as in the oceans, many countries experienced record-breaking heat waves or record-breaking wildfires or record-breaking rainstorms or some combination of these. If the climate projections are accurate, then the year was a preview of things to come, which is scary enough. But, if the projections are missing something, that’s potentially even more terrifying.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-is-the-sea-so-hotFatal heat wave strikes unspoiled swath of Great Barrier Reef
Seven months after Florida corals faced what scientists called their worst bleaching event ever, a similar emergency grips the Great Barrier Reef [which] appears likely to be the worst on record in southern sections of the 1,400-mile-long reef, and could bring the first significant coral fatalities observed there. In other sections, what is the fifth major bleaching event in nine years could serve as a test of how resilient the world wonder will be going forward ... How those events compare with this latest one will become clear in coming months as scientists survey the famous formation of some 2,900 coral reefs spread across an area the size of Italy. “This is an anxious time as we continue to collect information,” Wachenfeld said [and] there is the likelihood that severe bleaching events will become more common as the planet warms.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/03/13/great-barrier-reef-coral-bleaching/Methane emissions from energy sector rose in 2023 despite climate pledges
Methane emissions from the energy sector remained near a record high in 2023 despite commitments from the sector to plug leaking infrastructure in a bid to combat climate change, a report by the International Energy Agency said on Wednesday ... Large methane plumes from leaky fossil fuel infrastructure also jumped by 50% in 2023 compared with 2022, the IEA report said. One super-emitting event, detected by satellites, was a well blowout in Kazakhstan that lasted more than 200 days ... Methane emissions have held around 130 million metric tons level since 2019, the record high year, despite a commitment made by more than 150 countries since 2021 to reduce global methane emissions by at least 30% from 2020 levels by the end of this decade.
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/methane-emissions-energy-sector-near-record-high-2023-iea-says-2024-03-13
reporting on a study at https://www.iea.org/reports/global-methane-tracker-2024Rains Are Scarce in the Amazon. Instead, Megafires Are Raging.
By this time of the year, rain should be drenching large swaths of the Amazon rainforest. Instead, a punishing drought has kept the rains at bay, creating dry conditions for fires that have engulfed hundreds of square miles of the rainforest that do not usually burn ... A record number of fires so far this year in the Amazon has also raised questions about what may be in store for the world’s biggest tropical rainforest when the dry season starts in June in the far larger southern part of the jungle. The fires in the Amazon, which reaches across nine South American nations, are the result of an extreme drought fueled by climate change, experts said ... If deforestation, fires and climate change continue to worsen, large stretches of the forest could transform into grasslands or weakened ecosystems [which] would trigger a collapse that could send up to 20 years’ worth of global carbon emissions into the atmosphere, an enormous blow to the struggle to contain climate change. Once this tipping point is crossed, “it may be useless to try to do something,” said Bernardo Flores, who studies the resilience of ecosystems at the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil ... more devastating fires could erupt if the parched soil does not receive enough rainfall in the crucial wetter months ahead, Dr. Alencar said. “The question is whether the forest can recover before the dry season, whether the Amazon can recharge its batteries,” she said. “Now, it all depends on the rains.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/09/climate/amazon-rainforest-fires.htmlIndia's water problems set to get worse as the world warms
Winter storms that provide crucial snow and rainfall to northern India are arriving significantly later in the year ... "Some areas of Kashmir saw no snow at all in December or January. This is a serious concern for the 750 million people in the Indus and upper Ganges basins who rely on these winter snows for water supplies" ... The research team attributes this seasonal shift to changes in the subtropical jet stream, a high-altitude air current that steers western disturbances. The rapid warming of the Tibetan Plateau - which is a long stretch of level high ground at the intersection of Central, South, and East Asia - is creating a larger temperature contrast with surrounding areas, fueling a stronger jet stream that powers more frequent and intense storms. At the same time, global warming is weakening the temperature difference between the equator and poles that normally draws the jet stream northward in summer. As a result, the jet stream is increasingly lingering at southerly latitudes later into spring and summer, allowing more storms to strike North India after the winter snow season. Arriving in the pre-monsoon heat, these increasingly frequent late-season storms unleash heavy rainfall instead of snow, raising risks of devastating flooding. Meanwhile, winter snowfall is declining as the region warms, threatening spring water supplies.
https://www.reading.ac.uk/news/2024/Research-News/Indias-water-problems-set-to-get-worse-as-the-world-warms
reporting on a study at https://wcd.copernicus.org/articles/5/345/2024/Water crisis shakes India’s Silicon Valley
With long queues at public taps and fewer showers, Bengaluru's residents reel under a water shortage
In India's Bengaluru city (formerly Bangalore), thousands of people have been chasing tankers, taking fewer showers and sometimes missing work to store enough water to get through the day. The southern metropolis - once called a pensioners' paradise because of its cool weather and lush gardens - is now more famous as India's info-tech hub where companies like Infosys, Wipro and hundreds of start-ups have plush offices. But years of rapid, often unplanned, expansion have taken a toll, and the city now appears bursting at its seams. "It is often said that traffic is the biggest problem in Bengaluru but actually water is the larger issue," says civic activist Srinivas Alavilli. Bengaluru's 15 million people need at least two billion litres of water every day [but] a weak monsoon last year depleted groundwater levels, which means new borewells have to be dug deeper to find water. This has led to a daily shortfall of 200 million litres in water supply.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-68509409NOAA: Annual 2023 Global Climate Report
2023 was the warmest year since global records began in 1850 ... The 10 warmest years in the 174-year record have all occurred during the last decade (2014–2023) ... 2005, which was the first year to set a new global temperature record in the 21st century, is now the 12th-warmest year on record [and] 2010, which had surpassed 2005 at the time, now ranks as the 11th-warmest year on record ... [More than] 90% of excess heat in the Earth's system is absorbed by the ocean [and] annual global ocean heat content (OHC) for 2023 for the upper 2000 meters was record high, surpassing the previous record set in 2021. The five highest OHC have all occurred in the last five years (2019–2023).
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/monthly-report/global/202313Europe is not prepared for rapidly growing climate risks
Europe is the fastest warming continent in the world, and climate risks are threatening its energy and food security, ecosystems, infrastructure, water resources, financial stability, and people’s health .... Extreme heat, drought, wildfires, and flooding, as experienced in recent years, will worsen in Europe even under optimistic global warming scenarios ... Europe’s policies and adaptation actions are not keeping pace with the rapidly growing risks ... Southern Europe is particularly at risk from wildfires and impacts of heat and water scarcity on agricultural production, outdoor work, and human health. Flooding, erosion and saltwater intrusion threaten Europe’s low-lying coastal regions, including many densely populated cities.
https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/newsroom/news/europe-is-not-prepared-for
see also https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/10/europe-unprepared-for-climate-risks-eea-report
reporting on a study at https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/european-climate-risk-assessmentHeat record broken for ninth consecutive month
Last month was the planet’s warmest February on record and the ninth consecutive month of record-breaking temperatures, according to data released Thursday. February was more than 1.7 degrees Celsius warmer than an average February in preindustrial times, reported Copernicus, the European Union’s climate monitoring service.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4516011-heat-record-broken-ninth-straight-month-februaryThis winter was warmest in Canadian records by a huge margin
This past winter was the warmest in the country's records, and by a stunning margin, according to Environment Canada data shared by a senior climatologist. The average temperature for December, January and February was more than five degrees warmer than historic norms, preliminary figures show, an average all the more remarkable because it combines weather station data from places as distant as Nunavut, Ontario and P.E.I. That anomaly is so extreme, and so far above the previous record, that seeing it was a "shock" to David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, he said ... The previous warmest winter in that more than three quarters of a century was in 2009-2010, a season 4.1 degrees above the historic norm. This past winter, however, was 5.2 degrees above the norm, breaking the old record by more than a full degree -- "as much of a difference as you'd ever find in climate," Phillips said, adding that a tenth of a degree is usually considered significant.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/these-are-numbers-are-just-wow-this-winter-was-warmest-in-canadian-records-by-a/article_12cbce98-dd7e-11ee-a1da-7b7004389e4f.htmlThe US had its warmest winter on record
Season capped off by the third-warmest February recorded The average temperature across the contiguous U.S. last month was 41.1 degrees F, 7.2 degrees F above the 20th-century average ... Persistent winter warmth resulted in a steady decrease in ice coverage across the Great Lakes, which reached a historic low of 2.7% on February 11 — the lowest amount of ice coverage on record during mid-February.
https://www.noaa.gov/news/us-had-its-warmest-winter-on-recordThe Arctic Ocean could be ‘ice-free’ within the decade, researchers warn
New research has found that Arctic Ocean sea ice is shrinking even faster than previously thought [and ice-free summer conditions] could occur before the end of the decade or sometime in the 2030s — as many as 10 years earlier than previous projections, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Reviews Earth and Environment ... “It’s no longer a remote possibility that might happen at some point,” said Alexandra Jahn, the study’s lead author and an associate professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. “It occurs under all the emission scenarios” ... the decline of Arctic sea ice has been well documented since at least 1979 [said] Walter Meier, a senior researcher with the National Snow and Ice Data Center, who was not involved with the study. Meier said the study’s assessments are plausible [and] “given the emission scenarios that we’re following, it’s really a matter of when, not if” ... Jahn said some research has found there is still a 10% to 20% possibility of avoiding an ice-free Arctic altogether if the global temperature stays below 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming. “If we were to stop all emissions tomorrow — which physically isn’t possible, but if we could — then we could still avoid it,” Jahn said. “It’s not a guarantee, but there’s a possibility.” But even that possibility appears to be slipping away. In January, the global average temperature measured 1.66 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial reference period.
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-03-05/the-arctic-ocean-could-be-ice-free-within-a-decade
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-023-00515-9New analysis shows that the global freshwater cycle has shifted far beyond pre-industrial conditions
For the past century, humans have been pushing the Earth's freshwater system far beyond the stable conditions that prevailed before industrialization. This is the first time that global water cycle change has been assessed over such a long timescale with an appropriate reference baseline. The findings, published in Nature Water, show that human pressures, such as dam construction, large-scale irrigation and global warming, have altered freshwater resources to such an extent that their capacity to regulate vital ecological and climatic processes is at risk ... "our immediate priority should be to decrease human-driven pressures on freshwater systems, which are vital to life on Earth," says Aalto's Associate Professor Matti Kummu, senior author of the study.
https://phys.org/news/2024-03-analysis-global-freshwater-shifted-pre.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s44221-024-00208-7Meltwater in the north Atlantic can lead to European summer heat waves, study finds
Scientists from the [UK] National Oceanography Centre (NOC) have discovered that increased meltwater in the North Atlantic can trigger a chain of events leading to hotter and drier European summers. The paper [proposes] that European summer weather is predictable months to years in advance, due to higher levels of freshwater in the North Atlantic ... "Greenland experienced an unusually warm summer, leading to increased freshwater input into the North Atlantic. Based on the identified chain of events, we expect that the ocean-atmosphere conditions will be favorable for an unusually warm and dry summer over southern Europe this year" ... the study suggests that European heat waves and droughts will become more intense in the future. The warming over Europe after strong freshwater releases in the North Atlantic will add to the warming already happening because of climate change, causing weather patterns to shift.
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-meltwater-north-atlantic-european-summer.html
reporting on a study at https://wcd.copernicus.org/articles/5/109/2024/Amazon savannization and climate change are projected to increase dry season length and temperature extremes over Brazil
The combined effects of land use change and global warming resulted in a mean annual rainfall reduction of 44% and a dry season length increase of 69%, when averaged over the Amazon basin [and] resulted in maximum daily temperature anomalies, reaching values of up to 14 °C above the current climatic conditions over the Amazon. Also, as a consequence of both climate drivers, both soil moisture and surface runoff decrease over most of the country ... the fight to keep taps running is one that will sweep southern Europe as fossil fuel pollution heats it up and dries parts of it out. The western coasts of the Mediterranean, in particular, will be hit by increased evaporation, shorter rainy seasons and less mountain snow cover ... Catalonia offers a glimpse of that future.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-55176-5Church reemerges from reservoir as Spain faces droughts
Struck by a drought that has dried the reservoir to 1% of its capacity, the remains of the village have come back into view. Crumbling stone structures now sit on cracked soil among ashen plants. Catalonia, a rich region in the north-east of Spain, is in the grip of a drought that is killing its crops, choking its economy and restricting the lives of 6 million people who live under emergency measures.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/02/it-makes-me-so-sad-church-reemerges-from-reservoir-as-spain-faces-droughtsClimate change is throwing the water cycle into chaos
In some places, the availability of water is becoming increasingly scarce, while in others, climate change is intensifying rainfall, floods and other extreme weather events. As the planet continues to warm, this cycle is expected to be increasingly stretched, warped and broken ... Years of overuse — in part because of rising temperatures and drought — are leading farmers to consume unsustainable amounts of stored groundwater and pushing some aquifers to the brink ... storms, likely intensified by climate change, relieved a drought and blanketed [California] in 2 to 3 times as much snow as usual. But all that precipitation made only a dent in the state’s overall groundwater deficit after seasons of drought, and groundwater levels remained lower than they were after a previous, four-year drought ended in 2016.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/climate-change-throwing-water-cycle-chaos-us-rcna137892Surprising methane discovery in Yukon glaciers: 'Much more widespread than we thought'
Researcher from the University of Copenhagen has discovered high concentrations of [methane] in meltwater from three Canadian mountain glaciers, where it was not thought to exist ... "We expected to find low values in the meltwater ... but the result was quite the opposite. We measured concentrations up to 250 times higher than those in our atmosphere," explains Sarah Elise Sapper of the University of Copenhagen's Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management ... Christiansen, the research article's co-author, believes that the finding demonstrates the possibility of methane being present beneath many of the world's glaciers, ones that have thus far been written off. "Sarah's findings change our basic understanding and send us back to the drawing board [because] the three sites Sarah measured were randomly selected due to the availability of a research station and helicopter, yet methane was found in all three."
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-methane-discovery-yukon-glaciers-widespread.htmlHistoric winter heat wave smashes records in central U.S., fuels tornadoes
The central United States has just witnessed what was probably its most significant February heat wave on record, after scores of records were not just broken, but demolished. Half a dozen states registered their highest February temperature on record, as did more than 130 cities and towns, including Minneapolis, Milwaukee, St. Louis and Detroit. Multiple locations also posted their highest temperatures ever observed during any of the winter months. The Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore described the spree of records as “just insane” ... The heat also fueled an outbreak of damaging tornadoes in the Midwest, including what was Michigan’s farthest-north tornado observed in February. At the same time, it contributed to massive wildfires that erupted in Texas and other parts of the Plains.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/02/28/record-heat-midwest-tornadoes-climate/Emergency atmospheric geoengineering wouldn’t save the oceans
Stratospheric aerosol injection is a commonly discussed geoengineering concept based on the idea that adding particles to the stratosphere could help cool the surface of the planet [but] it wouldn’t be enough to nudge “stubborn” ocean patterns such as Atlantic meridional overturning circulation [AMOC], which some research finds is already weakening. In that case, preexisting problems resulting from a warmed deep ocean, such as altered weather patterns, regional sea level rise and weakened currents, would remain in place ... Relying on geoengineering is “in a way, madness,” Pflüger said. “But the situation is already quite mad.”
https://news.agu.org/press-release/emergency-atmospheric-geoengineering-wouldnt-save-the-oceans/
reporting on a study at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GL106132Enhanced risk of record-breaking regional temperatures during the 2023–24 El Niño
The likelihood of global [temperature] exceeding historical records, calculated from July 2023 to June 2024, is estimated at 90%, contingent upon annual-mean sea surface temperature anomalies in the eastern equatorial Pacific exceeding 0.6 °C. Regions particularly susceptible to recording record-high SAT include coastal and adjacent areas in Asia such as the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea, as well as Alaska, the Caribbean Sea, and the Amazon. This impending warmth heightens the risk of year-round marine heatwaves.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-52846-2Swiss Re: Economic losses set to increase due to climate change, with US and Philippines the hardest hit
Four weather perils – floods, tropical cyclones, winter storms in Europe and severe thunderstorms – today cause global estimated economic losses of USD 200 billion every year [and] climate change will have a larger impact on economic losses in the future ... Swiss Re Institute's new report "Changing climates: the heat is (still) on" analyses where hazards are likely to intensify and overlays it with its own estimates of economic losses resulting from the four major weather perils ... Philippines is most impacted by the four weather perils, while also being exposed to high probability of hazard intensification. The US is second-most exposed. At USD 97 billion (0.38% of GDP) as of today, it experiences the highest economic losses in absolute terms from weather events worldwide ... flood risk is projected to intensify globally.
https://www.swissre.com/press-release/Economic-losses-set-to-increase-due-to-climate-change-with-US-and-Philippines-the-hardest-hit-Swiss-Re-Institute-finds/3051a9b0-e379-4bcb-990f-3cc8236d55a1Map Shows 9 States Where Homeowners Are Losing Their Insurance
American National Group, an insurance company owned by Brookfield Asset Management Reinsurance Partners, plans to cease its homeowners insurance business in nine states ... part of plans to pull back in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Louisiana, Minnesota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Washington, according to a company official. "Several years of increased frequency and severity of weather events have caused an increased lack of profitability in this line of business." Major insurance firms like Allstate, Farmers and State Farm ceased providing homeowners insurance in certain states [such as California, Florida and South Carolina] due to similar reasons. "Climate adaptation ... will become very real, as more insurers scale back activities in even more regions affected by climate change."
https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-9-states-where-homeowners-are-losing-their-insurance-1875252After a weird summer of floods and heatwaves, scientists explain why weather extremes are 'on steroids'
The word "unprecedented" is losing much of its power, as the world lurches from one crazy weather event to the next. In many ways the terms "climate change" and "global warming" don't do enough to describe what is happening to the world, as the burning of fossil fuels causes the earth's temperature to increase ... "The whole climate system is more violent, the pendulum swings wider than it used to. The weather is behaving more erratically" ... with more energy in the atmosphere, storms are becoming more intense. "When you have events like squall lines or cyclones, tornadoes, thunderstorms, they have more energy available to them," director of the Monash Energy Institute Roger Dargaville said. "So, they tend to be more intense and more extreme."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-28/global-warming-effect-on-extreme-weather-events/103471564South Korea’s fertility rate sinks to record low despite $270bn in incentives
South Korea’s demographic crisis has deepened with the release of data showing its birthrate – already the world’s lowest – fell to a new record low in 2023, despite billions of dollars in government schemes designed to persuade families to have more children. The average number of children a South Korean woman has during her lifetime fell to 0.72, from 0.78 in 2022 – a decline of nearly 8% ... Since 2006 the government has invested more than 360tn won ($270bn) in programmes to encourage couples to have more children, including cash subsidies, babysitting services and support for infertility treatment.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/28/south-korea-fertility-rate-2023-fall-record-low-incentivesBirths in Japan hit record low as government warns crisis at ‘critical state’
The number of babies born in Japan last year fell for an eighth straight year to a new low ... 5.1% decline from the previous year [and] the lowest number of births since Japan started compiling the statistics in 1899 ... Chief cabinet secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters Tuesday that the ongoing declining birthrate is at a “critical state ... The period over the next six years or so until 2030s, when the younger population will start declining rapidly, will be the last chance we may be able to reverse the trend” ... The number of births has been falling since 50 years ago, when it peaked at about 2.1 million. The decline to an annual number below 760,000 has happened faster than earlier projections.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/28/birth-rate-japan-record-low-2023-data-detailsLatest science shows endocrine disrupting chemicals in plastics, pesticides, and other sources pose health threats globally
Over the last fifty years such chemicals have cut worldwide fertility in half, among other health effects
The report, "Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals: Threats to Human Health" provides a comprehensive update on the state of the science around EDCs, with increasing evidence that this large group of toxic substances may be implicated in rising global health concerns [and] includes detailed analyses on exposure to EDCs from four sources: plastics, pesticides, consumer products (including children's products), and per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a class of thousands of chemicals known or suspected to be EDCs ... "endocrine-disrupting chemicals that are part of our daily lives are making us more susceptible to reproductive disorders, cancer, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and other serious health conditions," said the report's lead author, Andrea C. Gore, PhD, of the University of Texas at Austin ... Evidence suggests that EDCs in the environment contribute to disorders such as diabetes, neurological disorders, reproductive disorders, inflammation, and compromised immune functioning ... PFAS are used in hundreds of products including clothing and food packaging, but recent studies show that some PFAS can disrupt hormones such as estrogen and testosterone and impair thyroid hormone functions.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/02/240226204702.htmBehavioral Studies of Zebrafish Reveal a New Perspective on the Reproductive Toxicity of Micro- and Nanoplastics
The escalating prevalence of microplastics and nanoplastics [MNP] in aquatic environments is a major challenge affecting the behavior and reproductive health of aquatic organisms while posing potential risks to human health and ecosystems ... zebrafish, as a model organism, provide valuable insights into the subtle but important effects of MNPs on reproductive behavior, which is critical for understanding reproductive success, suggesting that behavioral changes can serve as an early biomarker of reproductive toxicity [and] indicated that the behavioral parameters of zebrafish can be used as an effective and rapid tool to evaluate the reproductive toxicity of MNPs ... Our analysis underscores the significant oxidative stress and hormonal changes caused by MNPs, especially their impact on the HPG axis and overall reproductive health. This work underscores the importance of behavioral analysis in zebrafish as a reliable method for assessing reproductive toxicity, offering a new perspective in understanding the broader implications of MNPs.
https://www.mdpi.com/2305-6304/12/3/178Microplastics Found in Every Human Placenta Tested, Study Finds
Using a new technique, researchers have now identified tiny particles and fibers of plastic less than a micron in size in the largest sample of placentas yet. As environmental plastic pollution continues to worsen, contamination of the placenta is on track to only increase, as humans breathe in and ingest more plastic than ever before. "Dose makes the poison," explains biologist Matthew Campen from the University of New Mexico. "If the dose keeps going up, we start to worry. If we're seeing effects on placentas, then all mammalian life on this plant could be impacted."
https://www.sciencealert.com/microplastics-found-in-every-human-placenta-tested-study-finds
reporting on a study at https://academic.oup.com/toxsci/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/toxsci/kfae021/7609801Antarctica sea ice reaches alarming low for third year in a row
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/24/antarctica-sea-ice-reaches-alarming-low-for-third-year-in-a-rowHuge ice loss risks Antarctica’s ‘destabilisation’
Antarctica is coming under intense pressure from climate change, with sea ice levels nearing a record low at the same time as a rapid melting of swaths of the continent’s ice mass. The latest melting season in Antarctica, which takes place in the southern hemisphere summer during December, January and February, was more than a month longer in some areas of the continent ... Research published last month found that Antarctic sea ice extent fell to unprecedented lows at key periods across 2023. Sea temperatures have been exceptionally high across the world since last March
https://www.ft.com/content/deb66512-d866-43a6-bffa-3a37dbb48a8aRain Comes to the Arctic, With a Cascade of Troubling Changes
Rain used to be rare in the Arctic, but as the region warms, so-called “rain-on-snow events” are becoming more common. The rains accelerate ice loss, trigger flooding, landslides, and avalanches, and create problems for wildlife and the Indigenous people who depend on them ... All that rain is significant because the melting of the Greenland ice sheet — like the melting of other glaciers around the world — is one of the most important drivers of sea level rise. Each time a rain-on-snow event happens, says Harper, the structure of the firn layer is altered, and it becomes a bit more susceptible to impacts from the next melting event. “It suggests that only a minor increase in frequency and intensity of similar rain-on-snow events in the future will have an outsized impact,” he says ... Changes can already be seen. Thunderstorms are now spawning in places where they have historically been rare ... A shift from runoff dominated by snowmelt in spring and summer to runoff from both rain and snowmelt is accelerating permafrost thaw and ground slumping.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/arctic-rainfall-climate-change‘Our yields are going to be appalling’: one of wettest winters in decades hits England’s farms
Few regions have been spared. In the 12 months to January, only four of England’s 139 hydrological areas (regions around rivers, lakes and other water sources) were classed as having normal rainfall levels. Of the remaining areas, 47 were rated as having notably high levels, and 76 – more than half – were deemed exceptionally high. The Kent area, known as “the garden of England” and home to many arable farmers, experienced its wettest 12-month period since records began. Regions near major rivers such as the Wear, Don, Calder, Derwent, Mersey and Irwell reported the wettest six-month period since records began [and] the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH) said the saturation from the previous months of heavy rain meant soil had not had a chance to dry out, and the high February rain meant problems persisted ... The forecasts for this year’s harvest look gloomy.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/23/farms-flooding-rainfall-winter-nfu-conferenceErratic weather fueled by climate change will worsen locust outbreaks, study finds
The desert locust is a migratory insect that travels in swarms of millions over long distances ... A square kilometer swarm comprises 80 million locusts that can in one day consume food crops enough to feed 35,000 people. The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization describes it as "the most destructive migratory pest in the world." The study, published in Science Advances on Wednesday, said these outbreaks will be "increasingly hard to prevent and control" in a warming climate ... Countries affected by desert locust outbreaks are already grappling with climate-driven extremes like droughts, floods and heat waves, and the potential escalation of locust risks in these regions could exacerbate existing challenges.
https://www.africanews.com/2024/02/15/erratic-weather-fueled-by-climate-change-will-worsen-locust-outbreaks-study-finds/
reporting on a study at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adj1164Alberta’s Brutal Water Reckoning
Alberta’s water reckoning has begun in earnest. Snowpack accumulations in the Oldman River basin, the Bow River basin and the North Saskatchewan River basin range from 33 to 62 per cent below normal. Ancient glaciers that feed and top up prairie rivers in the late summer melted at record speeds last year, the hottest on global records. Many indomitable ice packs, such as the well-studied Peyto Glacier, are disappearing altogether. Fifty-one river basins from Milk River to Hay River report critical water shortages due to low rainfall and high temperatures. Groundwater levels in parts of Alberta have reached record lows ... Alberta’s water emergency, which is also a fire emergency, was foretold by scores of water scientists. They predicted that prolonged water scarcity would hit southern Alberta hard for stubborn geographical reasons ... The scientists, in their paper, turned their attention to trends in glacier mass and snowpack depth, which also told a story of persistent decline. These dwindling snowpacks once provided water insurance for rivers in the months of May and June. But no more.
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2024/02/19/Alberta-Brutal-Water-Reckoning/More frequent extreme droughts result in significant crop losses
Climate change has resulted in increasingly extreme weather events worldwide ... “Previously, short-term extreme droughts could occur every 100 years. According to some climate scenarios, we can expect them to happen every five to ten years in the future” ... The scientists investigated 170 sites worldwide. The results revealed a significant reduction in plant production in the studied ecosystems after [just] one year of extreme drought.
https://www.nibio.no/en/news/more-frequent-extreme-droughts-result-in-significant-crop-lossesSkyrocketing ocean temperatures have scientists scratching their heads
For nearly a year now, a bizarre heating event has been unfolding across the world’s oceans. In March 2023, global sea surface temperatures started shattering record daily highs and have stayed that way since ... where we are so far in 2024 [is] way, way above even 2023. While we’re nowhere near the Atlantic hurricane season yet—that runs from June 1 through the autumn—keep in mind that cyclones feed on warm ocean water, which could well stay anomalously hot in the coming months. Regardless, these surface temperature anomalies could be triggering major ecological problems already.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/02/skyrocketing-ocean-temperatures-have-scientists-scratching-their-heads/Greenland's ice sheet is melting -- and being replaced by vegetation
An estimated 11,000 sq miles or 28,707 sq kilometres of Greenland's ice sheet and glaciers have melted over the last three decades, according to a major analysis of historic satellite records. The total area of ice loss is equivalent to the size of Albania, and represents about 1.6 % of Greenland's total ice and glacier cover. Where there was once ice and snow, there is now barren rock, wetlands and areas of shrub ... warmer air temperatures are causing the ice to retreat, which in turn is having an impact on the temperature of the land surface, greenhouse gas emissions and the stability of the landscape ... Since the 1970s, the region has been warming at double the global mean rate.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/02/240213130450.htm
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-52124-1Africa’s ice is disappearing
The few glaciers in Africa have long since become an important indicator of how rapidly and severely climate change is changing our planet. The ice on the high summits of the continent is rapidly disappearing, Africa may lose its white peaks by the middle of our century ... “Since the glaciers were mapped for the first time at the turn of the century between the 19th and the 20th century, more than 90 percent of their area has disappeared,” explains Anne Hinzmann ... The climate indicators of the glaciers in the tropical regions do not only show that climate change has long since started, it also shows that it is progressing at a breakneck speed. “A decrease at this scale is alarming ... The glaciers in Africa are a clear indicator of the impact of climate change.”
https://www.fau.eu/2024/02/21/news/research/africas-ice-is-disappearing/
reporting on a study at https://doi.org/10.1088/2752-5295/ad1fd7‘Like the flip of a switch, it’s gone’: has the ecosystem of the UK’s largest lake collapsed?
The loss of these keystone species, alongside sharp reductions of others, the spread of invasive species like zebra mussels, and a long-term deterioration in water quality, indicates deep trouble across the lough’s entire ecology. It also raises the prospect that this shallow body of water and its surrounding wetlands may have shifted beyond a state of decline into cascading ecosystem collapse ... Lough Neagh – the largest freshwater lake in the UK – supplies more than 40% of Northern Ireland’s drinking water, and hosts the largest wild eel fishery in Europe [but] last summer, a vast “bloom” of blue-green algae – a thick, photosynthesising blanket that deprives the lake of oxygen, choking aquatic life – brought the lough’s accelerating biodiversity crisis into sharp focus. It prompted considerable public outcry and is expected to return in “more severe” form this coming summer.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/19/like-the-flip-of-a-switch-its-gone-has-the-ecosystem-of-the-uk-largest-lake-collapsed-aoe'Zombie Fires' burning at an alarming rate in Canada
Overwintering fires ... burn slowly below the surface, and are kept alive thanks to an organic soil called peat moss common in North America's boreal forest and to thick layers of snow that insulate them ... in January, [BC] saw an unprecedented peak of 106 active zombie fires [and] 91 are still burning ... those that are not extinguished by March could reignite once the snow melts and they are exposed to air. Because of this, scientists have linked them to early starts of wildfire seasons ... More than 18 million hectares (44 million acres) of land were burned by wildfires in Canada in 2023 - an area roughly the size of Cambodia - far surpassing the country's 10-year average ... the effect was felt well beyond Canada's borders when smoke blanketed a large section of the US in June. That calamitous wildfire season is one of the reasons why BC is now seeing such a high number of zombie fires [as] most of them are fires that could not be put out fully [plus] the extreme drought that the province has been dealing with over the last two years ... [zombie fires] have become more common in recent years due to a rapidly warming climate.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68228943NOAA: Ice coverage nearly nonexistent across the Great Lakes, as the historical peak approaches
Great Lakes ice coverage was record low to start January in large part due to well-above average warmth across the region in December, paired with the lack of any major Arctic air blasts ... ice formation across the lakes did not pick up in January, and it has been nearly nonexistent as far as mid-February normals go ... coverage has steadily fallen into never-before-recorded levels for mid-February. Daily record-low ice cover has persisted across the Great Lakes since February 8, 2024, and this week dropped to under 3 percent. As of February 15, 2024, Lake Erie is completely ice free and Lake Ontario has less than 1 percent ice coverage.
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/ice-coverage-nearly-nonexistent-across-great-lakes-historical-peakRoyal Meteorological Society: 2023's Antarctic sea ice extent is the lowest on record
In 2023, sea ice extent fell to record lows, reaching unprecedented values for both the summer minimum, winter maximum and intervening freeze-up period. Here, we show that the extreme values observed were truly remarkable within the context of the satellite record ... The sheer magnitude and rarity of the anomalies observed hints that something unusual is happening in the Antarctic and that climate change may be involved [and] it seems inescapable that Antarctic sea ice will begin to decline in response to anthropogenic climate change. In fact, several studies have hinted that recent record low sea ice years may be less unusual in the near future ... Southern Ocean warming has been robustly linked to rising anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and the direct connection between recent low sea ice conditions and the buildup of ocean heat suggests a causal link to human-caused climate change.
https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wea.4518Physics-based early warning signal shows that AMOC is on tipping course
Here, we show results of the first tipping event in the Community Earth System Model, including the large climate impacts of the collapse. Using these results, we develop a physics-based and observable early warning signal of AMOC tipping: the minimum of the AMOC-induced freshwater transport at the southern boundary of the Atlantic. Reanalysis products indicate that the present-day AMOC is on route to tipping [which would] strongly influence the regional climates across the globe. The European climate is significantly different after the AMOC collapse ... AMOC-induced precipitation changes could severely disrupt the ecosystem of the Amazon rainforest and potentially lead to cascading tipping ... changes occur within a relatively short period and under a very small change in surface freshwater forcing ... This is bad news for the climate system and humanity as up until now one could think that AMOC tipping was only a theoretical concept.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adk1189
see also: a good and very readable article based on this study at
Beyond the tipping point: The Collapse of Ocean Currents and its Weather impact on the United States and Europe
https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/ocean-currents-near-a-tipping-point-of-collapse-weather-effects-united-states-europe-faPivotal moment for humanity as tipping point threats and opportunities accelerate, report warns
An acceleration in threats from Earth system tipping points, which occur when small changes spark often rapid and irreversible transformations, has set humanity on a disastrous trajectory, a new report shows. Based on an assessment of 26 negative Earth system tipping points, the report says "business as usual" is no longer possible — with rapid changes to nature and societies already happening, and more coming ... Professor Caroline Lear, one of the report's co-authors from Cardiff University's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said, "Our research shows that in the past, even small natural changes in greenhouse gas concentrations had a domino effect changing different parts of our planet [and] without more significant climate action we expect to see a similar domino effect from the much faster changes in greenhouse gas concentrations caused by burning fossil fuels." Without urgent action to halt the climate and ecological crisis, societies will be overwhelmed as the natural world comes apart, the authors warn.
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-pivotal-moment-humanity-threats-opportunities.html
reporting on a study at https://global-tipping-points.org/A ‘collapse’ is looming for Louisiana’s coastal wetlands, scientists say
New research documents how a sudden burst of sea level rise over the past 13 years — the type of surge once not expected until later this century — has left the overwhelming majority of [Louisiana’s] coastal wetland sites in a state of current or expected “drowning,” where the seas are rising faster than wetlands can grow ... “If this rate of sea level rise continues for another 10 or 20 years, then we would probably lose the vast majority of our wetlands in that time period,” said Torbjorn Tornqvist, a Tulane wetlands expert and the second of the study’s three authors ... Brady Couvillion, a wetlands expert with the U.S. Geological Survey, has also found a recent speedup in the rate of Louisiana wetland losses ... Adam Langley, a wetlands researcher and biology professor at Villanova University who was not involved in Thursday’s study, said the new paper’s findings are broadly consistent with what scientists around the world are documenting.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/02/15/louisiana-coastal-erosion-swamp-wetland-loss/How Did We Miss 20% of Greenland’s Ice Loss?
The ice loss was hidden in places existing monitoring methods can’t reach, such as hard-to-map fjords The Greenland Ice Sheet has lost more than 1,000 gigatons (Gt) of ice to calving since 1985—increasing previous estimates of mass loss by 20%. This revised number comes from a recent study of the territory’s glaciers over almost 4 decades. The research also revealed marine-terminating glaciers that responded more strongly to seasonal temperature changes also lost more mass over time ... The new estimate could mean Atlantic Ocean circulation is less stable than previously thought.
https://eos.org/articles/how-did-we-miss-20-of-greenlands-ice-loss
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06863-2Climate experts sound alarm over thriving plant life at Greenland ice sheet
Significant areas of Greenland’s melted ice sheet are now producing vegetation, risking increased greenhouse gas emissions, rising sea levels and instability of the landscape. A study has documented the change since the 1980s and shows that large areas of ice have been replaced with barren rock, wetlands and shrub growth, creating a change in environment ... As ice has retreated, the amount of land with vegetation growing on it has increased by 33,774 sq miles, more than twice the area covered when the study began. The findings show a near-quadrupling of wetlands across Greenland, which are a source of methane emissions ... warmer air temperatures are causing the ice to retreat and since the 1970s the region has been heating up at double the global average rate.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/13/flourishing-vegetation-greenland-ice-sheet-alarm-climate-crisis
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-52124-1Flowers are blooming up to 22 days earlier due to climate change
Researchers from the University of Seville have conducted a significant study to explore the effects of climate change on the flora of Doñana National Park [Spain]. The backdrop of this study is a notable increase in temperatures in the area, with an average rise of 1°C [which] led to a significant shift in the plant community’s peak flowering time, moving forward by 22 days, from May 9 to April 17 ... affecting 80% of the observed species by advancing their flowering start, and 68% by moving up the end of their flowering period ... the advancing flowering times due to climate change could disrupt the synchronization between plants and their pollinator insects.
https://www.earth.com/news/flowers-are-blooming-up-to-22-days-earlier-due-to-climate-change/The spiralling cost of insuring against climate disasters
Global warming is making extreme weather events such as storms, floods and wildfires more frequent and severe ... As firms exit some areas and demand higher premiums in others, affordable home insurance cover — for many an essential annual outlay, often a condition of their mortgage debt — is getting harder to secure ... In the US, a repricing of risks has sparked a significant rise in premiums. Several big US insurers, including State Farm and The Hartford, have paused their underwriting of new home policies ... All this is adding greater urgency and attention to a challenge long predicted by environmental activists: that climate change will make parts of the world uninsurable.
https://www.ft.com/content/ed3a1bb9-e329-4e18-89de-9db90eaadc0b
or https://archive.ph/uAYNIStorms in California hit homeowners already facing an insurance crisis
Insurance costs in much of California have become exceedingly high, with some insurers abandoning the market, unwilling to take on the risk presented by the frequency and severity of climate disasters in the region. But it is not just California ... Home insurance woes are becoming even more widespread [and] competition isn’t coming to save the day. [In the past] a competitor would always move in. “But that isn’t happening now.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/06/economy/storms-california-homeowners-insurance/index.htmlLandmark UN report: world’s migratory species of animals are in decline, and global extinction risk is increasing
The first-ever State of the World’s Migratory Species report was launched today by the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), a UN biodiversity treaty, at the opening of a major UN wildlife conservation conference (CMS COP14). The landmark report reveals:
• More than one-in-five (22 per cent) of CMS-listed species are threatened with extinction.
• Nearly all (97 per cent) of CMS-listed fish are threatened with extinction.
• The extinction risk is growing for migratory species globally, including those not listed under CMS.
• The two greatest threats to both CMS-listed and all migratory species are overexploitation and habitat loss due to human activity.
https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/landmark-un-report-worlds-migratory-species-animals-are-decline-andSpring plants bloom a month earlier due to high temperatures
Spring plants [in the Netherlands] bloom one month earlier than 50 years ago, natural scientists Arnold van Vliet and Wichertje Bron from Natuurkalender and Wageningen University and Letty de Weger from LUMC wrote in the scientific journal Nature Today. Plants such as spearwort, yellow dogwood, snowdrops and crocus are already in full bloom.
https://nltimes.nl/2024/02/11/spring-plants-bloom-month-earlier-due-high-temperaturesThe Roman Empire’s Worst Plagues Were Linked to Climate Change
The sixth-century C.E. Plague of Justinian was “a pestilence, by which the whole human race came near to being annihilated,” according to the Byzantine historian Procopius. Up to half the population of the Roman Empire and tens of millions of people around the Mediterranean may have been killed ... a new study published on Friday in Science Advances links this—and other pandemics in the Roman Empire—to climate change [that] caused stresses in Roman society that resulted in such pandemics [and] shows how a changing climate can have dire consequences for societies that are not robust enough to withstand the upheavals it can cause ... These disruptions included declines in food supplies and the prevalence of rats, mosquitoes and other pests ... “when you have rapid climate change, it’s very destabilizing—it displaces ecosystems, and it destabilizes societies.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-roman-empires-worst-plagues-were-linked-to-climate-change/
reporting on a study at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adk1033World's first year-long breach of key 1.5C warming limit
For the first time, global warming has exceeded 1.5C across an entire year, according to the EU's climate service. Limiting long-term warming to 1.5C above "pre-industrial" levels - before humans started burning large amounts of fossil fuels - has become a key symbol of international efforts to tackle climate change. But temperatures have kept rising at a concerning pace ... February 2023 to January 2024 reached 1.52C of warming. The world's sea surface is also at its highest ever recorded average temperature - yet another sign of the widespread nature of climate records.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68110310US scientists say one-in-three chance 2024 another year of record heat
This year has a one-in-three chance of being even hotter than 2023, which was already the world's hottest on record ... [NOAA] confirmed the findings of EU scientists that 2023 was the warmest since records began in 1850 ... heat stored in the upper layers of the ocean also reached a record high last year, NOAA said ... [due to] climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, alongside an El Nino climate pattern that emerged halfway through the year [and] is expected to persist until at least April, increasing the likelihood 2024 will be another record year. NOAA said there was a one-in-three chance that 2024 would be warmer than 2023, and a 99% chance it would rank among the five warmest on record.
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/us-scientists-say-one-in-three-chance-2024-another-year-record-heat-2024-01-12What's causing the Amazon's ongoing record drought?
As deforestation and fire degrade the forest along edges and roads, the Amazon's rain-making capacity gets weaker. Dry seasons get longer, and surface water dwindles. Mature trees succumb to droughts, and new ones fail to replace them ... In a 2018 essay in Science Advances, two Amazon experts pointed out that many models project that without deforestation and fires, an Amazon tipping point wouldn't be reached until global warming surpassed 4° Celsius above the pre-industrial. Without climate change, models estimated it would take deforestation rates of about 40 percent to push the Amazon past its tipping point [but] the combined "negative synergies" of multiple human impacts—fire, deforestation, and climate change—are very likely to lower the threshold [so] the tipping point may be a lot closer than we think.
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-amazon-ongoing-drought.htmlHurricanes becoming so strong that new category needed, study says
Scientists propose new category 6 rating to classify ‘mega-hurricanes’, becoming more likely due to climate crisis
Hurricanes are becoming so strong due to the climate crisis that the classification of them should be expanded to include a “category 6” storm, furthering the scale from the standard 1 to 5, according to a new study. [These] would include all hurricanes with sustained winds of 192mph or more. Such mega-hurricanes are becoming more likely due to global heating, studies have found, due to the warming of the oceans and atmosphere ... The new study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, proposes an extension to the widely used Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/05/hurricanes-becoming-so-strong-that-new-category-needed-study-says
reporting on a study at https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2308901121Currently stable parts of East Antarctica may be closer to melting than anyone realized
In a paper published Jan. 19 in Geophysical Research Letters, researchers at Stanford have shown that the Wilkes Subglacial Basin in East Antarctica, which holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by more than 10 feet, could be closer to runaway melting than anyone realized ... [The new data could] mean that large sections of ground under the ice sheet are either close to thawing or made up of closely intermixed frozen and thawed areas. If the latter is true, the glaciers in the Wilkes Subglacial Basin could reach a tipping point with only a small increase in temperature at the base of the ice sheet. “This suggests that glacial retreat could be possible in the future,” Dawson said ... “This area has conditions that we could imagine changing,” Schroeder said. “And if warm ocean water gets there, it’s going to ‘turn on’ a whole sector of Antarctica we don’t normally think about as a contributor to sea level rise.”
https://engineering.stanford.edu/magazine/currently-stable-parts-east-antarctica-may-be-closer-melting-anyone-realized
reporting on a study at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GL105450Ocean heating breaks record, again, with disastrous outcomes for the planet
https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/ocean-heating-breaks-record-again-with-disastrous-outcomes-for-the-planet/
reporting on a study at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-024-3378-5Great Lakes average ice cover drops to 6%, one of lowest levels ever recorded
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/12/great-lakes-average-ice-coverGreat Lakes may have already had the peak ice for this winter [in January]
The amount of ice on the Great Lakes has been incredibly low so far this winter. In looking at the ice concentration graphs and knowing the weather coming in the first two weeks of February, the Great Lakes may have already had the peak ice for this winter ... With the warm weather coming in the first two weeks of February, temperatures will be in the 30s, 40s and 50s [Farenheit] around the Great Lakes region. Ice cover should continue to shrink. Even if we get a return to some normal cold in the second half of February it will be almost impossible for the Great Lakes to build ice back to a level higher than January.
https://www.mlive.com/weather/2024/01/great-lakes-ice-cover-doing-almost-the-unthinkable.htmlClimate change made 2023 the hottest and wettest year in Dutch history: KNMI
The cause is also clear, the meteorological institute emphasized: climate change
Until recently, the KNMI always compared the annual temperature with the average temperature over 30 years. That was called the climatic normal - after all, the weather is always different, but if you take 30 years together, it gives a good average. “But now we can no longer actually speak of a climate normal,” said Van Aalst. Last year, the Netherlands was 1.3 degrees warmer than the climate normal. “But the average has shifted more and more. If we compare the temperature of 2023 with the average of the first 30 years when measurements started in 1901, our country was 2.9 degrees warmer last year than then. That is a really big difference” ... The KNMI is further surprised by certain turning points where the world already seems much closer to disaster than previously thought. “We saw that a record amount of ice in Antarctica has melted. Things are already happening there that we did not expect. We have to keep a close eye on this to know what is coming our way.”
https://nltimes.nl/2024/01/31/climate-change-made-2023-hottest-wettest-year-dutch-history-knmiArctic Could Be Sea Ice Free in the Summer by the 2030s
Summer sea ice in the Arctic could melt almost completely by the 2030s—roughly a decade earlier than projected—even if humans cut back drastically on greenhouse gas emissions, new research suggests. “We are very quickly about to lose the Arctic summer sea-ice cover, basically independent of what we are doing,” Dirk Notz, a climate scientist at the University of Hamburg in Germany [said]. An ice-free summer, also called a “blue ocean event,” will happen when the sea ice drops below one million square kilometers (386,102 square miles) ... Previous assessments using models have estimated an ice-free summer under high and intermediate emissions scenarios by 2050. But researchers noticed differences between what climate models predicted and what they've actually seen through observations. Now, in a new study published in Nature Communications, Notz, Gillett and their colleagues tweaked these models to more closely fit satellite data collected over the past 40 years. Using these modified models, the researchers projected ice changes under different possible levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Their paper suggests that regardless of emissions scenario, “we may experience an unprecedented ice-free Arctic climate in the next decade or two” ... Sea ice decline could have catastrophic consequences that extend to the rest of the planet. “It’s already happening,” [said] Mark C. Serreze, the director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder who was not involved with the new research.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/arctic-could-be-sea-ice-free-in-summer-by-2030s-180982326
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-38511-8Some Animals Are Desperately Turning Nocturnal, Study Shows
When a cheetah hunts at night, the risks from larger leopards and lions increase. When the Alpine ibex scours for its vegetation-filled meal in the dark, it takes on greater threat of being eaten itself (most commonly by a wolf). But these tradeoffs are occurring across the globe, as animals wary of rising daytime temperatures turn their activities to cooler nights. The studies highlighting this correlation between warming temperatures driving animals to turn nocturnal—even when it decreases their risk of survival, thanks to predatory activity—keep coming. The latest, a study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, tracked the activity of 47 ibex in two protected areas.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/a46597422/warming-temperatures-are-turning-animals-nocturnal/
reporting on a study at https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2023.1587Coral reef monitor adds new alert levels to keep up with soaring ocean temperatures
Coral Reef Watch is a program run by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that uses satellites and computer models to monitor heat risk to reefs. Since it first launched in 2009, Coral Reef Watch has used two alert categories for monitoring heat risk to coral reefs — Level 1, which means reefs are at risk of coral bleaching, and Level 2, which means indicates the risk of "mortality of heat-sensitive corals." But in December 2023 — on the heels of a massive summer marine heatwave — the group added three more alert levels, which it unveiled publicly this month. Level 3 indicates a risk of multi-species mortality for corals, Level 4 means more than half the corals in a reef could die, and Level 5 means "risk of near-complete mortality." "An alert Level 5 condition really represents the most extreme, worst-case scenario, that you could anticipate happening on a coral reef from heat stress," Manzello said. Before 2023, he says there were only three instances of heating at this level described in scientific literature. [But] that's what happened to several reefs during the summer heatwaves of 2023, the effects of which were documented in a NOAA-University of Queensland study published in December ... the degree of ocean warming in 2023 and 2024 has been "unprecedented in modern times."
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/coral-reef-watch-alerts-1.7103786
reporting on a study at https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/noaa-university-of-queensland-report-marine-heatwaves-severely-impacting-coralsPermafrost alone holds back Arctic rivers—and a lot of carbon
Permafrost, the thick layer of soil that stays frozen for two or more years at a time, is the reason that Arctic rivers are uniformly confined to smaller areas and shallower valleys than rivers to the south, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. But permafrost also is an increasingly fragile reservoir of vast amounts of carbon. As climate change weakens Artic permafrost, the researchers calculate that every 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) of global warming could release as much carbon as 35 million cars emit in a year as polar waterways expand and churn up the thawing soil ... "if things get warm and suddenly river channels start to win, we're going to see a large amount of carbon get released into the atmosphere. That will likely create this warming feedback loop that leads to the release of more greenhouse gases" ... Permafrost's power to limit the footprint of Arctic rivers also allows it to store vast amounts of carbon in the frozen earth, according to the study. To estimate the carbon that would be released from these watersheds due to climate change, the researchers combined the amount of carbon stored in permafrost with the soil erosion that would result as the ground thaws and is washed away as Arctic rivers spread. Research suggests that the Arctic has warmed by more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels, or roughly since 1850.
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-permafrost-arctic-rivers-lot-carbon.html
reporting on a study at https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2307072120RIVM has known about PFAS in eggs beyond Dordrecht for years
The Dutch Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) has known for years that there are high concentrations of toxic PFAS in eggs from hobby chicken keepers throughout the Netherlands. The institute published a study that showed this in 2015, NOS reports ... A spokesperson for the RIVM told the [NOS] broadcaster that the 2015 study can’t be compared to the recent one in Dordrecht because measuring methods have become much more sensitive in the intervening decade ... The RIVM quickly decided to discourage the consumption of hobby eggs in Dordrecht based on how high the values were in the preliminary results. The RIVM doesn’t want to do the same nationwide based on research using outdated measuring methods, the spokesperson said ... Professor Jacob de Boer and university researcher Chiel Jonker called it weird that the RIVM is using outdated measuring methods as a reason not to warn of a potential risk. According to them, the fact that scientists found too-high levels of PFAS using less sensitive measuring methods should be reason for alarm, not complacency ... PFAS is a collective name for thousands of chemical substances that can be harmful to people and the environment [causing problems such as infertility by acting as endocrine disruptors]. PFAS are typically used to make non-stick coatings and products that resist heat, oil, stains, grease, and water.
https://nltimes.nl/2024/02/02/rivm-known-pfas-eggs-beyond-dordrecht-yearsTexas Is Already Running Out of Water
Parts of the state are starting the year with low reserves. With light winter rains failing to replenish supply, and a scorching summer predicted, key areas may be pushed to the brink. That’s bad news for places like far-south Texas, where big reservoirs on the Lower Rio Grande fell from 33 percent to 23 percent full over the past 12 months. A repeat of similar conditions would leave the reservoirs far lower than they’ve ever been, triggering an emergency response and an international crisis ... In Corpus Christi, on the south Texas coast, authorities last month stopped releasing water aimed at maintaining minimum viable ecology in the coastal wetlands, even as oil refineries and chemical plants remain exempt from water use restrictions during drought. Also last month, in the sprawling suburbs of Central Texas, between Austin and San Antonio, one groundwater district declared stage 4 drought for the first time in its 36-year history. Texans don’t usually talk about drought in the winter ... “Signs are not favorable,” said Greg Waller, a coordinating hydrologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Fort Worth. “Expect warmer and drier, again” ... Last year was the hottest on record for Texas—and the Earth, according to NOAA—after a global heat wave shattered temperature records around the world. These patterns, Waller said, are consistent with scientific understanding of climate change caused by carbon emissions. “Climate change means the extremes are going to get more extreme,” he said. “The heat waves are going to get more heat. The droughts are going to get droughty-er and the floods are going to get floody-er.”
https://www.wired.com/story/texas-water-drought-winter-weather-shortageMajority of America’s underground water stores are drying up, study finds
More than half of the aquifers in the United States (53 percent) are losing water, according to research published Wednesday in Nature. “Groundwater levels are declining rapidly in many areas,” co-author Scott Jasechko of the University of California, Santa Barbara told The Hill. “And what’s worse, the rate of groundwater decline is accelerating in a large portion of areas,” Jasechko said. The impacted aquifers support much of the U.S. food system, as well as providing water used by many Americans. And the country is not alone in its losses: The study found rapid loss of water in aquifers that supply hundreds of millions of people worldwide. “We’re finding that in dry places where a large portion of the land is under cultivation, groundwater level declines are, if anything, accelerating over time,” Jasechko said.
https://thehill.com/policy/equilibrium-sustainability/4426143-majority-of-americas-underground-water-stores-are-drying-up-study-findsWater-guzzling ‘hot drought’ in the West is unprecedented in at least 5 centuries, study suggests
The West’s recent heat-driven megadroughts are unprecedented in at least 500 years, new research shows ... “What we’re seeing is that megadrought conditions are being amplified by anthropogenically driven (human caused) temperature increases,” said Karen King, lead author of the study ... Wednesday’s study builds on previous research, including one study that found the last two decades in the West have been the driest in 1,200 years, and the human-caused climate crisis made the yearslong dry spell 72% worse ... “When you put the two (studies) together, it paints a very cohesive picture that this anthropogenic influence on increased hot drought, particularly in the Southwest, is unprecedented over the last several centuries.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/24/climate/hot-drought-west-climate/index.html
reporting on a study at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adj4289Prepare for a ‘Gray Swan’ Climate
The next climate extremes are both predictable and unprecedented, and they’re coming on fast.
The way to think about climate change now is through two interlinked concepts. The first is nonlinearity, the idea that change will happen by factors of multiplication, rather than addition. The second is the idea of “gray swan” events, which are both predictable and unprecedented ... “As we push toward a warmer world, with this nonlinear multiplicative factor, we’re pushing into this realm of things we haven’t seen before,” Shaw told me. “It’s not just inching toward more breaking records, but shattering them. It’s something that we should expect.” Among these new extremes will be gray-swan events. These are not like black-swan events, which Shaw described as completely “unpredictable or unforeseeable”. Instead, scientists will start to observe things that they can foresee based on physics, but that haven’t appeared in the historical record before. “As we reflect, as climate scientists, on events that we see emerging, there are these record-shattering, extreme events" ... We all have to live in the world that results, one way or another. "This is really uncharted territory.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/01/climate-change-acceleration-nonlinear-gray-swan/677201/Scientists retrieve rare methane hydrate samples for climate and energy study
Methane hydrates are an ice-like form of methane found under high pressure and low temperatures. They are commonly formed on and under the seafloor and under arctic permafrost. However, the hydrates dissipate quickly at pressures found at the Earth's surface, which releases methane into the atmosphere. The solid hydrates are incredibly energy-dense, with each unit of methane hydrate holding 165 times the energy of an equivalent volume of gas at surface conditions [and] is also a potent greenhouse gas ... "We have a really poor understanding of how much there is," said Ann Cook, a professor at The Ohio State University School of Earth Sciences and a scientist on the mission. "We know there's a lot, but our estimates vary by orders of magnitude."
https://phys.org/news/2024-01-scientists-rare-methane-hydrate-samples.htmlAfter years of stability, Antarctica is losing ice
In contrast to the far north, the southern continent’s massive ice sheets, glaciers, ice shelves (ice that floats on the ocean), and seasonal ice appeared to be reliably frozen [but] the situation has changed. On balance, Antarctica is now losing ice. And more and more, scientists are concerned about that melting and its potential impacts. [Includes links to a number of good explanatory articles and studies.]
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2024/01/after-years-of-stability-antarctica-is-losing-ice/Greenland losing 30 million tonnes of ice an hour, study reveals
Some scientists are concerned that this additional source of freshwater pouring into the north Atlantic might mean a collapse of the ocean currents called the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) ... “The changes around Greenland are tremendous and they’re happening everywhere – almost every glacier has retreated over the past few decades,” said Dr Chad Greene, at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the US, who led the research ... The Amoc was already known to be at its weakest in 1,600 years and in 2021 researchers spotted warning signs of a tipping point. A recent study suggested the collapse could happen as soon as 2025 in the worst-case scenario. A significant part of the Greenland ice sheet itself is also thought by scientists to be close to a tipping point of irreversible melting, with ice equivalent to 1-2 metres of sea level rise probably already expected.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/17/greenland-losing-30m-tonnes-of-ice-an-hour-study-revealsModeling study finds alpine glaciers will lose at least a third [and up to 65%] of their volume by 2050
[A] more realistic projection from the study shows that, without drastic changes or measures, if the melting trend of the last 20 years continues, almost half (46%) of the Alps' ice volume will actually have disappeared by 2050. This figure could even rise to 65%, if we extrapolate the data from the last ten years alone ... "The data used to build the scenarios stopped in 2022, a year that was followed by an exceptionally hot summer. It is, therefore, likely that the situation will be even worse than the one we present," states Samuel Cook, a researcher at UNIL and first author of the study.
https://phys.org/news/2024-01-alpine-glaciers-volume.html
reporting on a study at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2023GL105029Canadian tar sands pollution is up to 6,300% higher than reported, study finds
Research published in the journal Science found that air pollution from the vast Athabasca oil sands in Canada exceed industry-reported emissions across the studied facilities by a staggering 1,900% to over 6,300% ... damaging reactive pollutants from the oil sands are equivalent to those from all other human-made sources across Canada.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/25/canadian-tar-sands-pollution-is-up-to-6300-higher-than-reported-study-findsThe United States is producing more oil than any country in history
Record-shattering US production is helping to offset aggressive supply cuts meant to support high prices by OPEC+, mainly Saudi Arabia and Russia. Other non-OPEC oil producers including Canada and Brazil are also pumping more oil than ever before ... Goldman Sachs analysts on Sunday cut their forecast for oil prices next year. The bank said the “key reason” behind the lowered forecast is the abundance of US supply. Global demand for crude oil is set to hit a record in 2024 – but it will “easily be met” by the growth in supply, according to S&P’s projections.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/19/business/us-production-oil-reserves-crude/index.htmlUS was top LNG exporter in 2023 as hit record levels
U.S. liquefied natural gas exports hit monthly and annual record highs in December, tanker tracking data showed, with analysts saying it positioned the United States to leapfrog Qatar and Australia to become the largest exporter of LNG in 2023. Full year exports from the U.S. rose 14.7% to 88.9 million metric tons. Europe remained the main destination for U.S. LNG exports in December, with 5.43 MT, or just over 61%. In November, 68% of U.S. LNG exports were to Europe.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-was-top-lng-exporter-2023-hit-record-levels-2024-01-02/Why Cold Snaps Don’t Negate The Threat Of Climate Warming
The “Captain Obvious” point is that we are in the midst of winter. We will always have winter even as our climate continues to warm ... With cold snaps like this one, there is a disruption in the Polar Vortex, which allows colder high-latitude air to make its way into the United States. A weakened or disrupted Polar Vortex allows lobes of colder air to be displaced southward ... that is weather. I always say, “Weather is your mood, climate is your personality.” The weather on a given day or week does not describe the broader background climate changes ... NOAA’s annual global climate report states, “The year 2023 was the warmest year since global records began [and] the 10 warmest years in the 174-year record have all occurred during the last decade (2014–2023).”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2024/01/14/why-cold-snaps-dont-negate-the-threat-of-climate-warming/
see also https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/climate-change-colder-winters-global-warming-polar-vortexKashmir's rare snowless winter sets off alarm bells
Every year, thousands of tourists visit Kashmir in winter to enjoy skiing and sightseeing. [But] climate change has been impacting the region, causing extreme weather events and prolonged dry spells in both winter and summer. Jammu and Kashmir's weather department recorded a 79% rainfall deficit in December and a 100% deficit in January. The valley is also experiencing warmer weather, with most stations in Kashmir recording a 6-8C (11-14F) rise in temperature this winter ... the absence of snowfall will also impact generation of hydroelectricity, fisheries and farming. "The farming here is dependent on glaciers. The glaciers are melting at a fast rate. No snowfall in the peak [winter] season means early that spring water will be a big problem," environmentalist Sonam Wangchuk says. The region normally receives heavy snowfall during peak winter - a 40-day period that lasts from 21 December to 29 January. During this time, mountains and glaciers get covered with snow and this ensures water supply throughout the year ... "We would witness heavy snowfall of up to 3ft (0.9m) and it wouldn't melt until spring. But we are now witnessing warm winters," Shakil Ahmad Romshoo, an earth scientist, says.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-68015106California Insurance Crisis Deepens as Providers Pull Out of State
Yet another insurer announces its decision to stop offering new policies to residents. The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc.—better known as The Hartford—announced on Wednesday that it will no longer offer new personal property insurance coverage to homeowners in the Golden State ... The Hartford followed the steps taken by several other private insurers in the past couple of years, including State Farm and Allstate, which both announced they would have stopped writing new policies in the state in November 2022 ... Studies have shown that the climate crisis has increased both the frequency and severity of extreme weather events like wildfires, hurricanes and tornadoes, especially in vulnerable states like California and Florida, which are both experiencing an ongoing insurance crisis. Smaller insurers, including Merastar Insurance Company, Unitrin Auto and Home Insurance Company, Unitrin Direct Property and Casualty Company, and Kemper Independence Insurance Company, announced last year that they would not renew policies in California in 2024. The result is that the number of options available to California homeowners to insure their properties is shrinking, and at the same time, their homes are more at risk of being damaged or destroyed by an extreme weather event.
https://www.newsweek.com/california-insurance-crisis-providers-pull-out-state-1863846Banks decline mortgage applications in ‘climate change credit crunch’
Homes are becoming uninsurable and unsellable due to flooding and subsidence risks
Climate change has been linked to severe storms and flooding, damaging homes and businesses every year ... causing lenders to increase their scrutiny of potential homebuyers ... lenders have been changing their borrowing criteria as extreme weather events place more homes at risk of damage – leaving them potentially worthless. [HSBC] warns that it can be harder to get a mortgage on a property that’s at a “high risk” of being impacted by climate change, “especially if it’s uninsurable, due to continuous flooding or the land being unstable, for example” and that “lenders are now completing further checks to assess whether or not a property is at risk due to climate change.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/net-zero/banks-decline-mortgages-climate-change-credit-crunch/Carbon released by bottom trawling ‘too big to ignore’, says study
Fishing nets churn up carbon from the sea floor, more than half of which will eventually be released into the atmosphere
Scientists have long known that bottom trawling – the practice of dragging massive nets along the seabed to catch fish – churns up carbon from the sea floor [and] described trawling as “marine deforestation” that causes “irreparable harm” to the climate, society and wildlife ... “Much like destroying forests, scraping up the sea floor causes irreparable harm to the climate, society and wildlife.” The research builds on previous work by some team members, published in 2021, which showed that bottom trawling released as much carbon dioxide into the ocean annually as the entire aviation industry [and] found that the amount released into the air could double the annual emissions from fuel combustion of the entire global fishing fleet.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/18/carbon-released-by-bottom-trawling-too-big-to-ignore-says-study
reporting on a study at https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2023.1125137/fullScientists explain why the record-shattering 2023 heat has them on edge. Warming may be worsening
The latest calculations from several science agencies showing Earth obliterated global heat records last year may seem scary. But scientists worry that what's behind those numbers could be even worse ... Most said they fear acceleration of climate change that is already right at the edge of the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) increase since pre-industrial times that nations had hoped to stay within. “The heat over the last calendar year was a dramatic message from Mother Nature,” said University of Arizona climate scientist Katharine Jacobs. Several of the scientists who made the calculations said the climate behaved in strange ways in 2023. They wonder whether human-caused climate change and a natural El Nino were augmented by a freak blip or whether “there's something more systematic afoot,” as NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt put it ... Former NASA climate scientist James Hansen, often considered the godfather of global warming science, theorized last year that warming was accelerating. “There is some evidence that the rate of warming over the past decade or so is slightly faster than the decade or so previous — which meets the mathematical definition of acceleration,” said UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain. “However, this too is largely in line with predictions” that warming would accelerate at a certain point ... The World Meteorological Organization, combining the measurements announced Friday with Japanese and European calculations released earlier this month, pegged 2023 at 1.45 degrees Celsius (2.61 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than pre-industrial temperatures. Many of the climate scientists saw little hope of stopping warming at the 1.5-degree goal called for in the 2015 Paris agreement that sought to avert the worst consequences of climate change. “I do not consider it realistic that we can limit warming (averaged over several years) to 1.5C,” wrote Woodwell Climate Research Center scientist Jennifer Francis in an email. “It is technically possible but politically impossible” ... Both NASA and NOAA said the last 10 years, from 2014 to 2023, have been the 10 hottest years they’ve measured. It’s the third time in the last eight years that a global heat record was set. Randall Cerveny, an Arizona State University scientist who helps coordinate record-keeping for the WMO, said the big worry isn’t that a record was broken last year, but that they keep getting broken so frequently ... Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald said, “This is just a taste of what we can expect in the future.”
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/scientists-explain-record-shattering-2023-heat-edge-warming-106324686‘Astounding’ ocean temperatures in 2023 intensified extreme weather, data shows
Record levels of heat were absorbed last year by Earth’s seas, which have been warming year-on-year for the past decade The oceans absorb 90% of the heat trapped by the carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, making it the clearest indicator of global heating ... the oceans are now at their hottest for 1,000 years and heating faster than at any time in the past 2,000 years. The most common measure of the climate crisis – global average air temperature – was also driven up in 2023, by a huge margin ... The new study, published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, used temperature data collected by a range of instruments across the oceans ... humanity uses about half a zettajoule of energy a year to fuel the entire global economy. In total, the oceans absorbed 287 zettajoules in 2023. The ocean surface temperatures in 2023 were “off the charts.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/11/ocean-warming-temperatures-2023-extreme-weather-data
reporting on a study at https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-024-3378-5The people paid to spot risks see high chance of ‘global catastrophe’ within 10 years
The gloomy outlook comes from an annual survey by the World Economic Forum (WEF) of people paid to identify and manage global risks. According to the report published Wednesday, nearly two-thirds of respondents expect an “elevated chance of global catastrophes” in the next decade. About 30% expect the same in the next two years. WEF said its latest report “warns of a global risks landscape in which progress in human development is being chipped away slowly, leaving states and individuals vulnerable to new and resurgent risks.” Results from the survey “highlight a predominantly negative outlook for the world in the short term that is expected to worsen over the long term,” it added. [The report] is based on responses from 1,490 risk experts primarily from business, but also academia, government, and civil society.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/10/business/wef-global-risks-report/index.html
reporting on a study at https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-risks-report-2024/digest/
the climate paper written by actuaries, mentioned in the video [PDF] is at https://actuaries.org.uk/media/qeydewmk/the-emperor-s-new-climate-scenarios.pdfPlants Worldwide Reach a Stomata Stalemate
The underside of a leaf is equipped with many thousands of stomata—microscopic pores that act as pathways for carbon dioxide and water vapor. As climate change causes temperatures to rise, stomata are narrowing, reducing plants’ ability to take in carbon, according to a new study published in Science. While the stomata are open, water vapor travels out, and carbon travels in. The ratio of carbon assimilation per unit of water loss is called water use efficiency, and the new research says that globally, it has stalled. Previously, many scientists thought that in the face of rising emissions water use efficiency would increase, according to the study’s lead authors, because higher atmospheric carbon concentration would mean more carbon would enter stomata. “But what we show is different,” said study coauthor Jingfeng Xiao, an Earth systems scientist at the University of New Hampshire. “The global average plant water use efficiency has stabilized.” That’s because carbon emissions don’t happen in a vacuum; they happen in a complex system. “Not only is carbon dioxide increasing, temperature is increasing, air is becoming drier, and this is where vapor pressure deficit comes in,” said Vivek Arora, a climate scientist at Environment and Climate Change Canada who was not involved in the study ... when plants close or mostly close their stomata, they also reduce their ability to take up carbon ... rising vapor pressure deficits would force plants to keep their stomata closed to conserve water, potentially limiting how much carbon plants take in. The new results indicated that the trillions of plants making up the terrestrial biome began doing that more than 20 years ago, girding against water loss wrought by climate change.
https://eos.org/articles/plants-worldwide-reach-a-stomata-stalemate
reporting on a study at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf5041Buying Home and Auto Insurance Is Becoming Impossible
Insurers are coming off some of their worst years in history ... Warmer temperatures have made storms worse and contributed to droughts that have elevated wildfire risk ... Climate change also has made it harder for insurers to measure their risks, pushing some to demand even higher premiums to cushion against future losses ... Homeowners and drivers are facing sharply rising premiums, less coverage and fewer, if any, choices of insurer. In some places the only options are bare bones coverage or none at all. That can make homes worth less and harder to sell ... State Farm racked up $13 billion in property-casualty underwriting losses in 2022, its worst ever ... “Climate change will destabilize the global insurance industry,” research firm Forrester Research predicted in a fall report. Increasingly extreme weather will make it harder for insurance companies to model and predict exposures, accurately calculate reserves, offer coverage and pay claims, the report said. As a result, Forrester forecast, “more insurers will leave markets besides the high-stakes states like California, Florida, and Louisiana.” Allstate CEO Wilson said: “There will be insurance deserts ... I don’t think it’s like the insurance industry said, we’re done here, you’re on your own. It’s just, there are certain places where if we can’t spread the cost appropriately and we can’t price it, then we shouldn’t do it.” Insurance agents and analysts said many insurers are “quiet quitting” high-risk areas rather than face the public relations or regulatory fallout from an official exit ... insurers are bracing for a tough future. “There is no place that’s safe, and no place that’s not going to be impacted.”
https://www.wsj.com/business/insurance-home-auto-rate-increases-climate-change-03b806f3
also at https://archive.ph/MqPcf24,000-year-old animal found alive, well and ready to reproduce
For the past 24,000 years, the [bdelloid rotifer] multicellular microorganism had been snoozing in Siberian permafrost, having become frozen in the Arctic ice right around the same time in history that humans first ventured into North America during the Upper Paleolithic era ... Not only did the animal come back to life from its frozen nap, but it also successfully cloned itself multiple times with an asexual reproduction form known as parthenogenesis ... “The takeaway is that a multicellular organism can be frozen and stored as such for thousands of years and then return back to life” ... Previously, a pair of prehistoric nematode, otherwise known as roundworms, were discovered and successfully revived in Russia. The worms were dated to have been between 30,000 and 42,000 years old. Similarly, numerous prehistoric plants and mosses have successfully regenerated after many thousands of years trapped in the ice, the press release said. However, none of the previously discovered specimens were nearly as complex as the bdelloid rotifer.
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/24000-year-old-animal-found-alive-siberian-permafrost/961074
reporting on a study at https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(21)00624-2Snow is disappearing as the planet warms
A new study published on Wednesday shows that the human-caused climate crisis has reduced snowpack in most parts of the Northern Hemisphere in the last 40 years, threatening crucial water resources for millions of people ... Wednesday’s study, published by researchers at Dartmouth College in the journal Nature, offers the big picture — climate change has caused significant drops in snow in the world’s north since the 1980s. Areas in the US Southwest and Northeast, as well as in Central and Eastern Europe, have experienced the steepest global warming-related declines of between 10% and 20% per decade. “It’s very clear that climate change has been having negative impacts on snow and water,” said Alexander Gottlieb, lead author of the study ... Many of the world’s water supplies are already threatened by climate change through drought and heat waves that are becoming more frequent and intense. As the planet continues to warm, the study found that many highly populated areas that rely on snow are going to see increased losses in water availability ... “Most of the world’s people live in river basins that are at this precipice of falling off an accelerating snow-loss cliff, whereby every additional degree of warming means greater and greater snowpack loss.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/10/climate/snow-loss-northern-hemisphere-study-climate/index.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06794-yAvian influenza or 'bird flu' has devastated wildlife across South America. Antarctica could be next
The highly contagious and deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has been tearing a path of devastation across South America ... there are concerns the disease may have finally reached the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, on the western side of the continent. "The impact will potentially be catastrophic," Michelle Wille, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Pathogen Genomics at the University of Melbourne, said. Preventing its further spread across the frozen continent — including the vast section in the east claimed by Australia — is near impossible. "In South America, the virus travelled the entire 6,000-kilometre spine in about six months," Dr Wille said. As a member for the Antarctic Wildlife Health Network, Dr Wille is bracing for avian influenza's anticipated spread across the vast icy wilderness.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-08/antarctic-bird-flu-h5n1-threat-scientists-fear-worst/103287708Sea of methane sealed beneath Arctic permafrost could trigger climate feedback loop if it escapes
"At present, the leakage from below permafrost is very low, but factors such as glacial retreat and permafrost thawing may 'lift the lid' on this in the future," lead author Thomas Birchall, a geologist at the University Center in Svalbard in Norway, said in a statement ... Should this permafrost seal disintegrate, it could set off a chain reaction in which the methane's strong warming effect would thaw more permafrost and release even more gas [which] would further accelerate warming, melting and methane emissions, the researchers warned in the study ... The researchers found deposits rich in methane are much more common than thought on the islands. Given that the archipelago has a similar geological and glacial history to the rest of the Arctic region, the same could be true of other permafrost-covered locations near the North Pole, the statement said. The permafrost seal on Svalbard isn't uniform, the study found [and] permafrost that is leak-proof now might not stay that way.
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/arctic/sea-of-methane-sealed-beneath-arctic-permafrost-could-trigger-climate-feedback-loop-if-it-escapes
reporting on a study at https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2023.1277027/fullAlaska's snow crab season canceled for second year in a row as population fails to rebound
The crisis first began in early 2022, after biologists discovered an estimated 10 billion crabs disappeared — a 90% plunge in the population ... A recent survey of the species showed little sign of a rebound. "Environmental conditions are changing rapidly ... We've seen warm conditions in the Bering Sea the last couple of years, and we're seeing a response in a cold-adapted species, so it's pretty obvious this is connected. It is a canary in a coal mine for other species that need cold water." According to new research from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a marine heat wave linked to climate change impacted the snow crabs' food supply and drove them to starvation.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alaska-snow-crab-season-canceled-2024/Next Year Likely to Surpass 2023 as the Hottest Ever
With climate change and an incipient El Niño driving up temperatures, 2024 is likely to eclipse 2023 as the hottest year ever, meteorologists project. According to the World Meteorological Organization, the first 10 months of this year measured 1.40 degrees C warmer than the preindustrial [1850-1900 average] baseline ... Next year is likely to surpass 2023 as the hottest ever, according to the U.K. Met Office, which projects that 2024 will likely measure 1.46 degrees C warmer than preindustrial times, but could conclude up to 1.58 degrees C warmer.
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/2024-hottest-year
reporting on a study at https://wmo.int/news/media-centre/2023-shatters-climate-records-major-impacts2023 Will Officially Be the Hottest Year on Record, Scientists Say
2023 will end up being the warmest year in recorded history, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). Through the end of November, the global average temperature for the year is 0.13 degrees Celsius higher than for the first eleven months of 2016, which is currently the warmest year on record, the service reports. This year’s global mean temperature so far is also 1.46 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average between 1850 and 1900 ... “As long as greenhouse gas concentrations keep rising, we can’t expect different outcomes from those seen this year,” Carlo Buontempo, C3S director, says in a statement. “The temperature will keep rising and so will the impacts of heatwaves and droughts.”
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/2023-will-officially-be-the-hottest-year-on-record-scientists-say-180983389/How to describe 2023 in two words? Global boiling.
The last time anyone experienced a year as warm as this one, mastodons and giant sloths roamed across North America during the beginning of the late Pleistocene. Heavy rains forced nearly 700,000 people to flee their homes in Somalia after years of drought; Hurricane Otis, a storm that rapidly escalated into a Category 5, slammed into Mexico, destroying the homes of roughly 580,000 people; and an avalanche triggered an outburst from a melting glacial lake in the Himalayas in northeast India ... For a stretch in early July, the planet snapped its all-time daily heat record four times, one day after another. It added up to the hottest week ever recorded in what became the hottest summer ever recorded. Then, September broke its previous monthly heat record by half a degree Celsius — a margin so stunning that Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist, declared it “absolutely gobsmackingly bananas.”
https://grist.org/words-of-the-year/grist-2023-words-year-language-global-boiling-aqi/Red alert in Antarctica: the year rapid, dramatic change hit climate scientists like a ‘punch in the guts’
Study after study showed the breakdown of climate systems taking place much earlier than foreseen, with potentially catastrophic results When Abram was here a decade ago there was a mass of ice floating off the coast. It’s a vastly altered scene when she looks out the window now. “There’s no sea ice at all” ... The southern continent has suffered dramatic shifts ... transformations linked to the climate crisis have started much sooner than it was assumed was likely ... parts of [east Antarctica] – the coldest place on Earth – last year recording what scientists think is [Earth's] biggest heatwave ever recorded ... The director of the Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science, Matt King, says the changes in the ice and ocean had made it a year in which “even the scientists have been sobered ... people have really been alarmed ... we have seen processes that we thought might play out in the middle of the century playing out much sooner” ... Tony Press, a former head of the Australian Antarctic Division, says “[there is] a very, very high chance that sea ice in Antarctica has moved into a new state ... You would not be an alarmist if you said you were really worried about that.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/31/red-alert-in-antarctica-the-year-rapid-dramatic-change-hit-climate-scientists-like-a-punch-in-the-gutsGeese hatching eggs in winter? Experts concerned climate change is reshaping wildlife
Environment expert says animals giving birth in December is troubling sign of climate change worsening
Brian Salt, director of Wildlife Rehabilitation at Salthaven in London, Ont., said he's been seeing a lot of strange wildlife behaviour in the last few months. "Eastern gray squirrels in this area, at least in southwestern Ontario, have had not two litters as they normally do spring and fall, but this year they had three and I've never seen that before," said Salt. He's also never seen geese hatch eggs in December in the last 40 years that he's worked as a wildlife expert. But Salt is keeping an eye on the newborn London, Ont., goslings to help them survive the winter. "Here we are in December and we've got goslings that are about a week old" ... Gordon McBean, professor emeritus in geography and environment at Western University, fears the two little goslings may be a sign of a bigger issue on the horizon. "The temperature is changing at a rate much more rapidly than has historically been the case," said McBean. "[This] confuses the animals.... Their biology is such that they respond to certain temperature conditions, and they're thinking it's spring."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/geese-winter-goslings-experts-concerned-climate-change-wildlife-1.7071271Antarctic melt season off to fast start; Greenland 2023 melt season review
Antarctic Ice Sheet had above average melt in the Amery and Dronning Maud Land Ice Shelf regions, with significant melting on the Antarctic Peninsula. Greenland’s 2023 melt season was the third highest on record with persistent high melt extents in late June through mid-July, with a late August melt spike.
https://nsidc.org/ice-sheets-today/analyses/antarctic-melt-season-fast-start-greenland-2023-melt-season-reviewMinnesota Ice Festival canceled due to warm weather
Organizers of the 2024 Minnesota Ice Festival decided to cancel this year's event due to the warm winter weather. Temperatures look well above average for the next week or so, with days in the 40s, which is roughly 13 degrees above average ... The unseasonably warm temperatures have also pushed other winter businesses and activities to adjust their plans. Bait and tackle shops are suffering because there isn't enough ice on lakes for people to go ice fishing yet. Outdoor ice rinks around the metro also haven't been able to open.
https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/minnesota-ice-festival-canceled-due-to-warm-weatherWhy Are Alaska’s Rivers Turning Orange?
Streams in Alaska are turning orange with iron and sulfuric acid
One of the most remote and undisturbed rivers in America, the Salmon has long been renowned for its unspoiled nature. Now, however, the Salmon is quite literally rusting. Tributary streams along one third of the 110-kilometer river are full of oxidized iron minerals and, in many cases, acid. “It was a famous, pristine river ecosystem,” Sullivan said, “and it feels like it's completely collapsing now.” The same thing is happening to rivers and streams throughout the Brooks Range—at least 75 of them in the past five to 10 years—and probably in Russia and Canada as well. Scientists who have studied these rusting rivers agree that the ultimate cause is climate change. Kobuk Valley National Park has warmed by 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.32 degrees Fahrenheit) since 2006 and could get another 10.2 degrees C hotter by 2100, a greater increase than projected for any other national park. The heat may already have begun to thaw 40 percent of the park's permafrost ... When Sullivan dipped a sensor into the [water sample] bottle, it showed a pH of 2.95, like vinegar. The burn was from acid. “If it's got that low of a pH ... it's actively burning,” Sullivan said ... Lyons thinks permafrost thaw is lifting the icy lid off the bedrock, allowing oxygenated water to reach pyrite-rich shale for the first time in thousands of years. That's forming sulfuric acid and oxidizing the leftover iron, which would normally precipitate out of the water as rust. The acidity dissolves the oxidized iron, allowing it to flow with the ground seep just as reduced iron does ... What's really scary is that the acid might also be leaching out other metals, such as copper, zinc, cadmium, lead and even arsenic, that are then carried far downstream. Mining areas often hold enough sulfide minerals to fuel these reactions for millennia.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-are-alaskas-rivers-turning-orange/Amazon drought: 'We've never seen anything like this'
The Amazon rainforest experienced its worst drought on record in 2023. Many villages became unreachable by river, wildfires raged and wildlife died. Some scientists worry events like these are a sign that the world's biggest forest is fast approaching a point of no return ... Many scientists fear the forest is racing towards a theoretical tipping point - a point where it dries, breaks apart and becomes a savannah. As it stands, the Amazon creates a weather system of its own. In the vast rainforest, water evaporates from the trees to form rain clouds which travel over the tree canopy, recycling this moisture five or six times. This keeps the forest cool and hydrated, feeding it the water it needs to sustain life. But if swathes of the forest die, that mechanism could be broken. And once this happens there may be no going back.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-67751685Hurricanes Are Now Made of Microplastics
Hurricane Larry dropped over 100,000 microplastics per square meter of land per day. It’s another ominous sign of how plasticized the environment has become.
As Hurricane Larry curved north in the Atlantic in 2021 a special instrument was waiting for it on the coast of Newfoundland. Scientists wondered whether such a storm could pick up microplastics from the sea [and] Larry was literally a perfect storm: it hadn’t touched land ... As humanity churns out exponentially more plastic in general, so does the environment get contaminated with exponentially more microplastics. The predominant thinking used to be that microplastics would flush into the ocean and stay there [but] recent research has found that the seas are in fact burping the particles into the atmosphere to blow back onto land ... The team found that even before and after Larry, tens of thousands of microplastics fell per square meter of land per day. But when the hurricane hit, that figure spiked up to 113,000 ... These new figures from Newfoundland are also likely to be significant underestimates—and necessarily so. It remains difficult and expensive to look for the smallest of plastic particles: This research searched for bits as small as 1.2 microns (1.2 millionths of a meter), but there were likely way, way more pieces of plastic smaller than that falling into the instrument. “From previous studies, we know that there’s an exponential curve for particle numbers as you go smaller,” says University of Birmingham microplastic researcher Steve Allen, coauthor of the new paper. “So we’ve been talking about 113,000 particles per square meter a day of big stuff. It just must be staggering, what is smaller.” The researchers could also determine what kinds of plastic had fallen out of the sky. “We saw not an overwhelming amount of one certain polymer—there’s a real variety,” says Ryan ... “It’s becoming quite clear that the ocean-to-atmosphere exchange is a very real thing,” says Allen. “And the numbers in this paper here are just staggering.”
https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/12/hurricane-larry-dumped-100000-microplastics-per-sq-meter-on-newfoundland-each-day/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-023-01115-7Plastics, pesticides and pills: how chemical exposures affect sperm health
Last year, a team of international researchers published a global review which revealed that sperm concentrations in semen have been freefalling for the last 50 years. From 1973 to 2018, sperm declined at a rate of 1.2% up to 2000, accelerating to 2.6% annually thereafter. Their ultimate finding was stark: sperm counts have fallen by half ... a study led by Andreas Kortenkamp, a professor of human toxicology at Brunel University offered a first of its kind evaluation of the impact of chemicals found in everyday plastics on sperm concentration and count. This research delved into the “chemical cocktail” present in plastics [and generated] a ranking of known top offenders: bisphenol A and its substitutes, which are found in many types of plastic food containers and in the linings of cans; phthalates, another additive, and polychlorinated dioxins, a type of “forever chemical” produced by burning plastic. Researchers determined that common products and environmental contamination expose humans to these chemicals at levels up to 100 times higher than what is deemed safe, putting us at risk of endocrine disruption and related issues with reproductive health, metabolism and immune function ... Kortenkamp is reluctant to pin responsibility to avoid these chemicals on individuals. “The problem is that the pollution with these chemicals is so widespread that it’s virtually impossible by individual avoidance to reduce your exposure,” he says, pointing out that BPA, which disrupts the endocrine system because it mimics the sex hormone estrogen, is present in everyday food items ... the associations between pesticide exposure and sperm health are “enduring and strong”, says Dr Melissa Perry, dean of the college of public health at George Mason University (GMU) [and] because pesticides bioaccumulate, or build up through the food chain, animal products also contain them in high levels [and] as with the chemicals in plastic, it’s hard to completely avoid these toxins on an individual level.
https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2023/dec/19/chemicals-affecting-sperm-reproductive-health-infertility
reporting on a study at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412022002495Scottish climate changing faster than expected, new research says
The James Hutton Institute has warned that weather changes that were expected to be seen over the next three decades are already happening
Research carried out by the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen says average February temperatures have already reached some projections for 2050 [and] increases in winter rainfall have also already exceeded projections for 2050. The James Hutton Institute carried out the research on behalf of the Scottish Government. It comes as the UK, including Scotland, faced its hottest June on record and July was recorded as the world’s hottest month. The daily global sea surface temperature also broke records at the beginning of August ... The research was given to the Scottish Government in two separate reports titled Climate Trends and Future Projections in Scotland and Climate Extremes in Scotland.
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/scottish-aberdeen-cabinet-secretary-scottish-government-parliament-b2466265.htmlGlobal Tipping Points Report
Global Tipping Points is led by Professor Tim Lenton from the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute with the support of more than 200 researchers from over 90 organisations in 26 countries. The report is an authoritative assessment of the risks and opportunities of both negative and positive tipping points in the Earth system and society ... Five major tipping systems are already at risk of crossing tipping points at the present level of global warming: the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, warm-water coral reefs, North Atlantic Subpolar Gyre circulation, and permafrost regions ... Triggering one Earth system tipping point could trigger another, causing a domino effect of accelerating and unmanageable damage. Tipping points show that the overall threat posed by the climate and ecological crisis is far more severe than is commonly understood.
https://global-tipping-points.org/West Antarctica Glacier's Retreat Unstoppable: Study Says Tipping Point Crossed
The speed of [Pine Island] glacier's retreat and the rate that is has been losing ice has led to concerns about how stable the region is. Model results show that this region of west Antarctica could collapse in the future. If it does, then it could raise global mean sea level by several metres ... When glaciers, like those in west Antarctica, experience a small retreat due to some change in the climate, they can continue retreating even if the change is reversed. Essentially, the glacier gets pushed beyond a tipping point, whereby it experiences rapid mass loss until it reaches a new state. This kind of retreat is irreversible because the change in climate needed for the glacier to recover its original position is much greater than what initially caused it to retreat.
https://www.sciencealert.com/west-antarctica-glaciers-retreat-unstoppable-study-says-tipping-point-crossedThree Antarctic glaciers show rapidly accelerated ice loss from ocean warming
Several Antarctic glaciers are undergoing dramatic acceleration and ice loss. Hektoria Glacier, the worst affected, has quadrupled its sliding speed and lost 25 kilometers of ice off its front in just 16 months, scientists say. The rapid retreat “is really unheard of,” says Mathieu Morlighem, a glaciologist at Dartmouth College who was not part of the team reporting these findings. The collapse was triggered by unusually warm ocean temperatures, which caused sea ice to retreat. This allowed a series of large waves to hit a section of coastline that is normally shielded from them. “What we’re seeing here is an indication of what could happen elsewhere” in Antarctica, says Naomi Ochwat, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado Boulder who presented the findings December 11 at the American Geophysical Union meeting ... people trying to predict sea level rise need to consider sea ice, Morlighem says. Up until now, “its role in [glacier] dynamics has been completely ignored.”
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/3-antarctic-glaciers-rapid-loss-climate-changeWarmest Arctic summer on record is evidence of accelerating climate change
NOAA’s 2023 Arctic Report Card documents new records showing that human-caused warming of the air, ocean and land is affecting people, ecosystems and communities across the Arctic region, which is heating up faster than any other part of the world. Summer surface air temperatures during 2023 were the warmest ever observed in the Arctic, while the highest point on Greenland’s ice sheet experienced melting for only the fifth time in the 34-year record.
https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/warmest-arctic-summer-on-record-is-evidence-of-accelerating-climate-change
reporting on a study at https://arctic.noaa.gov/report-card/report-card-2023/Hottest Survivable Temperatures Are Lower Than Expected
Researchers say the primary “wet-bulb temperature” method for measuring dangerous heat underestimates deaths
A recent paper published in Nature Communications found that the primary methodology to measure deadly heat — called “wet-bulb global temperature” — is inadequate, resulting in artificially low mortality estimates from extreme heat events. A "wet-bulb" reading of 95 F degrees [35C wetbulb] is considered the limit for human survivability over six hours of unshaded outdoor exposure. Wet-globe readings account for a combination of air temperature, relative humidity, sun angle, cloud cover and wind speed. But the study found that millions of Americans, particularly elderly and health-compromised individuals, could die at web-bulb temperatures much lower than 95 F, particularly as humidity increases and other human factors come into play. A healthy young adult, for example, could die after six hours of exposure to a 92 F temperature with 50 percent humidity, according to the study. A healthy elderly person could die at 91 F under the same humidity levels. The ASU researchers say the wet-bulb survivability threshold does not account for real-world conditions. It assumes the exposed person is fully sedentary, unclothed and lacks any health-risk factors like body mass index or heart health. “What we see globally is how much different the physiological effects of heat are than what’s been assumed for the last decade,” Jennifer Vanos, a senior scientist at the ASU’s Global Futures Laboratory and lead author of the paper, said.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hottest-survivable-temperatures-are-lower-than-expected/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-43121-5Natural gas is migrating under permafrost, and could see methane emissions skyrocket if it escapes
Beneath Svalbard's permafrost, millions of cubic meters of methane are trapped—and scientists have now learned that it can migrate beneath the cold seal of the permafrost and escape. A large-scale escape could create a cycle of warming that would send methane emissions skyrocketing: warming thaws the permafrost, causing more gas to escape, allowing more permafrost to thaw and more gas to be released. Because Svalbard's geological and glacial history is very similar to the rest of the Arctic region, these migrating deposits of methane are likely to be present elsewhere in the Arctic.
https://phys.org/news/2023-12-natural-gas-migrating-permafrost-methane.html
reporting on a study at https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2023.1277027/fullResearchers: Frozen methane under the seabed is thawing as oceans warm, and things are worse than we thought
[More] methane hydrate is vulnerable to warming than previously thought. This is a worry as that hydrate contains about as much carbon as all of the remaining oil and gas on Earth. Releasing it from the seabed could cause the oceans to become more acidic and the climate to warm further ... venting of methane from similar ancient marine hydrate reservoirs has been linked to some of the severest and most rapid climate changes in the Earth's history ... Around continents, where the oceans are relatively shallow, hydrate is only just cold enough to remain frozen. So it is very vulnerable to any warming, and that is why these areas have been the focus of most scientific investigations [but] only 3.5% of the world's hydrate resides in the vulnerable zone, in this precarious state. Most hydrate is instead deemed to be "safe," buried hundreds of meters below the seabed in deeper waters tens of kilometers further from land. But frozen methane in the deep ocean may vulnerable after all. In oceans and seas where the water is deeper than around 450 meters to 700 meters are layer upon layer of sediment that contains the hydrate. And some of it is deeply buried and warmed geothermally by the Earth so, despite being hundreds of meters below the seafloor, it is right at the point of instability.
https://phys.org/news/2023-12-frozen-methane-seabed-oceans-worse.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-023-01333-wRapidly retreating Arctic glaciers are triggering the release of ancient methane. Here's why scientists are worried.
Hundreds of groundwater springs have appeared in the Arctic, and scientists are worried they are belching vast amounts of ancient methane into the atmosphere. The springs were exposed by retreating glaciers in Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. Researchers at the University of Cambridge believe the methane is millions of years old, seeping out from a large reserve of underground gas. This suggests a lot of greenhouse gas could still be released into the atmosphere — something that hasn't been accounted for in existing climate models ... Researchers retrieved water from 123 springs in Svalbard between 2021 and 2022. In 122 of these, they found superconcentrated methane. Their analysis suggests this methane comes from reserves of gas spawning from shale rock underlying the glaciers. The findings were published in Nature Geoscience on Thursday ... The glaciers had been acting as plugs to trap the methane in ancient rock. As [they retreat] methane trapped deep in the ground made its way to the surface.
https://www.businessinsider.com/retreating-arctic-glaciers-are-triggering-the-release-of-ancient-methane-2023-7
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-023-01210-6Global carbon emissions from fossil fuels to hit record high
Global carbon emissions from fossil fuels reached record levels again in 2023, as experts warned that the projected rate of warming had not improved over the past two years. The world is on track to have burned more coal, oil and gas in 2023 than it did in 2022 ... “Two years after Glasgow, our report is virtually the same,” said Claire Stockwell, an analyst at Climate Analytics and lead author of the CAT report. “You would think the extreme events around the world would be sparking action but governments appear oblivious, somehow thinking treading water will deal with the flood of impacts.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/05/global-carbon-emissions-fossil-fuels-recordGlobal marine life is on the move due to sea temperature rises, says study
In the ocean, tropical species are moving from the equator towards the poles as sea temperatures rise. Meanwhile, temperate species are receding as it gets too warm, they face increased competition for habitat, and new predators arrive on the scene, among other factors. This mass movement of marine life, termed tropicalization, is changing the ecological landscape of our oceans and leading to a cascade of consequences ... In recent years, climate change has altered the physical factors that affect species dispersal, such as ocean currents in areas that separate tropical/subtropical and temperate regions. These warm-water boundary currents are heating faster than the global seawater average, facilitating the poleward movement of species, and reinforcing the retraction of temperate species.
https://phys.org/news/2023-11-global-marine-life-due-sea.html
reporting on a study at https://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/fulltext/S0169-5347(23)00273-2CO2 storage by corporate lobbies is not in line with science
More than 80 percent of lobbying efforts go against science. There are three major, recurring claims that companies use in their lobbying for CO2 storage ... By simultaneously insisting on CO2 storage, companies often continue to promote the use of fossil fuels. Companies also claim that CO2 storage is the most important way to achieve climate goals and they argue that capturing CO2 contributes to creating employment. The organization examined 750 lobbying attempts for CO2 capture and storage, also known as CCS. Previously, the fossil sector tried to undermine people's trust in the science surrounding the causes of climate change, said one of the researchers. “But now the focus has shifted to spreading confusion about the science surrounding the solutions to climate change.” It is mainly oil and gas companies that lobby for CO2 capture. Shell, ExxonMobil, BP, and Occidental Petroleum, among others, promote the technology through advertising campaigns, PR, or lobbying policymakers. The IPCC has determined that storing CO2 emissions will only play a limited role in the transition to sustainable energy and that the use of fossil fuels must be significantly reduced to achieve the international climate goals for 2030.
https://nltimes.nl/2023/12/03/think-tank-co2-storage-corporate-lobbies-line-scienceFuture floods: Global warming intensifies heavy rain – even more than expected
The intensity and frequency of extreme rainfall increases exponentially with global warming, a new study finds. The analysis by researchers from the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research (PIK) shows that state-of-the-art climate models significantly underestimate how much extreme rainfall increases under global warming – meaning that extreme rainfall could increase quicker than climate models suggest. “Our study confirms that the intensity and frequency of heavy rainfall extremes are increasing exponentially with every increment of global warming,” explains Max Kotz, lead-author of the study.
https://www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/latest-news/future-floods-global-warming-intensifies-heavy-rain-2013-even-more-than-expected
reporting on a study at https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/aop/JCLI-D-23-0492.1/JCLI-D-23-0492.1.xmlScientists track rapid retreat of Antarctic glacier
Scientists are warning that apparently stable glaciers in the Antarctic can "switch very rapidly" and lose large quantities of ice as a result of warmer oceans. The researchers have published their analysis, "Ocean warming drives rapid dynamic activation of marine-terminating glacier on the west Antarctic Peninsula," in Nature Communications ... Surrounded by warmer ocean waters, the scientists believe the ice shelf thinned and became ungrounded, and the ice shelf was no longer able to hold back the glacier. As a result, the speed at which the glacier was flowing rapidly accelerated. "We were surprised to see the speed at which Cadman went from being an apparently stable glacier to one where we see sudden deterioration and significant ice loss" ... the researchers say what has happened to the Cadman Glacier can be seen as an example of a "glaciological tipping point," where a system in a steady state can take one [of] two paths based on a change in an environmental parameter [and] other glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula may be vulnerable to similar sudden changes.
https://phys.org/news/2023-11-scientists-track-rapid-retreat-antarctic.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42970-4Recalibration of limits to growth: an update of the World3 model
This paper recalibrates the 2005 World3‐03 model. The input parameters are changed to better match empirical data ... This improved parameter set results in a World3 simulation that shows the same overshoot and collapse mode in the coming decade as the original business as usual scenario of the LtG standard run. The main effect of the recalibration update is to raise the peaks of most variables and move them a few years into the future.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/375610074_Recalibration_of_limits_to_growth_An_update_of_the_World3_model
see also 'Limits to Growth' entries elsewhere on this pageOil and gas industry needs to let go of carbon capture as solution to climate change, IEA says
The industry needs to let go of the “illusion” that carbon capture technology is a solution to climate change
One of the major pitfalls in the energy transition is excessive reliance on carbon capture, according to the report ... An “inconceivable” 32 billion tons of carbon would need to be captured for utilization or storage by 2050 to limit climate change to 1.5 degrees Celsius under current projections for oil and gas consumption, according to the IEA. The necessary technology would require 26,000 terawatt hours of electricity to operate in 2050, more than total global demand in 2022, according to the IEA. It would also require $3.5 trillion in annual investment from today through mid-century, which equivalent to the entire oil and gas industry’s annual revenue in recent years, according to the report.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/23/oil-and-gas-industry-needs-to-let-go-of-carbon-capture-as-solution-to-climate-change-iea-says.htmlExposure to widely used insecticides decreases sperm concentration, study finds
Study’s author says ‘we need to reduce exposure in order to ensure men who want to conceive are able to without interference’
Exposure to several widely used insecticides probably decreases sperm concentration and may have profound effects on male fertility, new US research finds. The George Mason University paper analyzed five decades of peer-reviewed studies to determine if organophosphates and carbamate-based pesticides exposure correlated with decreased sperm concentration [and found] what co-author Melissa Perry, dean of the George Mason College of Public Health, characterized as a “strong association” ... The findings come amid growing concern over global declines in sperm concentration and quality. Recent research estimated sperm concentration has plummeted by about 50% over the last 50 years, and Perry said the insecticides could represent a piece of that puzzle ... The chemicals appear to [act as endocrine disruptors to] interfere with the human endocrine system’s hormone production, she said, which would “have a direct impact on how much and how normally sperm is produced”. The chemicals may also damage testes cells and alter neurotransmission in the brain related to reproductive purposes.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/24/insecticides-decrease-sperm-concentration-study-findsPrenatal exposure to air pollution may hurt reproductive health in adult men, study finds
In-utero exposure to common air pollutants may lower semen quality and increase the risk of reproductive system disease in men, new research finds. The peer-reviewed Rutgers University [found] a marker of reproductive health related to [endocrine disruptor] hormone levels, lower semen quality, fertility and reproductive disorders, and the research identified a likely link between it and exposure to the pollutants ... The findings come amid growing concern over global drops in semen quality, which have so far been tied to exposure to other toxins like PFAS and phthalates. Sperm concentration levels have dropped by 51% in recent decades, and the Rutgers study is among the first “to suggest that the air around is contributing to that, as well”, Barrett added ... “Testosterone is really important for the development of the male reproductive system, and anything that disrupts that normal testosterone surge during gestation has the potential to then have a cascade of effects that impacts all future reproductive development.”
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/nov/25/air-pollution-impacting-pregnancy-mens-reproductive-healthNew maps show where snowfall is disappearing
Snowfall is declining globally as temperatures warm because of human-caused climate change, a new analysis and maps from a NOAA climate scientist show. But less snow falling from the sky isn’t as innocuous as just having to shovel less; it threatens to reinforce warming, and disrupt food and water for billions of people. Climate scientists say the future of snowfall is pretty clear: A warmer world driven by human pollution means precipitation is more likely to fall as rain than snow ... A 2015 study by Mankin found 2 billion people who rely on melting snow for water are at risk of snow declines of up to 67%. This includes parts of South Asia, which rely on Himalayan snowmelt; the Mediterranean, including Spain, Italy and Greece; and parts of North Africa like Morocco, which rely on snowmelt from the Atlas mountains ... “To the extent that any of these places are managing water for the status quo — global warming is taking that status quo away,” Mankin said. “To the extent that our infrastructure and our management practices are hard coded to a historical climate — that stuff is irrelevant to the climate that is unfolding.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/25/weather/snowfall-temperatures-climate-change-water/index.htmlCO2 readings from Mauna Loa show failure to combat climate change Daily atmospheric carbon dioxide data from Hawaiian volcano more than double last decade’s annual average At the time of writing it is 422.36 parts per million. That is 5.06ppm more than the same day last year. That rise in 12 months is probably the largest ever recorded [and] underline the fact that after 27 annual meetings of the convention, all the efforts of nearly 200 member states to tackle the menace of the climate crisis have been a failure, so far. The situation continues to get worse ever more rapidly.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/nov/24/co2-readings-from-mauna-loa-show-failure-to-combat-climate-changeEarth passed a feared [2 degrees Celsius] global warming milestone Friday, at least briefly
Preliminary data show global temperatures averaged more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above a historic norm [dating] from a time before humans started consuming fossil fuels and emitting planet-warming greenhouse gases ... the climate is moving into uncharted territory. Friday marked the first time that everyday fluctuations around global temperature norms, which have been steadily increasing for decades, swung the planet beyond the dangerous threshold. It occurs after months of record warmth that have stunned many scientists, defying some expectations of how quickly temperatures would accelerate this year ... scientists said 2023 was virtually certain to surpass 2016 as the globe’s warmest on record, and likely to mark one of its warmest periods in 125,000 years [and] warming is only expected to accelerate in the coming months because of a deepening El Niño, the infamous climate pattern that drives weather extremes and raises global temperatures ... Friday’s milestone offers yet more proof of how the planet has defied climate scientists’ expectations this year.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/11/19/climate-change-2c-temperature-heat-record/2 degrees, 40 feet: Scientists who study Earth’s ice say we could be committed to disastrous sea level rise
A report released Thursday from the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative, a network of policy experts and researchers ... says if global average temperatures [reach] 2 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial baseline, the planet could be committed to more than 40 feet of sea-level rise ... a flurry of new research suggests that dangerous tipping points are nearer than once thought and that there is likely less room in Earth’s carbon budget than expected ... the scientists argue a rise in global temperatures of 2 degrees Celsius would force many to flee coastal communities. “We’re displacing millions of people with the decisions being made now,” said report author Julie Brigham-Grette, a geosciences professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. More than 60 scientists contributed to the report. Many are experts in their specialties, and some have worked on past reports for the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading body on assessing the climate crisis ... scientists revealed new research that suggests the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet might already be inevitable and that Greenland’s glaciers are melting at five times the rate they were 20 years ago. Another group of scientists found that the remaining carbon budget to limit warming was far smaller than once thought.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/scientists-study-earths-ice-say-committed-disastrous-sea-level-rise-rcna124981Record-breaking heat set to hit southern hemisphere as summer begins
As 2023 draws to a close, meteorologists and climate scientists are predicting weather patterns that will lead to record-high land and sea surface temperatures. These include a strong El Niño in the Pacific Ocean, and a positive Indian Ocean Dipole. “Those kinds of big drivers can have a big influence on drought and extremes across the southern hemisphere,” says Ailie Gallant, a climate scientist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and chief investigator for the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes ... Meanwhile, human activity continues to contribute to the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere [and] the worst might be yet to come. Atmospheric scientist David Karoly at the University of Melbourne, who was a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says that the biggest impact of El Niño is likely to be felt in the summer of 2024–25.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03547-9World facing ‘hellish’ 3C of climate heating, UN warns before Cop28
The UN Environment Programme report said that implementing future policies already promised by countries would shave [only] 0.1C off the 3C limit. Putting in place emissions cuts pledged by developing countries on condition of receiving financial and technical support would cut the temperature rise to 2.5C, still a catastrophic scenario ... The secretary general of the UN, António Guterres, has said repeatedly the world is heading for a “hellish” future. Guterres said: “Present trends are racing our planet down a dead-end 3C temperature rise. This is a failure of leadership, a betrayal of the vulnerable, and a massive missed opportunity.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/20/world-facing-hellish-3c-of-climate-heating-un-warns-before-cop28Alberta underestimates methane emissions by 50 per cent: study
The study from Carleton University’s Energy and Emissions Research Lab also says oil and gas produced in the province emit significantly more methane for the energy produced than jurisdictions such as British Columbia ... Johnson’s lab, which published its latest paper in the journal Nature Communications Earth and Environment, combined several different measuring methods [and] looked at 3,500 different oil and gas facilities and 5,600 wells. It concluded official government and industry estimates of methane emissions from Alberta’s oilpatch are 50 per cent too low.
https://globalnews.ca/news/10100317/alberta-underestimates-methane-emissions-50-per-cent-study/ampHow are people supposed to rebuild Paradise, California, when nobody can afford home insurance?
The soaring cost of home insurance has consumed the town of Paradise, residents and officials say, as it prepares to commemorate the five-year anniversary of the Nov. 8, 2018, Camp Fire. Residents have received annual premiums that near or exceed $10,000 — leaving many to wonder how they're supposed to rebuild their hard-hit community when insurance is so shockingly high for houses in an area that is supposed to be among the most affordable in California ... Neither the state Insurance Department nor a major industry lobbying group could explain the sharp price increases five years after the fire, when so many steps have been taken to protect the community against future wildfires, including initiatives to bury power lines, and clear brush and trees away from buildings ... Farmers Insurance was cited by several residents as the company that raised their premiums, but residents also said they couldn’t find other insurers offering more affordable policies.
https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/how-are-people-supposed-to-rebuild-paradise-18474031.php2023 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change
Any further delays in climate change action will increasingly threaten the health and survival of billions of people
Climate change is increasingly impacting the health and survival of people worldwide, and projections show these risks could worsen steeply with further inaction ... In 2023, the world saw the highest global temperatures in over 100,000 years, and heat records were broken in all continents ... annual heat-related deaths are projected to increase by 370% by midcentury, assuming no substantial progress on adaptation. Under such a scenario, heat-related labour loss is projected to increase by 50%, and heatwaves alone could lead to 524.9 million additional people experiencing moderate-to-severe food insecurity by 2041–60. Life-threatening infectious diseases are also projected to spread further ... These estimates provide some indication of what the future could hold. However, poor accounting for non-linear responses, tipping points, and cascading and synergistic interactions could render these projections conservative, disproportionately increasing the threat ... years of scientific warnings of the threat to people's lives have been met with grossly insufficient action, and policies to date have put the world on track to almost 3°C of heating [yet] data this year show a world that is often moving in the wrong direction. Energy-related CO2 emissions increased by 0.9% to a record 36.8 Gt in 2022, and still only 9.5% of global electricity comes from modern renewables (mainly solar and wind), despite their costs falling below that of fossil fuels. Concerningly, driven partly by record profits, oil and gas companies are further reducing their compliance with the Paris Agreement: the strategies of the world's 20 largest oil and gas companies as of early 2023 will result in emissions surpassing levels consistent with the Paris Agreement goals by 173% in 2040 — an increase of 61% from 2022 ... 78% of the countries assessed, responsible for 93% of all global CO2 emissions, still provided net direct fossil fuels subsidies totalling $305 billion, further hindering fossil fuel phase-out. Without a rapid response to course-correct, the persistent use and expansion of fossil fuels will ensure an increasingly inequitable future that threatens the lives of billions of people alive today.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)01859-7/fulltext
see also https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/nov/14/paying-in-lives-health-of-billions-at-risk-from-global-heating-warns-reportFaster Arctic warming hastens 2C rise by eight years
Faster warming in the Arctic will be responsible for a global 2C temperature rise being reached eight years earlier than if the region was warming at the average global rate, according to a new modelling study led by UCL researchers. The Arctic is currently warming nearly four times faster than the global average rate. The new study, published in the journal Earth System Dynamics, aimed to estimate the impact of this faster warming on how quickly the global temperature thresholds of 1.5C and 2C, set down in the Paris Agreement, are likely to be breached.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2023/nov/faster-arctic-warming-hastens-2c-rise-eight-yearsThe world is planning to blow the fossil fuels production limit that would keep a lid on global heating, report says
Global fossil fuel production in 2030 is set to be more than double the levels that are deemed consistent with meeting climate goals set under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the United Nations and researchers said on Wednesday ... Under the Paris pact, nations have committed to a long-term goal of limiting average temperature rises to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to attempt to limit them even further to 1.5C. While scientists say fossil fuel use must be reduced to meet the goal, countries have failed to reach any international agreement set phaseout dates for unabated coal, gas or oil use ... None of the 20 countries have committed to reduce coal, oil, and gas production in line with limiting warming to 1.5°C the report said. It said 17 of the countries have pledged to reach net zero emissions but most continue to promote, subsidise, support and plan the expansion of fossil fuel production. The 20 countries analysed account for 82% of global fossil fuel production and 73% of consumption, the report said and include Australia, China, Norway, Qatar, Britain, the UAE and the United States. The report was produced by UNEP, as well as experts from the SEI, the International Institute for Sustainable Development and think-tank E3G and policy institute Climate Analytics.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/08/climate/fossil-fuels-expansion-un-report-climate-intl/index.html
reporting on a study at https://productiongap.org/2023reportLuminous ‘mother-of-pearl’ clouds explain why climate models miss so much Arctic and Antarctic warming
Warming at the poles, especially the Arctic, has been three to four times faster than the rest of the globe ... but when tested against the past 40 years of warming, [climate] models fall short. The situation is even worse when it comes to modelling past climates with very high levels of greenhouse gases. This is a problem because these are the same models used to project into the future and forecast how the climate will change. They are likely to underestimate what will happen later this century, including risks such as ice sheet melting or permafrost thawing ... we found a special type of cloud appears over polar regions when greenhouse gas concentrations are very high. The role of this type of cloud has been overlooked so far. This is one of the reasons why our models are too cold at the poles. [These polar stratospheric clouds] form at very high altitudes (in the stratosphere) and at very low temperatures (over the poles). In the present day climate, they appear mainly over Antarctica [and] like greenhouse gases, they absorb infrared radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface and re-emit a portion of this energy [and] warm the surface. And their effect could be significant, especially in winter, when the sun does not rise. But they are difficult to simulate in a climate model, so most models ignore them. This omission could explain why climate models miss some of the polar warming, because they miss a process that warms the poles ... a few atmosphere models are finally complex enough to allow us to test [this] hypothesis. In our research we use one of them and find that under certain conditions, the additional warming due to these polar stratospheric clouds exceeds 7°C during the winter months. This significantly reduces the gap between climate models and temperature evidence from the early Eocene.
https://theconversation.com/luminous-mother-of-pearl-clouds-explain-why-climate-models-miss-so-much-arctic-and-antarctic-warming-217066
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-023-01298-wIce in Crisis: Greenland Glaciers Melting 5x Faster Than 20 Years Ago
In the largest survey of its kind ever conducted, using both satellite imagery and old aerial photos from the Danish National Archives, researchers from the University of Copenhagen firmly establish that Greenland’s glaciers are melting at an unprecedented pace. Melting has increased fivefold in the past 20 years. The study eliminates any lingering doubts about the impact of climate change on Greenland’s more than 20,000 glaciers ... “In this article, we make it clear that Greenland’s glaciers are all melting, and that things have moved exceptionally fast over the past 20 years. There is no doubt about the extent anymore and actually no reason to investigate the claim further,” says Assistant Professor Anders Bjørk from the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management.
https://scitechdaily.com/ice-in-crisis-greenland-glaciers-melting-5x-faster-than-20-years-ago/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01855-6Experts predict ‘catastrophic ecosystem collapse’ of UK forests within the next 50 years if action not taken
A panel comprising 42 experts, who represented a range of professions, organisations, and geographies, reached out to their networks to seek over-looked and emerging issues that were likely to affect UK forests over the next half a century ... when the issues were scored individually by the panel of experts, it was notable that ‘catastrophic forest ecosystem collapse’ was the most highly ranked issue, with 64% of experts ranking it as their top issue and 88% ranking it within their top three. ‘Catastrophic forest ecosystem collapse’ refers to multiple interrelated hazards that have a cascading effect on forests, leading to their total or partial collapse. This has already been witnessed in continental Europe and North America.
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/experts-predict-catastrophic-ecosystem-collapse-of-uk-forests-within-the-next-50-years-if-action-notAnalysis of European Red Lists reveals major threats to biodiversity
Biodiversity is declining globally at an unprecedented rate, with around 1 million animal, fungal and plant species potentially at risk of extinction within the next few decades ... an analysis of the conservation status of 14,669 European terrestrial, freshwater and marine species [shows] that 19% of European species are threatened with extinction ... These numbers exceed recent IPBES assumptions of extinction risk. Changes in agricultural practices and associated habitat loss, overharvesting, pollution and development are major threats to biodiversity.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0293083World behind on almost every policy required to cut carbon emissions, research finds
Countries are falling behind on almost every policy required to cut greenhouse gas emissions, despite progress on renewable energy and the uptake of electric vehicles. This failure makes the prospect of holding global temperatures to 1.5C above preindustrial levels even more remote, according to the State of Climate Action 2023 report. The prospect of staying within 1.5C will slip away altogether without drastic action, the authors warned. Sophie Boehm, research associate at the World Resources Institute and lead author of the report, said: “Global efforts to limit warming to 1.5C are lacklustre at best. Despite decades of dire warnings and wake-up calls, our leaders have largely failed to mobilise climate action anywhere near the pace and scale needed.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/14/world-behind-on-almost-every-policy-required-to-cut-carbon-emissions-research-finds
reporting on a study at https://www.wri.org/research/state-climate-action-2023Human-induced climate change increased severity of drought in Syria, Iraq and Iran
From boreal winter 2020 onwards, a large region in West Asia, encompassing the Fertile Crescent around the rivers Euphrates and Tigris as well as Iran has suffered from exceptionally low rains and elevated temperatures. The resulting 3-year drought has led to severe impacts on agriculture and access to potable water ... Scientists from Iran, the Netherlands, the UK and the US used published peer-reviewed methods [and found that] human-induced climate change has increased the intensity of such a drought such that it would not have been classified as a drought in a 1.2°C cooler world. Thus confirming that the observed finding is indeed caused by human-induced climate change.
https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/human-induced-climate-change-compounded-by-socio-economic-water-stressors-increased-severity-of-drought-in-syria-iraq-and-iran/Rapid disintegration and weakening of ice shelves in North Greenland
The glaciers of North Greenland are hosting enough ice to raise sea level by 2.1 m, and have long considered to be stable [but] we show that since 1978, ice shelves in North Greenland have lost more than 35% of their total volume, three of them collapsing completely. For the floating ice shelves that remain we observe a widespread increase in ice shelf mass losses, that are dominated by enhanced basal melting rates. Between 2000 and 2020, there was a widespread increase in basal melt rates that closely follows a rise in the ocean temperature. These glaciers are showing a direct dynamical response to ice shelf changes with retreating grounding lines and increased ice discharge ... which may have dramatic consequences for the stability of Greenlandic glaciers.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42198-2This year 'virtually certain' to be warmest in 125,000 years
Last month smashed through the previous October temperature record, from 2019, by a massive margin, the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said. "The record was broken by 0.4 degrees Celsius, which is a huge margin," said C3S Deputy Director Samantha Burgess, who described the October temperature anomaly as "very extreme". The heat is a result of continued greenhouse gas emissions from human activity, combined with the emergence this year of the El Nino weather pattern, which warms the surface waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Globally, the average surface air temperature in October was 1.7 degrees Celsius warmer than the same month in 1850-1900, which Copernicus defines as the pre-industrial period. The record-breaking October means 2023 is now "virtually certain" to be the warmest year recorded, C3S said in a statement. The previous record was 2016 - another El Nino year.
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/this-year-virtually-certain-be-warmest-125000-years-eu-scientists-say-2023-11-08Animal-to-human viral epidemics increasing
Animal-to-human viral infections have been increasing at an exponential rate, with epidemics generally becoming larger and more frequent over the past 60 years. Scientists, writing in the influential BMJ ... Human-driven changes to climate and land use, as well as population density and connectivity, are predicted to increase the frequency of animal-to-human viral spillover epidemics in the future ... “If the trend observed in this study continues, we would expect these pathogens to cause four times the number of spillover events and 12 times the number of deaths in 2050, compared with 2020. This study suggests the series of recent impactful spillover-driven epidemics are not random anomalies, but follow a multi-decade trend in which epidemics have become both larger and more frequent.”
https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/biology/animal-to-human-viral-epidemics-increasing/
reporting on a study at https://gh.bmj.com/content/8/11/e012026Famed climate scientist has a new, dire prediction
Study "Global warming in the pipeline" says temperatures will catapult into crisis territory earlier than previously thoughtThirty-five years ago, NASA climate scientist James Hansen stood in front of Congress with a bold declaration: Humans are causing an increase in greenhouse gas emissions, and it’s changing our climate. Some scoffed, but, in the decades that followed, people saw how prescient this warning was. On Thursday, Hansen and colleagues across the world released a study with another serious, though controversial, finding. Climate change will catapult global temperatures into crisis territory earlier than previously thought, the scientists said, warning that Earth is already nearing average temperatures more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial norms ... the United Nations has warned of severe and potentially irreversible consequences above that level ... [Earlier studies] may be underestimations, the new study found. Hansen and his colleagues analyzed paleoclimate data and the Earth’s energy imbalance to estimate that doubling carbon dioxide could lead to a whopping 4.8 degrees of warming compared with the preindustrial era. Under the current trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions, they predicted that the 1.5-degree benchmark will be passed in the 2020s, and 2 degrees of warming will be passed before 2050 — a markedly faster rate than the prognosis from other scientists ... “The two-degree limit can only be rescued with the help of purposeful actions to affect Earth’s energy balance,” said Hansen at the news conference. “We will need to cool off Earth to save our coastlines, coastal cities worldwide and lowlands while also addressing the other problems caused by global warming.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/11/02/james-hansen-climate-change-warning/
see also https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/02/heating-faster-climate-change-greenhouse-james-hansen
reporting on a study at https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889Recent acceleration in global ocean heat accumulation by mode and intermediate waters
The ocean absorbs >90% of anthropogenic heat in the Earth system, moderating global atmospheric warming ... ocean heat uptake has accelerated dramatically since the 1990s, nearly doubling during 2010–2020 relative to 1990–2000 ... climate change-induced warming and freshening at the surface are projected to stratify the upper ocean, which will reduce the overturning of these water masses, in turn reducing their capacity to uptake heat. This would have profound implications for the rate of future anthropogenic climate change.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42468-z
see also https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-21/ocean-temperature-records-2023/102701172Earth's salt cycle is swinging out of balance, posing yet another “existential threat," study finds
A recent study published in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment identifies a wealth of industrial activities from construction and agriculture to water and road treatment as making the planet Earth too salty ... following a systematic review of existing studies on Earth's natural salt cycle and how it has been accelerated by human activities. They warn of an “existential threat” that could lead to a problem known as freshwater salinization syndrome, or a condition in which traditionally un-salted water is suddenly filled with the stuff. Freshwater salinization syndrome can make the water uninhabitable to creatures that previously called it home and, similarly, render it unusable for human consumption. “Twenty years ago, all we had were case studies [but] we now show that it’s a cycle — from the deep Earth to the atmosphere — that’s been significantly perturbed by human activities.”
https://www.salon.com/2023/10/31/earths-salt-cycle-is-swinging-out-of-balance-posing-yet-another-existential-threat-study-findsClimate crisis: carbon emissions budget is now tiny, scientists say
Having good chance of limiting global heating to 1.5C is gone
The carbon budget remaining to limit the climate crisis to 1.5C of global heating is now “tiny”, according to an analysis, sending a “dire” message about the adequacy of climate action. The carbon budget is the maximum amount of carbon emissions that can be released while restricting global temperature rise to the limits of the Paris agreement. The new figure is half the size of the budget estimated in 2020 and would be exhausted in six years at current levels of emissions ... To retain the 50% chance of a 1.5C limit, emissions would have to plunge to net zero by 2034, far faster than even the most radical [previous] scenarios. The current UN ambition is to cut emissions by half by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050, although existing policies are far from delivering this ambition. “Having a 50% or higher likelihood that we limit warming to 1.5C is out of the window, irrespective of how much political action and policy action there is.” The study [was] published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/30/climate-crisis-carbon-emissions-budget
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01848-5Why many scientists are now saying climate change is an all-out ‘emergency’
Escalating rhetoric comes as new study shows there’s just six years left to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius at current CO2 emissions rate. On Monday, scientists released a paper showing that ... the world has only six years left at current emissions levels before racing past [the 1.5C] temperature limit. “There are no technical scenarios globally available in the scientific literature that would [avoid breaching 1.5C] or can even describe how that would be possible,” Joeri Rogelj, a climate scientist at Imperial College London, told reporters in a call ... Lenton said he isn’t afraid to use terms like “emergency” or “climate and ecological crisis” ... The language has spilled into academic publications as well. As recently as 2015, only 32 papers in the Web of Science research database included the term “climate emergency.” In 2022, 862 papers contained the phrase ... It wasn’t always this way. In the 2000s and even early 2010s, most scientists shied away making any statements that could be seen as 'political.' “We were actively told if we start to talk about solutions, if we start to talk about the policy implications of our work, we will have abandoned our supposed ‘scientific neutrality,’” Gill said. “And then people will not trust us anymore on the science” ... As the impacts of climate change escalate, scientists say, their language has changed to meet the moment. When it comes to terms like “climate emergency,” Gill says, “it’s a little bit of strategy and a lot of honesty.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/10/30/climate-emergency-scientists-declaration/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01848-5The 2023 state of the climate report: Entering uncharted territory
For several decades, scientists have consistently warned of a future marked by extreme climatic conditions because of escalating global temperatures caused by ongoing human activities that release harmful greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Unfortunately, time is up. We are seeing the manifestation of those predictions as an alarming and unprecedented succession of climate records are broken, causing profoundly distressing scenes of suffering to unfold. We are entering an unfamiliar domain regarding our climate crisis, a situation no one has ever witnessed firsthand in the history of humanity. In the present report, we display a diverse set of vital signs of the planet and the potential drivers of climate change and climate-related responses ... The trends reveal new all-time climate-related records and deeply concerning patterns of climate-related disasters. At the same time, we report minimal progress by humanity in combating climate change ... 20 of the 35 vital signs are now showing record extremes [causing] unprecedented pressure on the Earth system, resulting in many climate-related variables entering uncharted territory ... The effects of global warming are progressively more severe, and possibilities such as a worldwide societal breakdown are feasible and dangerously underexplored.
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biad080/7319571
see also https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/24/earth-vital-signs-human-history-scientists-sustainable-futureGreatly enhanced risk to humans as a consequence of empirically determined lower moist heat stress tolerance
Increased heat and humidity potentially threaten people and societies. Here, we incorporate our laboratory-measured, physiologically based wet-bulb temperature thresholds across a range of air temperatures and relative humidities, to project future heat stress risk ... using this more accurate threshold and the latest coupled climate model results, we quantify exposure to dangerous, potentially lethal heat for future climates at various global warming levels. We find that humanity is more vulnerable to moist heat stress than previously proposed because of these lower thermal limits ... Some of the most populated regions, typically lower-middle income countries in the moist tropics and subtropics, violate this threshold well before 3 °C of warming. Further global warming increases the extent of threshold crossing into drier regions, e.g., in North America and the Middle East.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2305427120Microplastics ingested by humans can be found in every organ including the brain, new study finds
In the study published in the International Journal of Molecular Science, the authors found that the small plastic particles accumulated in every tissue they examined, including deep in the brain tissue ... Exposure to the plastics led to behavioural changes in the mice similar to dementia in humans, the researchers said, with older mice more heavily impacted ... they found that microplastics could decrease a protein that impacts cell processes in the brain. Microplastics already detected in human tissue [and] detected at alarming levels in the environment as plastic waste has increased in recent decades.
https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/08/30/microplastics-could-be-widespread-in-organs-and-impact-behaviour-new-study-suggests
reporting on a study at https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/24/15/12308New study finds 50-year trend in hurricane escalation linked to climate change
New research by Rowan University climate scientist Dr. Andra Garner indicates that there have been great changes to Atlantic hurricanes in just the past 50 years, with storms developing and strengthening faster ... Garner documented this week in the journal Nature Scientific Reports that from 1971 through 2020, intensification rates from Atlantic hurricanes have changed as human-caused greenhouse gas emissions warmed the planet and its oceans. Atlantic hurricanes developed faster, from a weak Category 1 hurricane to a major Category 3 or stronger, in a 24-period than they did between 1970 and 1990 ... ever-warming ocean waters, such as the record-high temperatures reported this summer off the coast of Florida, are especially troubling, because tropical storms feed off energy in ocean water and the warmer the water, the greater the amount of energy such storms can draw ... "One of the messages from this work is that there is an urgency," Garner said. "If we don't make some pretty big changes and rapidly move away from fossil fuels, this is something we can expect to see worsen in the future."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/10/231019111220.htm
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-42669-yWhy 10 billion snow crabs starved to death in the Bering Sea
The water was too warm for them
Alaskan fishermen (and scientists) first noticed a dramatic decline in their numbers back in 2021 [but] the full extent of the crab disappearance was only [understood] earlier in 2023—over 10 billion were missing. Upon discovering this alarming decline, a research team set to work to figure out what happened ... the area had experienced a heat wave prior to, and during, the crab disappearance [and] researchers found that if water temperatures increased by just 3°C, the caloric needs of the crabs doubled. Records showed that during the heat wave, water temperatures had risen 3°C, which meant the crabs would have needed twice as much food to sustain themselves. ... that, the researchers conclude, led the crabs to starve to death.
https://phys.org/news/2023-10-billion-crabs-starved-death-bering.html
reporting on a study at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf6035World 'failing' on pledge to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030
In 2021, leaders from over 100 countries and territories -- representing the vast majority of the world's forests -- pledged to stop and reverse forest loss by 2030. But an annual assessment released Tuesday found global deforestation actually increased by four percent last year, and the world remains well off track to meet the 2030 commitment. "That 2030 goal is not just nice to have, it's essential for maintaining a livable climate for humanity," warned Erin Matson, a lead author of the Forest Declaration Assessment.
https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20231024-world-failing-on-pledge-to-halt-and-reverse-deforestation-by-2030Rapid Antarctic Melting Looks Certain, Even if Emissions Goals Are Met
As the planet warms, larger volumes of warm water are bathing the undersides of West Antarctica’s ice shelves, the giant tongues of ice at the ends of glaciers ... as the shelves melt and thin, more of the land ice moves toward the ocean, eventually contributing to sea level rise. Curbing fossil fuel emissions might help slow this melting, but scientists haven’t been sure by how much. Now, researchers in Britain have run the numbers and come to a sobering conclusion: A certain amount of accelerated melting is essentially locked in. Even if nations limited global warming to 1.5C it wouldn’t do much to halt the thinning [meaning] “some amount of sea level rise that we cannot avoid.” The findings by Dr. Naughten and her colleagues, which were published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, add to a litany of gloomy prognostications for the ice on the western side of the frozen continent. Two of the region’s fastest-moving glaciers, Thwaites and Pine Island, have been losing vast amounts of ice to the ocean for decades ... their study’s methods are broadly in line with past findings.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/23/climate/antarctic-melting-sea-level-rise.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01818-xArctic Sea Ice Resumes Its Slide
The oldest ice floating in the Arctic Sea appears to have resumed its melt toward oblivion, according to data released this week by the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. Scientists monitor the oldest ice because it tends to be more resilient, NSIDC says, better at reflecting sunlight, better at resisting melt. “Very little of the oldest (4+ years old) ice remains in the Arctic, with small patches north of Greenland and an area north of the Beaufort Sea,” the NSIDC reported after recording the year’s annual low for Arctic ice on Sept. 19 ... the loss of that ice could trigger irreversible climate feedbacks, such as the release of methane trapped in permafrost and trapped under the sea, and such as the accelerated collapse of the Greenland ice sheet, with a consequent rise in global sea levels. It would be a loss, he said, from which we will be unable to recover.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2023/10/12/polar-sea-ice-resumes-its-slideAntarctica has lost 7.5 trillion tonnes of ice since 1997, scientists find
More than 40% of Antarctica’s ice shelves have shrunk since 1997 with almost half showing “no sign of recovery”, a study has found, linking the change to the climate breakdown ... The estimated 67tn tonnes of freshwater released into the ocean over the 25-year period affects the ocean currents that transport heat and nutrients around the world ... “We expected most ice shelves to go through cycles of rapid, but short-lived shrinking, then to regrow slowly. Instead, we see that almost half of them are shrinking with no sign of recovery.” Last month, a study found that Antarctica was likely to be warming at almost twice the rate of the rest of the world and faster than climate crisis models are predicting.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/12/antarctica-has-lost-7-5tn-tonnes-of-ice-since-1997-scientists-find
reporting on a study at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi0186New Study Finds That the Gulf Stream is Warming and Shifting Closer to Shore
A new study published today in Nature Climate Change now documents that over the past 20 years, the Gulf Stream has warmed faster than the global ocean as a whole and has shifted towards the coast. The study, led by Robert Todd, a physical oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), relies on over 25,000 temperature and salinity profiles collected between 2001 and 2023. “The warming we see near the Gulf Stream is due to two combined effects. One is that the ocean is absorbing excess heat from the atmosphere as the climate warms. The second is that the Gulf Stream itself is gradually shifting towards the coast.”
https://www.whoi.edu/press-room/news-release/gulf-stream-is-warming-and-shifting/Simultaneous Megafires Will Increasingly Plague the Western U.S.
Climate change is expected to help spark more simultaneous megafires in the western United States — a trend that could make it harder for firefighters to control the blazes ... projects increases in the number of simultaneous megafires — fires with a final burned area of 1,000 acres or more — in "every part of the Western USA at multiple return periods." Simultaneous wildfires are more difficult to handle than a single wildfire, even if the total acreage is similar ... The study also expects there will be a longer period of time in which simultaneous megafires threaten the West. "The length of the season of high simultaneity also increases everywhere and extends later into the year, most notably in the northern and eastern parts of the region, and especially in the Rocky Mountain" area, according to the study.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/simultaneous-megafires-will-increasingly-plague-the-western-u-s/
reporting on a study at https://www.publish.csiro.au/wf/Fulltext/WF22107Strange methane leak discovered at the deepest point of the Baltic Sea baffling scientists
A vast methane leak has been discovered at the deepest point in the Baltic Sea, and masses of bubbles of the greenhouse gas are rising far higher into the water column than scientists had expected. Researchers found the enormous leak 1,300 feet (400 meters) beneath the water's surface during an expedition to the Landsort Deep — the Baltic's deepest spot — in August. The area leaking methane is roughly 7.7 square miles (20 square kilometers), equivalent to about 4,000 soccer fields. "It's bubbling everywhere, basically, in these 20 square kilometers," Marcelo Ketzer, professor of environmental science at Linnaeus University in Sweden and project leader, told Live Science. In shallower, coastal seabeds, methane bubbles up from decaying organic matter, while in deeper water, it tends to disperse via diffusion — meaning no bubbles are needed — and most of the diffuse methane remains in the deepest water. But the new leak doesn't follow this pattern. "There's a totally different mechanism supplying methane to the bottom of the Baltic," Ketzer said.
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/rivers-oceans/strange-methane-leak-discovered-at-the-deepest-point-of-the-baltic-sea-baffling-scientistsHurricanes Are Now Twice As Likely To Grow Into Monster Storms, New Study Says
Hurricanes in the Atlantic basin are now twice as likely as they were 30 years ago to rapidly intensify into major storms packing deadly and devastating damage, according to a new study. The paper, published Thursday by the journal Scientific Reports, pins the increase on warmer ocean waters fueled by global warming. The study is the latest in a growing catalog of research linking climate change to rapid intensification and other dynamics that make hurricanes more dangerous.
https://weather.com/news/climate/news/2023-10-19-hurricanes-rapid-intensification-warm-ocean-water
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-42669-y‘The anti-livestock people are a pest’: how UN food body played down role of farming in climate change
Ex-officials at the Food and Agriculture Organization say its leadership censored and undermined them when they highlighted how livestock methane is a major greenhouse gas
Scientists were aware that the methane produced by grazing cattle – around two-thirds of livestock emissions come from cows – was a significant chunk of the anthropogenic greenhouse gases that were heating the planet’s atmosphere [but] FAO was not the obvious candidate to jump into the breach [as] it was a country-based organisation, which felt that part of its mission was to represent the industry rather than scrutinise it ... none of the [report authors] were quite prepared for the storm that broke over their heads when Livestock’s Long Shadow (LLS) finally came out ... Livestock’s Long Shadow was the first elementary lifecycle analysis for livestock and, crucially, the first tally of the meat and dairy sector’s ecological cost. It was a bombshell [that] sent shockwaves through the meat industry and the tremors travelled quickly. Steinfeld remembered hearing complaints that “the FAO has fallen into the hands of vegan activists” and personal threats such as “the anti-livestock people are a pest that needs to be eradicated” ... The leadership at the FAO were taken by surprise by the backlash, according to sources, and the impact would be felt for the next decade, just at the moment that it became ever more important to look honestly at agriculture’s planet-heating role ... Steinfeld recalled being told by a senior official in the director general’s office: “Even if livestock contributes 18% to climate change, the FAO shall not say that. It’s not in the interest of the FAO” ... the impact on the lives and careers of the rebellious researchers had been profound, according to Steinfeld. “We were considered a difficult group ... not [with] the party line” ... Several former staff members compared the power of the agribusiness lobby over FAO policy to that of the oil and gas giants on energy policy. As Green put it: “It is all about money, similar to the fossil fuel industry.” Steinfeld added that meat lobby representatives and diplomats would talk to senior FAO managers and encourage them not to invest in work that dealt with environmental impacts ... “Private companies wanted to finance the science to achieve more outcomes that were biased in the direction they wanted, and this happened ... the trickle of scientific studies going in the livestock industry’s direction exploded” ... The issue is acutely important as the FAO will present a blueprint for pegging global temperature rises to 1.5C at the next Cop in November. As the only body overseeing global agriculture, the FAO is walking a thin line on livestock emissions ... In her own research into how agribusiness reacted to Livestock’s Long Shadow, Jacquet found “clear evidence that the industry saw it as a threat and something that they needed to control. They call it ‘a major PR problem’. It set off an industry lobbying coalition somewhat comparable to the oil and gas industry’s efforts against the Kyoto Protocol, with an enormous amount of coordination aimed at infiltrating and controlling climate science and, moreover, our understanding of the problem.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/20/the-anti-livestock-people-are-a-pest-how-un-fao-played-down-role-of-farming-in-climate-changeEven temporary global warming above 2℃ will affect life in the oceans for centuries, new study finds
Exceeding our emissions targets is known as a climate overshoot ... published research in Communications Earth & Environment investigates the implications of a climate overshoot for the oceans. Across all climate overshoot experiments and all models, our analysis found associated changes in water temperatures and oxygen levels will decrease viable ocean habitats [and] the water volumes that can provide viable habitats will decrease. This decrease persisted on the scale of centuries—well after global average temperature recovers from the overshoot ... It is better to return from an overshoot than staying at the higher level, but a lot worse than not overshooting in the first place. If we significantly overshoot the temperature targets of the Paris Agreement, many climate change impacts will be irreversible.
https://phys.org/news/2023-10-temporary-global-affect-life-oceans.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-023-01002-1Australia must urgently adapt to extreme weather or face soaring premiums, insurers warn
Global insurers say Australia is running out of time to reduce its vulnerability to the climate crisis ... “They said, ‘you’ve got five years basically’,” said the federal assistant treasurer, Stephen Jones, who led a delegation last month to insurance centres in London and Munich.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/18/australia-must-urgently-adapt-to-extreme-weather-or-face-soaring-premiums-insurers-warnI Study Climate Change. The Data Is Telling Us Something New.
2023 is almost certain to be the hottest year since reliable global records began in the mid-1800s and probably for the past 2,000 years (and well before that) ... And while many experts have been cautious about acknowledging it, there is increasing evidence that global warming has accelerated over the past 15 years rather than continued at a gradual, steady pace. That acceleration means that the effects of climate change we are already seeing — extreme heat waves, wildfires, rainfall and sea level rise — will only grow more severe in the coming years ... I’m worried that if we don’t pay attention today, we’ll miss what are increasingly clear signals. I wouldn’t be making this argument if I didn’t have strong evidence to back it up [see article] ... the world will not cool back down for many centuries, unless world powers join in major efforts to remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than we add. But that is the brutal math of climate change ... we are far from on track to meet our climate goals, and much more work remains.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/13/opinion/climate-change-excessive-heat-2023.htmlDeadly humid heat could hit billions, spread as far as US Midwest, study says
Billions of people could struggle to survive in periods of deadly, humid heat within this century as temperatures rise ... While India, Pakistan and the Gulf already have briefly touched dangerous humid heat in recent years, the study found it will afflict major cities from Lagos, Nigeria, to Chicago, Illinois if the world keeps heating up. "It's coming up in places that we didn't think about before," said Vecellio, highlighting rising risk in South America and Australia ... In a landmark 2010 study, Huber proposed that a wet-bulb temperature of 35C (95F) persisting for six or more hours could be the conservative limit for the human body. Beyond this, people were likely to succumb to heat stress if they could not find a way to cool down. A decade later, a group of American scientists co-led by Vecellio put Huber's theory to the test [and] found the limit was lower at between 30C (86F) and 31C (88F). Huber and Vecellio joined forces for Monday's study to apply this lower limit to the world under various future climate warming scenarios, ranging between 1.5C and 4C (2.7F and 7.2F) ... Another study published last month in Sciences Advances used Vecellio's threshold alongside weather station data and climate models to reach a similar conclusion: that the geographic range and frequency of dangerous humid heat will increase rapidly under even moderate global warming.
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/deadly-humid-heat-could-hit-billions-spread-far-us-midwest-study-says-2023-10-09
reporting on a study at https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2305427120
reporting on a study at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adg9297El Niño may bring extreme weather to West Coast, models suggest
Climate models are suggesting that El Niño could become a "strong" or even "super'' strong event this winter, potentially bringing a wide range of extreme weather to the West Coast. Never before have we gone into an El Niño event with global ocean and air temperatures as high as they are now ... The most recent forecast from NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) gives a roughly 70% chance for a "strong" El Niño from November through January ... But the greatest impacts and most extreme weather events will more likely occur between January and March ... One experimental model developed by the National Science Foundation's National Center for Atmospheric Research suggests that because ocean temperatures in the tropical Pacific are above a certain threshold, we could even see a "super" El Niño. If so, it could become one of the strongest such events on record.
https://www.axios.com/local/seattle/2023/10/10/el-nino-winter-forecast-west-coast-2023South America’s Winter Hot Spell Was 100 Times More Likely with Climate Change
“Worryingly, temperatures above 40 degrees C in spring are becoming common in many parts of the world,” said Izidine Pinto, a researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute and a member of the international World Weather Attribution (WWA) team that conducted the analysis, in a press release. “This is the reality of our rapidly warming climate. We’re now experiencing more and more dangerously hot days each year” ... July was the hottest month in human history, the three months from June to August were the hottest three-month period, and September was likely the most anomalously warm month (meaning its temperatures were the most above a given month’s long-term average). A tendency toward more extreme heat events and fewer extreme cold ones is a hallmark of the changing climate as humans continue to burn fossil fuels and add to the heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/south-americas-winter-hot-spell-was-100-times-more-likely-with-climate-change/Climate Change Lends New Color to the Ocean
The deep-blue sea is turning a touch greener. While that may not seem as consequential as, say, record warm sea surface temperatures, the color of the ocean surface is indicative of the ecosystem that lies beneath ... microscopic photosynthesizing organisms abound in near-surface waters and are foundational to the aquatic food web and carbon cycle. This shift in the water’s hue confirms a trend expected under climate change and signals changes to ecosystems within the global ocean, which covers 70 percent of Earth’s surface ... 56 percent of the global sea surface has undergone a significant change in color in the past 20 years ... an ocean color trend that had been predicted by climate modeling, but one that was expected to take 30-40 years ... The new method was robust enough to confirm the trend in 20 years.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/151894/climate-change-lends-new-color-to-the-oceanScientists looked at nearly every known amphibian type. They're not doing great
The assessment, published in the journal Nature, looked at two decades worth of data from more than 1,000 scientists across the world. It assessed the status of nearly every known amphibian on the planet [and] found that the status of amphibians globally is "deteriorating rapidly," earning them the unenviable title of being the planet's most threatened class of vertebrates. Forty-one percent of the assessed amphibians are threatened with extinction in the immediate and long-term, Luedtke said. Habitat loss from agriculture, logging and human other encroachment, was the biggest driver of the deterioration ... amphibians are particularly vulnerable to changes in their environment. Many rely on water to reproduce. They're cold-blooded and, thus, susceptible to small changes in temperature.
https://www.npr.org/2023/10/04/1203120401/scientists-looked-at-nearly-every-known-amphibian-type-theyre-not-doing-greatMany scientists don’t want to tell the truth about climate change. Here’s why
“Almost irrespective of our emissions choices in the near term, we will probably reach 1.5 degrees in the first half of the next decade,” said Irish climate scientist Peter Thorne, one of the lead authors on the [2023 IPCC] report ... Why is overshooting 1.5 C inevitable? Physics. There’s a nearly linear relationship between the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the average global temperature [so] by the early-to-mid-2030s, we’ll be living in a post-1.5 C world. Unless we quickly cut carbon emissions to zero. Last I checked, that’s not happening ... After this report came out, something weird happened. Scientists kept saying things like: “We need to act now to stay below 1.5” or “it’s getting harder, but still technically possible.” Technically possible? Like, if aliens appear with magic tools? ... 1.5 C has moved from “ambitious goal” to “magical thinking.” And the scientists are telling themselves a story to stave off despair. There’s something else going on, too: Scientists are shielding the public. They say: “We don’t want people to give up” or “We don’t want people to lose hope.” This is paternalism ... If you treat people like children who can’t handle the truth, they will behave like children ... When people know what they’re up against, many will be sad — I’m sad! — but then they can prepare.
https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2023/10/03/1-5-degrees-celcius-un-climate-change-report-barbara-moranCanada left battered by 'never before seen' wildfire season
"We have shattered all the records on a Canadian scale," says a shaken Yan Boulanger, a researcher for the country's natural resources ministry. There had never been so many areas burned—18 million hectares (70,000 square miles), via 6,400 fires—or so many people evacuated, at more than 200,000. "It's an impressive wake-up call because we didn't necessarily expect it so quickly" ... "There is little chance that this forest will be able to regenerate. The trees are too young to have had time to form cones which ensure the next generation," says Maxence Martin, a professor of forest ecology at the University of Quebec in Abitibi-Temiscamingue ... northern forest releases 10 to 20 times more carbon per unit of burned area than other ecosystems. That's helped Canada's emissions reach unprecedented levels, at 473 megatons this year. That's more than three times higher than the previous record, according to data from Europe's Copernicus observatory. And in the boreal forest, due to the thickness of the humus on the ground, fires can continue to burn for months ... Much of Canada, including the far north, is facing extreme drought conditions. Lightning storms earlier this year were triggering hundreds of fires in a single day.
https://phys.org/news/2023-10-canada-left-battered-wildfire-season.htmlCoastal areas will face record ‘sunny day’ flooding in 2024 — NOAA
[US] coastal communities are expected to face three times as many high-tide, or “sunny day,” flooding instances through next April, compared to two decades ago, [NOAA] officials said in a press call. “Increased high-tide flooding is not isolated to a few regions but is accelerating in many locations across the country due to sea-level rise,” said Nicole LeBoeuf, assistant administrator for NOAA’s National Ocean Service. “A new factor in the mix this year is the strengthening of El Niño conditions that are predicted to further amplify high-tide flooding frequencies at more than a third of NOAA’s tide gauge locations in the East and West coasts.”
https://www.eenews.net/articles/coastal-areas-will-face-record-sunny-day-flooding-in-2024-noaaThe South American monsoon approaches a critical transition in response to deforestation
Amazon rainforest is threatened by land-use change and increasing drought and fire frequency. Studies suggest an abrupt dieback of large parts of the rainforest after partial forest loss ... we reveal both statistical and physical precursor signals of an approaching critical transition [and] attribute these characteristic precursor signals to the nearing of a critical transition of the coupled Amazon atmosphere-vegetation system induced by forest loss due to deforestation, droughts, and fires. The transition would lead to substantially drier conditions, under which the rainforest could likely not be maintained.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.add9973
see also https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/04/south-american-monsoon-heading-towards-tipping-point-likely-to-cause-amazon-diebackAntarctica’s Floating Boundary Moves up to Nine Miles with the Tide
“We typically think of ice sheet change as being very slow, taking place over decades, centuries or even millennia,” said lead author Bryony Freer, a student researcher and glaciologist at the British Antarctic Survey and Centre for Satellite Data in Environmental Science (SENSE CDT) at the University of Leeds. “Our findings highlight that there are some processes operating over much shorter time periods — minutes to hours” ... During a rising tide, extra buoyancy lifts more of the ice shelf off the seabed and the grounding line temporarily moves inland. It returns to its seaward position at low tide ... The 15-kilometer (nine-mile) shift in the grounding line position between high and low tide described in the new paper is one of the largest observed anywhere in Antarctica. It shows the grounding line can move more than 30 kilometers (18 miles) per hour, flushing ocean water several kilometers further inland under the ice sheet. This exposure to seawater could help the ice melt more quickly from below. In less stable regions, such as the Thwaites Glacier, this process is known to have driven long-term historic grounding line retreat.
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/antarcticas-floating-boundary-moves-nine-miles-tide
reporting on a study at https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/17/4079/2023/tc-17-4079-2023.htmlArctic cyclones have become more intense and longer-lived over the past seven decades
Intense cyclones driving extreme Arctic weather and climate events have been more frequently observed during recent years [with] a long-term shift of the maximum cyclone counts from weaker to stronger cyclones and a pronounced lengthening of the duration of strong cyclones ... increased strong cyclone frequency over the Arctic ... amplified winter jet stream waves over the subpolar North Atlantic, and a strengthened summer tropospheric vortex over the central Arctic. The stratospheric vortex has also intensified.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-023-01003-0World breaches key 1.5C warming mark for record number of days
On about a third of days in 2023, the average global temperature was at least 1.5C higher than pre-industrial levels. Staying below that marker long-term is widely considered crucial to avoid the most damaging impacts of climate change. But 2023 is "on track" to be the hottest year on record, and 2024 could be hotter. "It is a sign that we're reaching levels we haven't been before," says Dr Melissa Lazenby, from the University of Sussex ... Breaching the [1.5C] Paris thresholds doesn't mean going over them for a day or a week [but] the more often 1.5C is breached for individual days, the closer the world gets to breaching this mark in the longer term.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-66857354Extraordinary September heat means 2023 is now on track to be the warmest year on record
2023 is on course to be the hottest year on record, scientists warned on Thursday, following extraordinarily high temperatures in September and the hottest summer in human history. The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said global average temperatures for January through to September were 1.4 degrees Celsius higher than the preindustrial period of 1850 to 1900. September’s temperature anomalies prompted one researcher to describe the findings as nothing less than “absolutely gobsmackingly bananas.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/04/climate-crisis-2023-set-to-be-warmest-on-record-after-september-heat.htmlBizarre year for sea ice notches another record
Antarctica finishes well below any other year in the satellite era. On September 25, the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) published preliminary dates and numbers for the annual maximum sea ice coverage in the Antarctic and minimum coverage in the Arctic. With the last few days of September in the books, NSIDC noted Wednesday that those determinations have held. After smashing the satellite-era record for minimum extent in February, Antarctic sea ice coverage continued to track well below the range of previous years through the Southern Hemisphere winter months. It maxed out just shy of 17 million square kilometers on September 10 at the end of winter—a full 1 million square kilometers below the previous record set in 1986.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/10/bizarre-year-for-sea-ice-notches-another-record/Climate Change Is Pushing Many of the World’s Amphibians Closer to Extinction
Two in five amphibian species are at risk of extinction, and their threats are increasingly coming from climate change, according to a new study published Wednesday in the journal Nature ... their cold-bloodedness makes them particularly vulnerable to climate change, because it leaves them sensitive to shifts in temperature and the environment [and] in recent years, climate change has been playing a bigger role in driving amphibians to a more at-risk status.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/climate-change-is-pushing-many-of-the-worlds-amphibians-closer-to-extinction-180983019/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06578-4Earth’s average 2023 temperature is now likely to reach 1.5 °C of warming
In May, a World Meteorological Organization report said that there was a 66% chance that the average annual temperature would breach 1.5 °C of warming between 2023 and 2027. In its August 2023 monthly update, Berkeley Earth — a non-profit climate-monitoring organization — has put the chance of 2023 being on average 1.5 °C warmer at 55%. This is up from a chance of less than 1% predicted by the team before the start of the year, and the 20% chance estimated using July’s figures.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02995-7PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ harming wildlife the world over: Study
While it’s now well known that human exposure to PFAS can cause cancer, reduce immunity, impair fertility, cause liver damage and trigger myriad other health problems, scientists are becoming increasingly aware that wildlife is also at risk ... the study’s lead author, David Andrews, notes that pretty much anywhere you look for these long-lived “forever chemicals,” you’ll find them ... his team scoured scientific journals to compile this planetwide overview [and] found that more than 600 species risk harm from PFAS. It’s an alarming discovery amid a biodiversity crisis in which about half of the world’s species are in decline and already threatened by numerous other stressors ... there are more than 6,000 PFAS chemical compounds in commercial use [and are] ubiquitous in food packaging, clothing, plastics, furniture, electronics, personal care and cleaning products, firefighting foams, medical devices and many other products. These forever chemicals break down very slowly ... Andrews says, “these chemicals have been shown to cause harm pretty much throughout the body,” where they can remain for years. They’re toxic, even in minute amounts. “Based on what we know, people are impacted at incredibly low concentrations,” he says. It seems animals are, too, and because PFAS are persistent, they bioaccumulate up the food chain ... For both humans and animals, PFAS impact the nervous system; interfere with reproduction and development; damage organs, including the liver; disrupt metabolism; cause tumors; and lower immunity. Prenatal or early exposure can cause irreversible, negative effects on health, reproduction and survival [and] alter hormones, including the thyroid, which helps regulate metabolism, growth and central nervous system and brain function in mammals ... PFAS manufacturers knew early on that these chemicals were dangerous. In 1950, the 3M company discovered that PFAS built up in blood, and the firm’s 1963 technical manual deemed the chemicals toxic. In the mid-1960s, DuPont discovered liver, kidney and spleen damage. In 1977, 3M found PFOS — the PFAS chemical used in Scotchguard fabric treatment — to be “more toxic than anticipated.” But these studies were not made public.
https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/pfas-forever-chemicals-harming-wildlife-the-world-over-study/
reporting on a study at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969723045643Canadian wildfires could keep burning through winter, minister says
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/canadian-wildfires-could-keep-burning-through-winter-minister-2023-09-07/‘Too hot’ for salmon: How climate change is contributing to the Yukon salmon collapse
Scientists think many of these threats are connected to climate change. Ferguson studies one of them, a parasite named ichthyophonus, at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game lab in Anchorage. As salmon are making their journey upstream, they’re especially vulnerable. “Their immune system is not as good, their bodies are just breaking down,” Ferguson said. Many infected fish don’t survive long enough to lay eggs ... warming river water might also play a role. “It’s crazy to be at the northern-range extent of salmon and talking about it being too hot for them,” said Vanessa von Biela, a U.S. Geological Survey ecologist. Salmon are cold-blooded [so] when it’s too hot, Von Biela said, the proteins that keep salmon cells functioning normally start to lose their shape. “Their whole physiology, their whole body is designed to be in cold water,” she said. “So when that water is warm, they just really hit these limits” ... The ocean is heating up too. Climate change is bringing on more marine heat waves, or periods of severe ocean warming. Jim Murphy is a NOAA fisheries biologist who has studied salmon at sea for 20 years. He said marine heat waves are disrupting the availability of salmon prey species ... when he examines fish, one thing is clear: all salmon — but especially chum — are not getting enough to eat ... Scientists say all three of these factors — disease, heat waves, a lack of food — exacerbate each other. A fish that didn’t eat enough is already weaker as it starts its journey up the Yukon. Add a parasite and heat stress, and that fish is a lot less likely to make it to its spawning grounds to reproduce, which means fewer fish next year.
https://alaskapublic.org/2023/09/26/too-hot-for-salmon-how-climate-change-is-contributing-to-the-yukon-salmon-collapse/Flowers Growing in Antarctica Are the Latest Sign of Environmental Catastrophe
Warmer weather has made the frigid continent more hospitable to two flowering plants, which are now proliferating. The continent’s only flowering plants have been growing rapidly in the past decade, thanks to warmer temperatures. “Antarctica is acting as a canary in a coal mine,” [said] Nicoletta Cannone, the study’s lead author ... Cannone and her team concentrated their observations of the plants on Signy Island, in the South Orkney Islands range, because of a robust historical dataset related to the plants’ growth [and] found that Colobanthus grew five times faster between 2009 and 2018 compared to growth rates between 1960 and 2009. Deschampsia, meanwhile, really took off, growing 10 times more in the past decade than before ... A study published in 2020 found that Antarctica has warmed three times faster than the rest of the world over the past 30 years ... it’s clear that warmer weather driven by climate change is accelerating the growth of these plants, at a much faster rate than scientists expected.
https://gizmodo.com/antarctic-plants-thriving-climate-change-1848542296
reporting on a study at https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)00136-1Antarctic sea ice shrinks to lowest annual maximum level on record, data shows
The new mark is the latest in a string of records for the continent’s sea ice, as scientists fear global heating could have shifted the region into a new era of disappearing ice with far reaching consequences for the world’s climate and sea levels ... US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) said preliminary analysis suggested the sea ice reached a maximum of 16.96 million sq km on 10 September and had fallen away since then. The 2023 maximum was 1.75 million sq km below the long term average and about 1 million sq km below the previous record low maximum set in 1986. Dr Will Hobbs, a sea ice scientist at the University of Tasmania, said that since April the rate of growth in Antarctica’s sea ice had been “very, very slow. This isn’t just a big change from the average, but also from the previous record. In May it was pretty obvious we were in for something spectacular” ... NSIDC said the losses of sea ice since 2016 were most likely linked to warming of the upper layer of the ocean.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/26/antarctic-sea-ice-shrinks-to-lowest-annual-maximum-level-on-record-data-showsScientists found the most intense heat wave ever recorded [anywhere on Earth] — in Antarctica
In March 2022, temperatures near the eastern coast of Antarctica spiked 70 degrees Fahrenheit (39 degrees Celsius) above normal — making it the most intense recorded heat wave to occur anywhere on Earth, according to a recent study. At the time, researchers on-site were wearing shorts and some even removed their shirts to bask in the (relative) warmth. Scientists elsewhere said such a high in that region of the world was unthinkable. [It was] warmer than even the hottest temperature recorded during the summer months in that region.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/09/23/antarctica-heat-wave-record
reporting on a study at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GL104910Bangladesh: Nearly 1,000 people die of dengue in severe outbreak
[T]he country's most severe outbreak of the disease yet ... used to be a seasonal disease in Bangladesh, but due to hotter and wetter monsoons brought about by climate change, it has been occurring more frequently [and] the condition of current dengue patients deteriorates much faster compared to the last few years ... patients have swarmed hospitals in the capital of Dhaka seeking treatment but most of the facilities are at overcapacity. Hospitals are also running short of intravenous fluids, which is crucial to treatment.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-66944315Mutilation of the tree of life via mass extinction of animal genera
We are in the sixth mass extinction event. Unlike the previous five, this one is caused by the overgrowth of a single species, Homo sapiens. Although the episode is often viewed as an unusually fast (in evolutionary time) loss of species, it is much more threatening ... entire branches (collections of species, genera, families, and so on) and the functions they perform are being lost. It is changing the trajectory of evolution globally [and] is an irreversible threat to the persistence of civilization and the livability of future environments ... the human-driven sixth mass extinction is more severe than previously assessed and is rapidly accelerating. The current generic extinction rates are 35 times higher than expected background rates prevailing in the last million years under the absence of human impacts [and] will likely greatly accelerate in the next few decades due to drivers accompanying the growth and consumption of the human enterprise ... If all now-endangered genera were to vanish by 2100, extinction rates would be 354 (average) or 511 (for mammals) times higher than background rates, meaning that genera lost in three centuries would have taken 106,000 and 153,000 years to become extinct in the absence of humans ... Most natural ecosystem have been highly modified or have disappeared altogether, and the abundance of wildlife has been greatly reduced. In well-studied major taxonomic groups, thousands of species and myriad populations have vanished [and] current animal species extinction rates are estimated to be hundreds or thousands of times higher than the background rates that prevailed for millions of years prior to the agricultural revolution. For example, there were around 10,000,000 African elephants at the beginning of the 20th century, and now there are only about 450,000 remaining.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2306987120New Orleans braces for drinking water emergency from drought-stricken Mississippi River
Officials in Louisiana are in a race against time as salt water from the Gulf of Mexico threatens drinking water supplies in New Orleans and its surrounding areas because of unusually low levels in the drought-addled Mississippi River ... The situation highlights the dangers of saltwater intrusion for communities in the southeastern part of Louisiana and adds to broader concerns about climate change and the availability of safe drinking water in drought-prone parts of the country ... close to 1 million people within the greater New Orleans area could be affected ... it’s estimated that briny water could reach water intake facilities in Belle Chasse by Oct. 13 and facilities in New Orleans later in October ... In normal times, the river’s downstream flow is powerful enough to stem the encroaching salt water, preventing it from moving too far inland [but] drought conditions have caused water levels in the Mississippi to plunge to one of their lowest levels in recent decades.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/new-orleans-braces-drinking-water-emergency-drought-stricken-mississip-rcna117218Water levels on the Mississippi River are plummeting for the second year in a row
Every water level gauge along a nearly 400-mile stretch of the Mississippi from the Ohio River to Jackson, Mississippi, is at or below the low-water threshold ... The same stretch of the river experienced record-low water levels last year in October, which brought major impacts on farming communities and barge traffic during the critical harvest period ... “We’ve been teetering on extreme drought since last fall,” said Colin Wellenkamp, the executive director of the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative, a network that includes mayors and experts along the Mississippi River ... As water levels drop, the threat of saltwater intrusion is growing in Louisiana as ocean water pushes north into drinking water systems, unimpeded by the Mississippi’s normally mighty flow rate. “Based off the current forecast, and if no action is taken, you could potentially see the saltwater wedge all the way up to the French Quarter,” Cullen Jones, commander of the Army Corps’ New Orleans District office, said ... drought and low water levels get worse in the Upper Midwest as El Nino strengthens in the Pacific Ocean, said Jonathan T. Overpeck, dean of the school for environment and sustainability at the University of Michigan. But this year’s conditions were not caused by the natural climate phenomenon, he said. “This is heat that has already been trapped in the system due to climate change ... It’s cooking the planet and we’re seeing the impacts unfold in the Mississippi River right now.”
https://us.cnn.com/2023/09/21/us/mississippi-low-water-levels-drought-climate/index.html‘It’s an emergency’: Midwest towns scramble as drought threatens drinking water
Towns and ranches face tough and expensive choices on where to draw water from, a problem likely to increase as climate change brings more extreme weather ... Persistent drought is plaguing communities across the country’s interior: The map created by the U.S. Drought Monitor shows its deepest red pockets across Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and Texas, among other states. Lack of rain has hit crops hard: In Missouri, for example, 40% of the state’s corn crop was classified as poor or very poor, according to the drought monitor. Iowa, the nation’s top corn producer, is in the midst of its worst drought in a decade with about 80% of the state in some measure of drought. Prolonged drought has even reached the banks of Lake Superior: Parts of Wisconsin have the most severe drought designation for the first time since the 1999 inception of the U.S. Drought Monitor, said Dennis Todey, director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Midwest Climate Hub. “It’s the severity of the drought and the length of the drought that are causing some confounding issues right now,” he said.
https://missouriindependent.com/2023/09/15/its-an-emergency-midwest-towns-scramble-as-drought-threatens-drinking-water/Severe plankton bloom off Thailand creates marine ‘dead zone’
An unusually dense plankton bloom off the eastern coast of Thailand is creating an aquatic “dead zone” [where] some areas in the Gulf of Thailand have more than 10 times the normal amount of plankton, turning the water a bright green and killing off marine life. “This is the first that I’ve seen it so bad,” said marine scientist Tanuspong Pokavanich. “It is very severe”... scientists believe pollution and the intense heat caused by climate change are to blame. “El Niño causes drought and higher sea temperatures,” said Tanuspong. “Everything will get worse if we don’t adjust how we manage resources, water waste and how we live.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/20/severe-plankton-bloom-off-thailand-creates-marine-dead-zoneCould Climate Change Bring On a Dangerous, Incurable Fungus?
Experts have long known that the inside of the human body is too warm for most fungal infections. But what if Earth’s rising temperature leads to a dangerous, incurable fungus that can survive inside an increasing number of humans? ... Candida auris is one of the leading opportunistic fungal infections. Scientists believe it emerged around 2009 as a result of Earth’s overall changing climate; they were surprised by how deadly it is, and how it’s seemingly resistant to many antifungal medications. [It] emerged as the result of a one-time shift in the climate ... The leading candidate for a climate-driven opportunistic fungal infection is Valley fever [which grows] in hot, dry places in California and Nevada. But as climate change shifts the temperatures in other states, cases of Valley fever are increasing in new places ... The inside of the human body is typically far too hot for a fungal pathogen [but] as the world heats up, there will be more and more areas where the outside temperature is no longer so different from the temperature inside the human body. Scientists believe this could both increase the range of existing hot-weather fungi—like the ones that cause Valley fever—and also induce other fungi to adapt to their surroundings until they are comfortable in the range of human body temperature ... Valley fever has historically been isolated to Arizona and California, but cases have expanded into other states, and will likely continue to grow [since it] does not have to change or adapt in order to increase its range, because climate change will “adapt” its geographical area instead. More and more places will hit record high temperatures and experience drought conditions where Valley fever-causing fungi can thrive.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a44674502/dangerous-incurable-fungus-from-climate-change/Time to panic? The home insurance market in California is collapsing because of climate change
This year, multiple companies, including the state’s largest home insurer, State Farm, have announced they are no longer taking on new residential and commercial properties ... seven of the 12 insurance groups operating in California — together, responsible for about 85% of the market — have pulled back [as] the speed and ferocity of climate disasters has intensified. Only eight months into 2023, the U.S. has recorded 23 climate-related disasters, each with damages of at least $1 billion ... “Throughout the United States, in different geographies, we’re reaching a point where climate change is driving to an uninsurable future,” said Dave Jones, a former California insurance commissioner and current director of UC Berkeley’s Climate Risk Initiative ... this isn’t just about insurance. It’s just that insurance is the first system to face collapse. “You can have debates about these various proposals, but what’s underlying all that is climate change, and it’s only going to get worse” ... FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell took the alarming step of warning that the agency is running out of money after a year of nonstop disasters ... Now imagine what will happen if there’s also a full-on breakdown of the insurance market.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-09-14/home-insurance-climate-change-cost-all-californiansInsurance premiums could surge in these U.S. cities because of climate disasters, new data shows
An analysis of from nonprofit research group First Street Foundation found nearly 39 million homes and commercial properties – about 27% of properties in the Lower 48 – are at risk of their premiums spiking as insurers struggle to cover the increasing cost of rebuilding after disasters ... major insurers have pulled out of or stopped writing new policies in California, Florida and Louisiana [and] it’s still growing in other places we think of as less risky ... The insurance industry is only just beginning to price the cost of climate change into its premiums [which] means fewer choices between companies as private insurers pull out of high-risk areas or restrict coverage. Nearly 7 million properties, almost 1 in 20 buildings, have already experienced price surges or have been dropped by insurance companies [and] this problem is growing.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/09/20/insurance-premiums-could-surge-in-these-u-s-cities-because-of-climate-disasters-new-data-shows/
see also https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/us-home-insurance-bubble-closer-to-popping-as-climate-risks-mount-1.1973743
reporting on a study at https://firststreet.org/research-lab/published-research/article-highlights-from-the-insurance-issue/The ‘Forever’ Glaciers of America’s West Aren’t Forever Anymore
Mount Rainier is losing its glaciers. That is all the more striking as it is the most glacier-covered mountain in the contiguous United States. The changes reflect a stark global reality: Mountain glaciers are vanishing as the burning of fossil fuels heats up Earth’s atmosphere ... One small south-facing glacier, the Stevens, no longer exists and has been removed from the park’s inventory of glaciers. Two others, known as Pyramid and Van Trump, “are in serious peril,” according to an exhaustive survey published this summer by the Park Service, and may well be gone by the time the agency carries out the next survey in the coming year or two, said Scott R. Beason, the park geologist who led the study ... Climate change has upset that balance. Spring snowpack has declined since the mid 20th century. Temperatures have gone up. Even when the winter snow is good, an unusually warm spring melts the snow quickly, as it did this year. The face of Mount Rainier is changing, likely forever.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/12/climate/mount-rainier-glaciers-climate-change.htmlAntarctic sea-ice at 'mind-blowing' low alarms experts
The sea-ice surrounding Antarctica is well below any previous recorded winter level, satellite data shows, a worrying new benchmark for a region that once seemed resistant to global warming. "It's so far outside anything we've seen, it's almost mind-blowing," says Walter Meier, who monitors sea-ice with the National Snow and Ice Data Center. An unstable Antarctica could have far-reaching consequences, polar experts warn. Antarctica's huge ice expanse regulates the planet's temperature, as the white surface reflects the Sun's energy back into the atmosphere and also cools the water beneath and near it. Without its ice cooling the planet, Antarctica could transform from Earth's refrigerator to a radiator.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-66724246Earth [exceeds] six of nine planetary boundaries
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458
see also https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/13/earth-well-outside-safe-operating-space-for-humanity-scientists-findBritain’s fish populations are in a ‘deeply troubling state’ – report
The UK’s fishing industry relies heavily on 10 key stocks. Five are either being overfished, including mackerel, which accounted for the largest volume of landings in the UK in 2021, or have reached critically low populations, such as North Sea cod. Many cod species are in crisis, pushing the popular fish close to population collapse ... The report examined a wider total of 104 populations of fish, most of the UK’s commercial fish stocks. A third (34%) are being overfished and only 45% are being sustainably fished. The rest could not be assessed due to a lack of data, it found. In addition to fishing pressure, the audit also assessed population size, finding that less than half (41%) were at a healthy size and a quarter were in critical condition. Again, the remainder could not be assessed due to a lack of data ... He stressed that the overfishing was not due to small inshore fishers that make up almost 80% of Britain’s fleet, but industrial fisheries. “Only 3% of our quota goes to small inshore fishermen in place like Newlyn,” he said. Three of the worst-managed populations – Celtic Sea cod, West of Scotland cod and Irish Sea whiting – are so low that the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (Ices), a body providing advice on delivering sustainable yields, has advised a total ban on all catches [but] repeated political decisions to set catch limits higher than scientifically advised continues to lead to overfishing.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/13/britains-fish-populations-are-in-a-deeply-troubling-state-report
reporting on a study at https://uk.oceana.org/reports/taking-stock-2023/From Carbon Sink to Source: The Stark Changes in Arctic Lakes
In the frozen north, lakes have, over millennia, locked up huge stores of carbon in their sediments ... In areas where rapidly thawing permafrost releases once-frozen stores of plants and other organic material into lakes, microbes are feasting on those extra helpings of carbon and belching out carbon dioxide and methane. Thermokarst lakes such as Alaska’s Big Trail Lake visibly boil with escaping greenhouse gases ... Across the Northern Hemisphere, 2023 will turn out to be the hottest summer on record, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service ... Greenland’s mean annual air temperature has climbed 3 degrees C since late last century. Lakes abruptly began to thaw nearly a week earlier ... “The data that we got so far from the carbon sensors shows all the lakes were carbon sources,” Hazuková says, leaning over a computer screen filled with numbers. “Between April and now, they were carbon sources the whole time ... what we saw this year was just unprecedented” ... Increased lake emissions could speed Arctic landscape thaw, fueling yet more emissions and more thaw. The impacts would be felt across the globe.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/greenland-lakes-climate-changeWater Quality Expected To Decline As Extreme Weather Becomes More Common, New Study Says
The increasing frequency of droughts, heatwaves, storms and floods is threatening the availability of water and its quality across the world, a study released Tuesday said, heightening scientist's existing concerns that climate change poses a severe threat to human health ... Research from Utrecht University in the Netherlands analyzed 965 cases of river water quality during extreme weather events worldwide, and found that the events impact the concentration of nutrients, metals, microorganisms and plastics in the water, as well as the temperature, dissolved oxygen level and salinity—the amount of dissolved salt. The study found that droughts and heatwaves are the most harmful to water quality—lesser quality water was found in 68% of rivers studied during these events—followed by rainstorms and floods, which impacted the quality of 51% of the rivers studied.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2023/09/12/water-quality-expected-to-decline-as-extreme-weather-becomes-more-common-new-study-saysTop global ports may be unusable by 2050 without more climate action, report says
The Global Maritime Trends 2050 report, commissioned by shipping services group Lloyd's Register and the independent charity arm Lloyd's Register Foundation, looked at future scenarios. "Of the world’s 3,800 ports, a third are located in a tropical band vulnerable to the most powerful effects of climate change," a Lloyd's Register spokesperson said. "The ports of Shanghai, Houston and Lazaro Cardenas (in Mexico), some of the world’s largest, could potentially be inoperable by 2050 with a rise in sea levels of only 40 cm." Other key ports including Rotterdam are already under pressure, the report said.
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/top-global-ports-may-be-unusable-by-2050-without-more-climate-action-report-2023-09-07/Climate change and insurance: The alarm bell we can’t afford to ignore
Insurance companies are pulling out of regions most susceptible to the impacts of climate change ... They’ve crunched the numbers and concluded that the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events—driven by climate change—have made some places effectively uninsurable ... This is very bad news because insurance is a cornerstone of our modern economy ... as climate change drives increases in risks and insurance companies become unable to charge large enough premiums to cover the risk, insurers are becoming increasingly reluctant to write homeowners policies in vulnerable areas. As insurance gets more expensive and harder to get, property values will begin to decline. This, in turn, erodes the property tax base ... As services degrade, even more residents may leave, amplifying the decline in property values ... A malfunctioning or non-existent insurance market will have ripple effects, destabilizing housing markets, undermining economies, and disrupting societal structures. The insurance companies are ringing the alarm bells — it’s high time to heed their warnings.
https://climateactionaustralia.wordpress.com/2023/09/12/climate-change-and-insurance-the-alarm-bell-we-cant-afford-to-ignore-climatecrisis-economiccrisis/As climate catastrophes rise, reinsurers reduce risks
Natural disasters are now happening so frequently that reinsurers -- the firms that sell insurance to insurance companies -- are scaling back their exposure to such risks [which] raises the question of whether individuals and businesses will be able to protect themselves against the effects of climate change if their insurance companies cannot even get coverage themselves ... Reinsurers identified climate change as the biggest risk they now face in a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation ... "As these losses spiral upwards, the survey highlights growing concerns that some areas and types of business could become uninsurable" ... some companies "were already retreating from the property-casualty market in 2022 ... even the strongest reinsurers have now pulled back". Another ratings agency, S&P, said "more than half of the top 20 global reinsurers maintained or reduced their natural catastrophe exposures during the January 2023 renewals" ... "There was an under-estimation of the frequency of events," said Jean-Paul Conoscente, chief executive of the property and casualty branch of reinsurer Scor ... insurers may have little choice than increase their rates or in turn reduce the risks that they cover.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230913-as-climate-catastrophes-rise-reinsurers-reduce-risksDrivers squeezed as auto insurance costs soar across the U.S.
Insurance executives and regulators blame rising repair costs and an increase in disaster-related claims
The rate hikes are also an attempt by insurers to make up for big payouts driven by floods and natural disasters, which insurers categorize as “catastrophe losses.” States prone to climate disasters have seen some of the steepest auto-rate hikes. In Colorado, car insurance premiums have increased 52 percent since last July as blizzards, tornadoes and hailstorms have led to an increased number of claims. And in Florida, premiums have soared 88 percent as insurers scramble to make up losses from hurricane-linked damage claims ... Car insurance is required by law and rates can go up or down based on factors that are out of any individual’s control, even with a clean driving record ... Some insurance companies are abandoning parts of the Southeast, leaving drivers with few options.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/05/auto-insurance-claims-disasters/40 Years Ago The EPA Made a Grim Prediction. It Came True.
https://www.sciencealert.com/40-years-ago-the-epa-made-a-grim-prediction-it-came-true
see also https://themessenger.com/tech/forty-years-ago-scientists-warned-about-climate-change-how-accurate-were-their-predictionsThe Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the globe since 1979
During the last 43 years the Arctic has been warming nearly four times faster than the globe, which is a higher ratio than generally reported in literature. We compared the observed Arctic amplification ratio with the ratio simulated by state-of-the-art climate models, and found that the observed four-fold warming ratio over 1979–2021 is an extremely rare occasion in the climate model simulations ... Our results indicate that the recent four-fold Arctic warming ratio is either an extremely unlikely event, or the climate models systematically tend to underestimate the amplification.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00498-3Marine heatwaves don’t just hit coral reefs. They can cause chaos on the seafloor
Over 90% of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases has gone into our oceans. So it’s no surprise marine heatwaves are getting much more intense and more frequent ... the most devastating marine heatwaves can penetrate right down to the sea bed ... More than a billion sea creatures died during a single heatwave off the coast of the western United States and Canada in 2021. This year, extreme heatwaves have hit large parts of the oceans during the northern summer. Fish and other creatures that can move do so, heading towards the poles or down deeper in search of cooler water. Those that can’t have to endure it or die.
https://theconversation.com/marine-heatwaves-dont-just-hit-coral-reefs-they-can-cause-chaos-on-the-seafloor-211902
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-023-00966-4‘Sleeping giant’ drought threatens more disasters after record Canada wildfires
A season of record-breaking wildfires in British Columbia is nearly over, but officials in the Canadian province have warned that a persistent drought in the Canadian province is a “sleeping giant” which could usher in a fresh set of natural disasters, including devastating floods in the coming months [and] persistently arid conditions, which worsened an already-brutal fire season, are now the source of mounting concern among provincial officials ... Last year, the western-most province was hit with a prolonged drought that dried up key streams for spawning salmon. In one video clip, 65,000 dead salmon were found clogging a dried-up creek following scores of new heat records. This year, the drought is worse, with 80% of the province’s watersheds at drought level four or five – the two highest levels. “The best-case scenario we can hope for is extended gradual rain over long periods of time that gently recharge our reservoirs, gently recharge our stream systems and our ecosystems back to a healthy place,” said Ma. But an official with the province’s river forecast centre warned the best-case scenario is also the least likely [and] too much rain hitting the parched ground could be disastrous. In 2021, back-to-back atmospheric rivers led to surging rivers, mudslides, flooded cities and destroyed highways [and the disaster is believed to have cost nearly C$5bn (US$3.65bn) in non-insured damages. Ma pointed out that while the province had also experienced a drought in the weeks leading up to [those] floods, it was “nothing close to what we see this year”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/07/canada-british-columbia-drought-wildfire-floodTorrential downpours in Greece deliver year's worth of rain in 18 hours
Greece and southern Europe have been slammed by torrential rain and devastating flooding. Climate scientists say extraordinarily high ocean temperatures are likely to blame, turning a "fairly common" weather set-up into a powerhouse of energy ... The rain has smashed records in parts of Central Greece. The coastal village of Zagora received more than 750 millimetres of rain – more than a years' worth — in the space of just 18 hours on Tuesday ... Omega blocks are a fairly regular occurrence across Europe during spring and summer [but] they didn't always deliver extreme weather — especially not to the degree that Greece had experienced. She said high sea surface temperatures in the Mediterranean Sea had contributed to the situation in Greece. "The situation would not be this bad if the Mediterranean Sea were not so hot," she said. "If you went there on summer vacation, it was almost impossible to actually go swim because it was so hot.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-08/greece-southern-europe-flood-omega-weather-pattern/102828274‘Major disruptor’: El Niño threatens the world’s rice supplies
Across south and south-east Asia, unpredictable weather is threatening supplies of rice, a staple food for more than half the world’s population. In July, India, the world’s largest rice exporter, imposed an export ban on non-basmati white rice after crops were damaged by heavy rains. The ban – along with concerns over the arrival of the El Niño phenomenon, which brings hotter, drier weather across the region – has caused prices in key exporting countries Thailand and Vietnam to soar ... the ripple effects have been felt widely ... When the last major El Niño event occurred in 2015-2016, south-east Asia experienced an output decline of 15m tonnes of rice [and] drove an increase in disease, brought drought and fuelled huge forest and peatland fires that led to a haze crisis across the region ... “I hope El Niño is just a little blip,” Horton says. If it isn’t, the prospects for agriculture would be “petrifying” ... Surasri Kidtimonton, the secretary-general of Thailand’s Office of the National Water Resources, predicted in August that the central plains, the country’s rice belt, could face a 40% drop in accumulated rain this season ... The effect of the climate crisis on rice, both in terms of its quantity and quality, is dramatic, says Dr Siwaret Arikit, director of the Rice Science Center at Kasetsart University in Thailand. “We have identified so many emerging diseases that were not very severe before. But after climate change, they have destroyed [crops].”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/sep/07/major-disruptor-el-nino-threatens-the-worlds-rice-suppliesAerosol geoengineering will not stop Antarctic ice sheet from melting, simulations suggest
Artificially dimming the Sun by injecting aerosols into Earth’s atmosphere may help to delay a significant consequence of climate change in Antarctica, but not stop it — researchers in Switzerland and the UK have revealed. Through new simulations, a team led by Johannes Sutter at the University of Bern has showed that the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) can only be avoided if we eliminate global emissions of greenhouse gases as quickly as possible. Climate scientists have been warning that global efforts to end our reliance on fossil fuels are not happening fast enough to avoid dangerous consequences for Earth’s climate in the coming centuries. Indeed, some scientists argue that the situation is so urgent that we should investigate geoengineering schemes for cooling the Earth. “The window of opportunity to limit the global temperature increase to below two degrees is closing fast, so it is possible that technical measures to influence the climate will be seriously considered in the future,” says Sutter.
https://physicsworld.com/a/aerosol-geoengineering-will-not-stop-antarctic-ice-sheet-from-melting-simulations-suggest/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01738-wLife and Death in America’s Hottest City
Across the U.S. each year, significantly more people die from heat than from any other weather-related event, including hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and even rip currents. Many of these deaths are concentrated in and around Phoenix ... As temperatures increase worldwide, heat’s invisible danger will threaten more and more people. By 2030, according to a new climate analysis from the Washington Post and the nonprofit CarbonPlan, four billion people will be exposed to at least a month of extreme heat. (In dry climates, like Phoenix, that could mean a month of days reaching a hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit or higher.) By 2050, that number will increase to five billion, or more than half the planet’s population ... In the hot sun, or a very hot dwelling, the body must work to maintain its normal internal temperature, generally about ninety-eight degrees. The heart starts pumping more blood to the skin, where it can cool down. You will start sweating profusely, and might experience cramps or nausea. If you cannot find a way to cool off, your core temperature will quickly increase, forcing your heart to beat faster, which increases your metabolism, and generates more heat. As blood is diverted away from your internal organs, including your brain, they become starved of oxygen. You will feel dizzy, or faint. Once your body temperature rises above a hundred and three, heatstroke can begin. Sweating stops, and the skin will turn red, hot, and dry. Your head will throb. As the blood pressure falls in your brain, you will probably pass out. Sprawled, unconscious, in the hot sun, you will continue to overheat. Once your body reaches a hundred and five or a hundred and six degrees, your limbs might convulse, and, at a hundred and seven, your cell membranes melt, and proteins inside the cells unfold. Organ function starts to shut down; muscle tissues begin to disintegrate. It becomes increasingly difficult to cool you off fast enough to save your life. The heart just stops.
https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/life-and-death-in-americas-hottest-cityOur forests have reached a tipping point
As extreme as this year's wildfire emissions have been, they are just the latest escalation in a multi-decade flood of CO2 pouring out of Canada's "managed" forests and forestry ... I turned to data in Canada's official national greenhouse gas inventory, plus recent wildfire data from the European Union's Earth Observation Program. The falling green line at the start of the chart shows that in the early 1990s, the forest was a valuable carbon sink, helping to slow global warming. That all changed after 2001, the tipping point year for Canada's managed forest. As the rising red line on the chart shows, since that year, the forest has emitted more CO2 than it has absorbed. A lot more. And this crisis is escalating. There is this feel-good myth in Canada that our massive forest is offsetting some of our massive fossil fuel emissions. That might have been true decades ago under our old, stable climate. But we’ve so weakened our forest that it has switched to hemorrhaging CO2 instead of absorbing it ... the roughly 3,700 MtCO2 lost to the atmosphere since 2001 is just the tip of our nation's gigantic forest-carbon iceberg. There is more than enough carbon remaining to fill Canadian summers with raging megafires and toxic smoke for centuries to come ... Canada's managed forest is a gigantic carbon bomb. Decades of surging emissions from it are a flashing red light, warning that we are at risk of it running away from our control.
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2023/08/21/analysis/our-forests-have-reached-tipping-pointEven the bayous of Louisiana are now threatened by wildfires
In just one month, 7 times more acres burned than in an average year
Lakes and ponds lay completely empty, their beds cracked. Swatches of earth that would be, on a normal year, lush and green had turned brown. Acres of evergreen trees — oaks and magnolias and azaleas, signatures of the state — had begun to wither. “It looks like West Texas” ... The fires follow a summer of record-breaking heat and dryness across Louisiana. Shreveport in northwest Louisiana had its second warmest summer on record; New Orleans had its second driest ... The drought, in combination with record-breaking heat, has sucked many of Louisiana’s characteristic bayous dry.
https://grist.org/wildfires/even-the-bayous-of-louisiana-are-now-threatened-by-wildfires/Amid record heat, even indoor factory workers enter dangerous terrain
Extreme heat caused by human-induced climate change has wreaked havoc on the bodies of outdoor workers. Now, heat scientists and labor researchers say even those who labor indoors are not safe. Across Southeast Asia’s manufacturing hubs, rising temperatures, mixed with high humidity, are leaving workers baking in poorly ventilated sweatshops ... the pace of climate change is driving temperatures beyond what even the most heat-adapted communities can handle [and] Southeast Asia may not respond to rising temperatures until it is too late, scientists say ... because it is already so hot, every incremental rise in mercury pushes communities closer to the “human limit” of what’s tolerable, Lee said. “Our leeway,” he added, “is getting tighter and tighter.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/08/31/extreme-heat-indoor-work-asia/Climate change raising risks of financial disaster for homeowners, insurers and bankers
The rising weather-related risks from climate change, from coastal hurricanes to western wildfires, are increasingly pinching insurance companies, which are raising rates and pulling back from parts of the country in an effort to stay in business ... Banks could be next, said Dennis Kelleher of public interest nonprofit Better Markets. “The banking crisis is only right behind the climate and insurance crisis,” Kelleher told The Hill. “Every time an insurance company sounds an alarm, the banks ought to be shaking in their boots, because they’re getting the bill” ... some insurance companies have left areas where the risk is highest, leaving an increasing numbers of Americans without insurance, according to The Wall Street Journal. That’s a risk for banks since nearly two-thirds of U.S. homeowners are paying a mortgage to a lender — generally a bank. Banks, in turn, use these homes as collateral in a dizzying array of loans and associated financial derivatives — all of which are based, Kelleher argued, on the increasingly obsolete assumption that the properties themselves are backed by insurance ... Kelleher argued that a wave of defaults is coming — one that will hit small community and regional banks first. “We’re not talking about a decade, we’re talking over the next several years of there being significant bank and financial system consequences for what the insurance companies are experiencing right now,” he said.
https://thehill.com/policy/equilibrium-sustainability/4180007-climate-change-raising-risks-of-financial-disaster-for-home-owners-insurers-and-bankers/Home insurers cut natural disasters from policies as climate risks grow
At least five large U.S. property insurers — including Allstate, American Family, Nationwide, Erie Insurance Group and Berkshire Hathaway — have told regulators that extreme weather patterns caused by climate change have led them to stop writing coverages in some regions, exclude protections from various weather events, and raise monthly premiums and deductibles. Major insurers say they will cut out damage caused by hurricanes, wind and hail from policies underwriting property along coastlines and in wildfire country, according to a voluntary survey conducted by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, a group of state officials who regulate rates and policy forms. Insurance providers are also more willing to drop existing policies in some locales as they become more vulnerable to natural disasters ... Other changes will come. “More targeted hurricane risk mitigation actions are being finalized and will start by year-end 2023,” Nationwide told regulators.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/03/natural-disaster-climate-insurance/Olive Oil Prices Surge as Persistent Drought Ravages Mediterranean Groves
Olive trees in Spain and neighboring countries have little fruit, which itself could wither away
Cano, like thousands of other producers in Andalusia, has battled two years of drought and high temperatures. [He] says, “I will maybe have 10 percent of my normal yield.” Spain is the world’s largest olive oil producer, accounting for nearly half of global production. By some estimates, Andalusia accounts for the majority of the country’s output ... In 2022 the country’s production was around half of its recent average. Without a lot of rain, and soon, the current drought and heat will knock the 2023 harvest down to similar levels ... Elsewhere in Spain, extreme weather events devastated melon, watermelon and citrus crops. In Sicily, olive oil producers say unseasonal rainfall and cold weather will halve their output. “Sicily normally produces 50,000 [metric] tons of olive oil per year,” says Mario Terrasi of the Oleum Sicilia cooperative. “This year, if we reach 30,000, I think we’ll pop a good bottle.” And in other parts of Italy, farmer associations have said that heat waves, floods and hailstones the size of clementines damaged local melon, watermelon, cherry and wine grape crops ... “The Mediterranean basin is a hotspot of climate change,” says Ramona Magno, a researcher at the Italian National Research Council’s Institute of BioEconomy, part of the Italian National Research Council ... Much of Spain’s land now faces climatic conditions that could lead to desertification. “The moisture of the soil is disappearing; wells are getting empty; underground waters are going lower and lower.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/olive-oil-prices-surge-as-persistent-drought-ravages-mediterranean-groves/Don’t Look Down
As permafrost thaws, the ground beneath Alaska is collapsing
Temperatures in Fairbanks have shifted so much that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officially changed the city’s subarctic designation in 2021, downgrading it to “warm summer continental.” As the climate warms, the ancient ice that used to cover an estimated 85 percent of Alaska is thawing. As it streams away, there are places where the ground is now collapsing ... potential homebuyers who want to avoid it are left to guesswork. “There’s no comprehensive map of permafrost,” said Kellen Spillman, the director of the department of community planning for the Fairbanks North Star Borough ... Romanovsky predicts that within a decade, the destruction in most parts of Alaska will get worse [and] regions with continuous and ice-rich permafrost, like those in northwest Alaska, will see the worst damage ... thawing permafrost makes it difficult to build or even get a loan for a new home. “Where do you get your insurance? Through which bank can you finance to even get your home fixed? When the ground is falling underneath you, what do you do?”
https://grist.org/science/alaska-permafrost-thawing-ice-climate-change/Rapid shifts from drought to downpour occurring more often
New research shows that wild swings from severe drought to heavy rains are becoming more common with climate change in many parts of the world and that feedback loops from the land itself are likely contributing to the trend ... “We are especially concerned with the sudden shift from drought to flood,” said coauthor Zong-Liang Yang, a professor at The University of Texas at Austin Jackson School of Geosciences. “Society usually has difficulty responding to one kind of natural disaster like drought, but now you suddenly have floods too. And this has been happening in many places.” The study was published in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment. The team looked at three global sets of meteorological and hydrological data from 1980 to 2020 to document the trend ... such rapid shifts are expected to become more likely with climate change.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/999996
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-023-00922-2America Is Using Up Its Groundwater Like There’s No Tomorrow
Overuse is draining and damaging aquifers nationwide, a New York Times data investigation revealed.
Many of the aquifers that supply 90 percent of the nation’s water systems, and which have transformed vast stretches of America into some of the world’s most bountiful farmland, are being severely depleted ... Groundwater loss is hurting breadbasket states like Kansas, where the major aquifer beneath 2.6 million acres of land can no longer support industrial-scale agriculture. Corn yields have plummeted ... in New York State, overpumping is threatening drinking-water wells on Long Island, birthplace of the modern American suburb ... In other areas, including parts of Utah, California and Texas, so much water is being pumped up that it is causing roads to buckle, foundations to crack and fissures to open in the earth. And around the country, rivers that relied on groundwater have become streams or trickles or memories. “There is no way to get that back,” Don Cline, the associate director for water resources at the United States Geological Survey, said of disappearing groundwater. “There’s almost no way to convey how important it is.”
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/28/climate/groundwater-drying-climate-change.htmlIndia To Ban Sugar Exports In Addition To Rice—As Corn, Soybeans And More Crops Falter [Globally] In Extreme Heat And Drought
India is the world's second-largest exporter of sugar behind Brazil, according to the International Sugar Organization, and the largest consumer and producer—but this season has only exported 6.1 million tons compared to the 11.1 million in the 2021-2022 season. India has also limited its exports of non-basmati white rice in a move that took about a fifth of international rice stocks off the market, while growers in China have seen reduced rice yields over the last two decades and farmers in Pakistan and California saw too much and too little rain, respectively, devastate their yield. For Texas growers of sorghum, a grain used to feed livestock and make cereals, the summer's unrelenting heat wave has caused the plants to dry up and fall over—one farmer described them as "cannibalizing" and "eating itself up trying to survive." Through the Sun Belt—where peanuts, corn and cotton are usually plentiful—triple-digit heat has led to lowered expectations for cotton crops and late-planted corn while drought in the Midwest means Kansas soybeans, which thrive in 85 degrees, are also struggling. Some areas of Florida are experiencing their driest year to date in terms of rainfall, and Austin's summer is the fourth-driest on record. In China, fields and grain drops have been damaged in the north by heavy rain and El Nino rains are expected to affect the corn planting season in parts of Argentina.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2023/08/23/india-to-ban-sugar-exports-in-addition-to-rice-as-corn-soybeans-and-more-crops-falter-in-extreme-heat-and-drought/Brutal heat wave developing over central U.S., with excessive heat watches in Midwest
Dueling heat waves — across Texas and the South, and in the Pacific Northwest to northern Plains — are joining forces to deliver the hottest stretch of weather this year to the central Plains and parts of the Midwest. Underneath the heat dome, dozens of daily high marks are at risk ... weather models are suggesting that temperatures could run 15 degrees or more above average — punishing, unflinching heat. Summer 2023 has featured extreme heat bouncing from place to place, while focusing fury on spots like the Desert Southwest and Gulf Coast. This expansion of the heat dome may be the most wide-reaching of the summer.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/08/17/heat-wave-texas-excessive-heat-warning/South-east Australia marine heatwave forecast to be literally off the scale
Australia’s south-east could be in for a marine heatwave that is literally off the scale, raising the prospect of significant losses in fishing and aquaculture. The Bureau of Meteorology has forecast a patch of the Tasman Sea off Tasmania and Victoria could be at least 2.5C above average from September to February, and it could get hotter. Oceanographer Grant Smith said the colour-coded scale the bureau uses to map forecast sea surface temperature anomalies stops at 2.5C. “We didn’t account for anomalies that high when we developed this ... it could be 3C, it could be 3.5C, but we can’t see how high it goes,” he said ... “we’d expect to see impacts on remaining kelp forest in the region,” he said, noting that Tasmania’s giant kelp species had already lost 95% of its historical range.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/aug/27/south-east-australia-marine-heatwave-forecast-to-be-literally-off-the-scaleMilan [Italy] records hottest day in 260 years as Europe sizzles in another heat wave
The Milano Brera weather station recorded an average 91.4 degrees Fahrenheit on Wednesday, the highest since it started registering temperatures in 1763. The northern Italian city's previous record, of 91 degrees, was set in 2003, when a killer heat wave left more than 70,000 people across Europe dead. Milan also recorded the highest minimum temperature on Thursday at 84 degrees, ARPA said ... Spain has been sweltering under its fourth heat wave of the season, while Greece is struggling for the second time in a month against major wildfires. The sizzling temperatures experienced by several countries in southern Europe over the past days are part of a series of ferociously hot, dry summers caused by climate change.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/italy-milan-records-hottest-day-260-years-europe-sizzles/Europe is heading into another heatwave
This is expected to expand from Spain to central Europe lasting until at least next week, according to Swiss and French weather agencies. It is forecast to engulf southern France, Switzerland, southern Germany, and northern Italy. Weather forecasters predict temperatures up to 42C in Italy, 40C in France and 37C in Switzerland. Climate change makes heatwaves more intense and more frequent, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has confirmed.
https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/08/18/europe-is-heading-into-another-heatwave-here-are-all-the-areas-affectedGreece Battles Its Most Widespread Wildfires on Record
Wildfires ravaged northern Greece for a fifth consecutive day on Wednesday and forced the evacuation of settlements on the outskirts of the capital, Athens. The authorities said they were battling scores of blazes around the country after weeks of searing heat turned many areas into tinderboxes. “It is the worst summer for fires since records began,” said Vassilis Kikilias, the civil protection minister ... By Wednesday evening, it was clear that on both major fronts for the wildfires, in the north and near Athens, they remained largely uncontrolled ... Greece is one of a set of countries straddling the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East that will become hotter and drier faster than most of the rest of the world as climate change advances. This summer has been a preview of the future, which is coming fast.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/23/world/europe/greece-wildfires-athens.htmlClimate change has doubled the chance of weather fueling wildfires in Canada: scientists
The chance of the dry, hot weather currently fueling extreme wildfires in Canada has at least doubled due to climate change. That is the conclusion drawn by an international group of climate scientists in an analysis. This type of fire-hazardous weather is no longer a rarity, the researchers from Canada, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom made clear in their publication ... The climate scientists associated with the World Weather Attribution project have calculated how much the unprecedented fires are related to global warming. They found a strong connection and warned that the incendiary weather, which is a significant contributor to the fires, is becoming more common.
https://nltimes.nl/2023/08/22/climate-change-doubled-chance-weather-fueling-wildfires-canada-scientists
see also https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/22/climate-change-canada-wildfires-twice-as-likely
reporting on a study at https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/climate-change-more-than-doubled-the-likelihood-of-extreme-fire-weather-conditions-in-eastern-canada/Canada wildfires: At least 30,000 households in British Columbia told to evacuate
Two huge fires in the Shuswap region merged overnight, destroying blocks of houses and other buildings. To the south, travel to the waterside city of Kelowna has been restricted, and smoke from nearby fires hangs over Lake Okanagan ... a huge fire continues to edge towards the city of Yellowknife. An official deadline to evacuate the city - the capital of Canada's Northwest Territories - lapsed on Friday ... Canada is having its worst wildfire season on record, with at least 1,000 fires burning across the country, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC). Experts say climate change increases the risk of the hot, dry weather that is likely to fuel wildfires.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66562610Kelowna declares state of emergency after wildfire jumps Okanagan Lake, prompting more evacuations
Thousands of people have been forced from their homes in B.C.'s Okanagan, with evacuation orders issued after a wildfire jumped Lake Okanagan, sparking spot wildfires in Kelowna. A state of emergency has been declared by the City of Kelowna, which has a population of almost 150,000. Officials say the McDougall Creek wildfire has grown rapidly after being discovered Tuesday about 10 kilometres northwest of West Kelowna, which is on the western side of Lake Okanagan, while Kelowna is on the east.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/what-you-need-to-know-about-bc-wildfires-aug-17-2023-1.6938796It Is No Longer Possible to Escape What We Have Done to Ourselves
Serge Schmemann, a member of the NY Times editorial board, reported from Lac Labelle, Quebec, where he has a cottage.
After decades of being told that we humans were knowingly, fundamentally and radically altering the climate of our planet, the eerie orange haze had invaded the zone in which my family had always thought we could take refuge. This was not another report of melting icecaps, rising oceans, blistering heat or unusual tornadoes somewhere far away; this was a horizon-to-horizon pall over us, rising from infernos across the great Canadian north that had been ignited by record temperatures, record drought and ceaseless lightning storms. Nothing like it had ever happened before — these wildfires began far earlier and spread far faster than usual, and they have burned far more boreal forest than any fire in Canada’s modern history ... And as the summer unfolded, it became evident that it’s not just smoke, and not just Canada. This has been the summer from climate hell all across Earth, when it ceased being possible to escape or deny what we have done to our planet and ourselves. “Even I am surprised by this year,” said Michael Flannigan, a professor at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia, who has been studying the interaction of fire and climate for over 35 years. “Temperatures are rising at the rate we thought they would, but the effects are more severe, more frequent, more critical. It’s crazy and getting crazier.” The extreme weather conditions around the world are interconnected and insidiously self-accelerating ... “Those of us who do the science have been shouting ‘1.5 or die’ for years, trying to warn people” [but] that target no longer seems possible ... In the news, other tensions and anxieties are again taking precedence over climate change. But it’s hard, very hard, to look out on the familiar lake and forests the way we used to, before the sun was reduced to a murky red dot in an orange sky and an orange pall descended on the children playing on the beach.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/23/opinion/canada-wildfires-climate-change.htmlTropical forests may be warming to a point where plant photosynthesis fails, study warns
In a study published recently in the journal Nature, scientists concluded that tropical forests could be drawing closer to the temperature threshold where leaves lose the ability to create life-sustaining energy by combining CO2, water and sunlight. “When leaves reach a certain temperature, their photosynthetic machinery breaks down,” said Gregory R. Goldsmith, a study co-author and assistant professor of biological sciences at Chapman University. “But this study is really the first study to establish how close tropical forest canopies may be to these limits,” he told reporters recently. Researchers said that a leaf’s ability to perform photosynthesis — and produce oxygen as a byproduct — is permanently lost above 116 degrees Fahrenheit and results in its death. New research discovered that some tropical leaves are already surpassing that critical temperature ... “Photosynthesis typically starts to decrease at much lower temperatures than 116 degrees, but that is fully reversible,” said Martijn Slot, a study author and forest ecologist with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. “When conditions improve, photosynthesis resumes. Above 116 degrees, the damage is irreversible.” [Some plants] are already reaching critical temperature thresholds.
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-08-26/global-warming-could-cause-leaf-photosynthesis-to-fail
see also https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/plants/tropical-rainforests-could-get-too-hot-for-photosynthesis-and-die-if-climate-crisis-continues-scientists-warn
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06391-zRolling blackouts, sudden shutdowns: Extreme heat boils — and roils — the Middle East
Soaring demand for cooling — fans, air conditioners, fridges and freezers — is overtaxing electrical grids long beset by war damage, mismanagement or corruption ... have to contend with infrastructure that’s simply not designed to cope with the increased stress ... But a strategy of shutdowns and public holidays comes with knock-on economic effects that risk negating any benefit. “The very, very crude sort of assessment of the impact is that ... a holiday means people don’t work, and you lose 1/365th of your annual gross domestic product,” said Ziad Daoud, chief emerging markets economist for Bloomberg Economics. Even for those sectors that continue operating, Daoud added, “productivity is already lower in hot climates, and if you remove the air conditioning, productivity will be massively hit.”
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-08-22/power-blackouts-shutdowns-extreme-summer-heat-middle-eastAustria’s fastest melting glacier gives up decades-old corpse
An alpine guide has discovered on Austria’s fastest melting glacier what are believed to be the remains of an Austrian who died more than 20 years ago, according to a statement from local police. The discovery follows the finding of other human remains on the same glacier less than two months ago. Climate change has accelerated the melting of glaciers, with the retreating ice releasing bodies of alpinists it has held for years, sometimes even decades.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/23/austrias-fastest-melting-glacier-gives-up-decades-old-corpseThousands of penguins die in Antarctic ice breakup
A catastrophic die-off of emperor penguin chicks has been observed in the Antarctic, with up to 10,000 young birds estimated to have been killed. The sea-ice underneath the chicks melted and broke apart before they could develop the waterproof feathers needed to swim in the ocean. The birds most likely drowned or froze to death. Dr Peter Fretwell, from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), said the wipeout was a harbinger of things to come. More than 90% of emperor penguin colonies are predicted to be all but extinct by the end of the century, as the continent's seasonal sea-ice withers in an ever-warming world. Dr Fretwell and colleagues report the die-off in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-66492767
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-023-00927-xIndonesia’s tropical ‘Eternity Glaciers’ could vanish within a few years, experts warn
Two of the world’s few tropical glaciers in Indonesia are melting, and their ice may vanish by 2026 or sooner, as an El Niño weather pattern lengthens the dry season, the country’s geophysics agency has said ... But little could be done to prevent the shrinking, he said, adding that the event could disrupt the regional ecosystem and trigger a rise in the global sea level within a decade. “We are now in a position to document the glaciers’ extinction,” added Donaldi, a coordinator of the climate research division of the agency, known as BMKG.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/25/indonesia-tropical-glaciers-melting-el-ninoSwitzerland: Meteorologists reach record 5,298 metres before finding zero degrees
"The radiosonde from Payerne on the night of 20 to 21 August 2023 measured the 0°C isotherm at 5,298 m, which is a record since measurements began in 1954", MétéoSuisse said ... Switzerland, like much of Europe, is currently experiencing a heatwave, with temperatures exceeding 30°C below 800 metres since Friday.
https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/08/21/switzerland-meteorologists-reach-record-5298-metres-before-finding-zero-degrees‘Forever chemicals’ found in 76% of Pennsylvania streams sampled
USGS sampled streams across Pennsylvania and found 76% of them contained the presence of at least one compound from the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) family, according the first study of its kind looking at the problem across a single state and associating possible sources ... USGS says that the chemicals’ persistence in the environment and prevalence make them a top concern for water quality. Some health effects associated with PFAS include decreased fertility, testicular and kidney cancers, high cholesterol, autoimmune and thyroid problems, alterations in hormone functioning [endocrine disruptor], and developmental effects ... Results of the study, conducted in partnership with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, were published recently in the journal Science of The Total Environment.
https://www.inquirer.com/science/pennsylvania-forever-chemicals-pfas-usgs-streams-20230824.html‘Forever Chemicals’ Are Everywhere. What Are They Doing to Us?
The chemicals, many of which repel water, oil and grease and can often withstand high heat, are used in countless consumer products. They also linger in the environment. The exposure, they found, damaged the rodents’ immune system ... Around the same time, other potential health impacts of PFAS were starting to receive attention [such as the] cholesterol and cancer outcomes highlighted by the DuPont study and the decreased vaccine response demonstrated in the Faroese children ... [endocrine disruptors], metabolism and immune dysfunction, liver disease, asthma, infertility and neurobehavioral issues — their diversity [potentially because] “PFAS has a great deal of complexity” ... In the late ’70s and early ’80s, the companies were seeing alarming signals in their animal studies — in one study, monkeys exposed to extreme levels of PFAS died — and among their employees. In 1979, DuPont observed that workers who had contact with the chemicals appeared to have higher rates of abnormal liver function. In 1981, 3M researchers alerted their DuPont colleagues that pregnant rats exposed to PFAS had pups with eye irregularities; that year, an employee at a Teflon plant gave birth to a child with one nostril, a keyhole pupil and a serrated eyelid. In 1984, DuPont detected PFAS in the tap water of three communities near its West Virginia factory. In 1998, 3M told the Environmental Protection Agency that it had tried and failed to identify members of the public without PFOS — a type of PFAS it was producing — in their blood ... DuPont’s human and animal research wouldn’t become known until 2001, after a lawsuit forced the company to turn over documentation related to PFOA to opposing counsel ... They are in flamingos in the Caribbean and plovers in South Korea. They are in alligators. They are in Antarctic snow. In Europe, they’ve been discovered in organic eggs; in the United States certain states have found them in produce and meat. Last year, a study of PFAS in freshwater fish in the United States revealed median levels so elevated that eating a single serving could be equivalent to drinking PFAS-contaminated water for a month ... PFAS may also throw off the endocrine system, which is driven by the hypothalamus region of the brain and encompasses hormone-producing organs throughout the body ... they wonder if PFAS are “obesogens,” chemicals thought to disrupt the system’s metabolism, potentially affecting the body’s ability to maintain a stable energy balance. “Obesity is an epidemic,” Grandjean told me. “And we can’t explain it by lack of physical activity or changing habits” ... “Are PFAS the cause of ADHD? Do they increase the risk of autism? There is plenty of evidence to say we should be concerned” ... In 2020, Linda Birnbaum and 15 other researchers published their scientific rationale for the regulatory management of PFAS as a chemical class in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters. “They are all problematic,” she says. “When they’re tested, they all do the same stuff.” Scott Belcher, an associate professor of biological sciences at North Carolina State University’s Center for Environmental and Health Effects of PFAS, concurs: “I have not seen a PFAS tested for toxicity that’s not toxic.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/16/magazine/pfas-toxic-chemicals.htmlHow climate change could cause a home insurance meltdown
California isn't alone. Insurance companies in states like Colorado, Louisiana and Florida are paring down business to shield themselves from ballooning losses as climate change fuels more-intense disasters. Earlier this month, the insurance arm of AAA announced it would not renew some "higher exposure" home insurance policies in Florida, and Farmers Insurance announced it will stop offering new home insurance policies in the state and won't renew thousands of existing ones, in part because of rising losses from hurricanes. Nationwide, millions of homeowners are having to find different kinds of coverage, which typically come at a higher price with less protection. If people can't get insurance, they can't get mortgages ... Meanwhile, the cost of disasters keeps going up. People continue moving to coastal regions vulnerable to hurricanes and to rural, forested areas around the country that are prone to wildfires ... The United States is "marching steadily towards an uninsurable future," says Dave Jones, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley and the state's former insurance commissioner ... A spate of devastating climate-driven hurricanes and wildfires in recent years has only exacerbated the problem, causing so much damage that many small insurance companies have gone bankrupt, and larger companies have continued to pull out of the riskiest areas.
https://www.npr.org/2023/07/22/1186540332/how-climate-change-could-cause-a-home-insurance-meltdownAustralia’s Climate Risks Are Making Home Insurance Unaffordable
Australian home insurance premiums jumped the most in two decades in the past year ... Median home insurance premiums surged 28% [and] the number of “affordability stressed” households — those spending more than one month’s worth of their gross annual income on home insurance – climbed to 1.24 million ... “We expect these home insurance affordability pressures are likely to continue to worsen due to climate change,” Paddam said.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-13/australia-s-climate-risks-are-making-home-insurance-unaffordableWe could be 16 years into a methane-fueled 'termination' event significant enough to end an ice age
"A termination is a major reorganization of the Earth's climate system ... Within the termination, which takes thousands of years, there's this abrupt phase, which only takes a few decades," Nisbet said. "During that abrupt phase, the methane soars up, and it's probably driven by tropical wetlands." Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas released both by human activities — including fossil-fuel burning, landfills and agriculture — and natural processes, such as decomposition in wetlands. Human emissions soared in the 1980s with the expansion of the natural gas industry and stabilized in the 1990s, Nisbet said. But in late 2006, something "very, very odd" happened, he said. Methane started rising again, but there was no dramatic shift in human activity to blame [and] this rise was accelerating. By 2020, methane was increasing at the fastest rate on record ... In the new study, published July 14 in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Nisbet and colleagues compared current trends in atmospheric methane to the abrupt phase of warming during ice age terminations. "The closest analogy we have to what we think is happening today is these terminations," Nisbet said.
https://www.space.com/climate-change-termination-event-end-ice-age
reporting on a study at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GB007875Scientists Zero In On Timing, Causes Of Ice Age Mammal Extinctions In Southern California
Radiocarbon dating on bones in the La Brea Tar Pits leads archaeologist Dr. Michael Waters to warn that history may be repeating itself.
Waters says the team’s findings reveal that Ice Age mammal populations in southern California were steady from 15,000 to around 13,250 years ago. Afterward, there was a sharp decline in the population of the seven animals studied, and they all became extinct between 13,070 to 12,900 years ago ... humans arrived in North America’s Pacific coast 16,000 to 15,000 years ago and lived alongside the megafauna for 2,000 to 3,000 years before their extinction ... Waters says the impact of hunting on the demise of the megafauna likely was minor because of the low population of humans on the landscape. However, the fires would have been devastating, resulting in the loss of habitat causing the rapid decline and extinction of the megafauna in southern California. The study suggests these fires were ignited by humans, which had increased in number by that time. “Fire is a way that small numbers of humans can have a large impact over a broad area,” said Waters, who also cautions that climate changes observed in present-day California are similar to those of the late Pleistocene.
https://today.tamu.edu/2023/08/17/scientists-zero-in-on-timing-causes-of-ice-age-mammal-extinctions-in-southern-california/
reporting on a study at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo359425 Countries, Housing One-quarter of the Population, Face Extremely High Water Stress
One-quarter of the global population face extremely high water stress each year, regularly using up almost their entire available water supply. And at least 50% of the world’s population — around 4 billion people — live under highly water-stressed conditions for at least one month of the year ... Globally, demand has more than doubled since 1960. Increased water demand is often the result of growing populations and industries like irrigated agriculture, livestock, energy production and manufacturing. Meanwhile, lack of investment in water infrastructure, unsustainable water use policies or increased variability due to climate change can all affect the available water supply ... A country facing “extreme water stress” means it is using at least 80% of its available supply ... water stress in these countries is mostly driven by low supply, paired with demand from domestic, agricultural and industrial use. The most water-stressed regions are the Middle East and North Africa, where 83% of the population is exposed to extremely high water stress, and South Asia, where 74% is exposed ... By 2050, an additional 1 billion people are expected to live with extremely high water stress, even if the world limits global temperature rise to 1.3 degrees C to 2.4 degrees C (2.3 degrees F to 4.3 degrees F) by 2100, an optimistic scenario ... For the Middle East and North Africa, this means 100% of the population will live with extremely high water stress by 2050.
https://www.wri.org/insights/highest-water-stressed-countries
see also https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2023/water-scarcity-map-solutions/Wildfire smoke is warming the planet more than previously thought, scientists say
Among the complex mix of particles that make up wildfire smoke, an abundant but thus far unknown kind has been shown to trap a surprising amount of heat, according to new research. These results indicate that wildfires, which are expected to become harsher and more frequent in the coming years due to human-induced climate change, are heating Earth to a greater extent than previously thought ... this latest research, which was a collaboration between NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), add a strong urgency to better understand the warming effects of brown carbon. These particles are technically included in existing climate models, but their warming effects remain a huge uncertainty, and it's also worth noting that they're released into the atmosphere during the burning of fossil fuels as well. "Typically, climate models ignore or dismiss organic carbon as insignificant compared to black carbon when it comes to warming, but that is not what field observations reveal," Rajan Chakrabarty, an associate professor of energy, environment and chemical engineering at the Washington University in St. Louis and the new study's lead author, said.
https://www.space.com/wildfire-smoke-warming-planet-study
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-023-01237-9Winter heatwave in Andes is sign of things to come, scientists warn
Exceptional winter heat in the Andean mountains of South America has surged to 37C, prompting local scientists to warn the worst may be yet to come as human-caused climate disruption and El Niño cause havoc across the region. The heatwave in the central Chilean Andes is melting the snow below 3,000 metres (9,840ft), which will have knock-on effects for people living in downstream valleys who depend on meltwater during the spring and summer. Tuesday was probably the warmest winter day in northern Chile in 72 years ... “The main problem is how the high temperatures exacerbate droughts (in eastern Argentina and Uruguay) and accelerate snow melting.” Water shortages are already a dire problem in and around Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo, where reservoirs are running dry and tap water is no longer drinkable.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/06/winter-heatwave-andes-sign-things-come-scientists-warn‘The extreme events scare me the most’: climatologist warns of Italy’s vulnerability to climate crisis
[Italy] has become known, at least by scientists, as Europe’s climate risk hotspot owing to a range of vulnerabilities including its geographical location, diverse topography and densely inhabited Mediterranean coastal areas. “There are three elements that make Italy one of the most fragile places in the world,” said Mercalli. “One is that the Mediterranean is smaller in size compared with other oceans and is warming up more quickly. The second is that we are located in between the tropical climate of Africa and temperate climate of northern Europe – the heat in Sicily is now more like Africa, while northern Italy is like Sicily was 50 years ago. The third is the crowded Mediterranean – any extreme event risks a heavy impact in inhabited areas” ... But despite these stark facts, there has been scant action by successive governments while the strategy of the current rightwing administration, led by Giorgia Meloni, is vague. Before taking power last October, Meloni had railed against the “ultra-ecologists of the left” and in July said Italy cannot be expected to “dismantle” its economy and businesses in order to implement the “ecological transition”. Her deputy, Matteo Salvini, last week joked on TV about the heatwaves and melting glaciers, saying “summers are hot, winters are cold”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/04/the-extreme-events-scare-me-the-most-climatologist-warns-of-italys-vulnerability-to-climate-crisisLand and sea surface temperature hotter than ever before
Since April, the global average daily surface temperature of the Earth's oceans (excluding the polar regions) has remained at record levels, which is simply far too warm for the time of year. For example, according to Copernicus analyses, daily average maritime temperatures had already reached 20.94 degrees Celsius on July 19. In addition, record surface water temperatures have persisted in the North Atlantic [and] according to data from the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), preliminary measurements show the sea surface in the North Atlantic actually reached an all-time high temperature of 24.9 degrees Celsius during the last week of July this year. NOAA scientist Xungang Yin told the AFP news agency that sea surface temperatures are expected to "continue to rise in August." This situation is extreme. "We've seen maritime heatwaves before, but this is very persistent and spread out over a large surface area" in the North Atlantic, [said] Karina von Schuckmann of the Mercator Ocean International research center.
https://www.dw.com/en/sea-surface-temperature-hotter-than-ever-before/a-66444694‘We’re Changing the Clouds.’ an Unforeseen Test of Geoengineering is Fueling Record Ocean Warmth
Pollution cuts have diminished “ship track” clouds, adding to global warming For years, the north Atlantic was warming more slowly than other parts of the world. But now it has caught up, and then some. Last month, the sea surface there surged to a record 25°C—nearly 1°C warmer than the previous high, set in 2020—and temperatures haven’t even peaked yet. “This year it’s been crazy,” says Tianle Yuan, an atmospheric physicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The obvious and primary driver of this trend is society’s emissions of greenhouse gases [but] researchers are now waking up to another factor, one that could be filed under the category of unintended consequences: disappearing clouds known as ship tracks. Regulations imposed in 2020 by the United Nations’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) have cut ships’ sulfur pollution by more than 80% and improved air quality worldwide [but] by dramatically reducing the number of ship tracks, the planet has warmed up faster, several new studies have found. That trend is magnified in the Atlantic, where maritime traffic is particularly dense. In the shipping corridors, the increased light represents a 50% boost to the warming effect of human carbon emissions.
https://www.science.org/content/article/changing-clouds-unforeseen-test-geoengineering-fueling-record-ocean-warmthThe climate wrecking ball striking food supply
The recent global heat wave, deadly floods across China's grain belt and wildfires that spanned several continents have put a spotlight on how climate change may wreak havoc on the world's most-consumed food crops. Studies show that future climate projections indicate significant reductions of crop yields in high-risk regions. Corn, wheat and rice together make up a major portion of the human diet, accounting for roughly 42% of the world's food calories ... [at warming of 2°C] corn yield will decrease worldwide, and increase little under global warming by 1.5 °C (2.7°F) ... loss risk of corn by 2°C "much more serious." The latest UN climate change report suggests that human actions may have rendered the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C target, and possibly even its 2°C benchmark, infeasible [and] also found that climate change has fueled "mostly negative" yield impacts across sub-Saharan Africa, South America, the Caribbean, southern Asia and western and southern Europe ... One example: Rice production in India, the world's largest rice exporter, has been constrained by both droughts and heavy rains. On July 20, the Indian government banned exports on non-basmati white rice ... "We should be anticipating some drastic supply shocks," [said] Seungki Lee, agricultural economist at Ohio State University ... "Temperatures are higher, productivity is lower. The impacts are already here. They've already happened," said Ortiz-Bobea. Some experts, like Ortiz-Bobea, are skeptical of claims that U.S. agriculture is becoming more climate-resilient ... "It's pretty much every summer now that a record-breaking heatwave is happening, not just in one breadbasket, but multiple breadbaskets around the world," Lesk said. "We are currently heading into a climate regime that we have never seen before."
https://www.axios.com/2023/08/07/climate-commodities-food-supply
reporting on a study at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jaa2.20Dutch cherry growers face a dramatic year with harvests halved due to cold, wet spring
Heavy rainfalls that have recently occurred are also causing worries about the crops of berries and potatoes
“2023 is one of the worst years in recent memory," stated Johan Sonneveld of the industry consulting firm, Fruitconsult, commenting on the state of the cherry harvest. Although there are minor regional variances, Sonneveld pointed out that "in Betuwe, where the majority of cherry growers are located, the harvest volumes are down by 50 to 60 percent." This situation has been confirmed by Erik Vernooij, a cherry grower from De Kersenhut in Cothen, located in the province of Utrecht. Owning 16 hectares of cherry trees, Vernooij said, "My father has been in this business for 45 years, and he has never experienced anything like this" ... the apple harvest would be around 30 percent less than usual. Apart from the unfavorable spring weather, apple growers have struggled with the apple blossom beetle. "This insect has the potential to ravage an entire orchard," warned Ron Mulders, chairman of the Dutch Fruit Growers Organization (NFO) ... the crop farming sector is also facing uncertain months. "The winter wheat should have been harvested by now, but incessant rain has made that impossible." Storm Polly, which hit the country early last month, already partially flattened the wheat crops.
https://nltimes.nl/2023/08/05/dutch-cherry-growers-face-dramatic-year-harvests-halved-due-cold-wet-spring‘A dire situation.’ What caused Georgia’s catastrophic peach crop failure?
Loss of up to 95% of a normal year’s yield
“It’s been a devastating year for a peach grower in the [US] state of Georgia. Really, no one was spared,” said Will Bentley, president of the Macon-based Georgia Agribusiness Council ... Georgia had another in a streak of increasingly warm winters, followed by punishing spring frosts in March. Together, these conditions amounted to a deadly combination of weather events [that] “killed off most of either the blooms or the early peaches that had already bloomed and then fertilized, because they can’t handle the frost” ... The dual weather events responsible for destroying the peach harvest — warming winters and spring frosts — are both part of wider climatological cycles ... “it’s clear in Georgia that the trend in winter temperatures is towards warmer temperatures over time,” Knox said ... Agriculture is Georgia’s largest industry, and the wide-ranging effects of rising global temperatures are felt directly and indirectly across the state’s crops, regions, and seasons. But many of Georgia’s farmers and agribusiness advocates remain reluctant to acknowledge the responsibility of climate change for the dramatic changes.
https://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/state/georgia/article276405991.htmlGlobal heating likely to hit world food supply before 1.5C, says UN expert
The world is likely to face major disruption to food supplies well before temperatures rise by the 1.5C target, the president of the UN’s desertification conference has warned ... the effects of drought were taking hold more rapidly than expected ... “some very bad things could happen, in terms of soil degradation, water scarcity and desertification, way before 1.5C” ... The problems of rising temperatures, heatwaves and more intense droughts and floods, were endangering food security in many regions, Donwahi said. “[Look at] the effects of droughts on food security, the effects of droughts on migration of population, the effect of droughts on inflation. We could have an acceleration of negative effects, other than temperature,” he said.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/12/global-heating-likely-to-hit-world-food-supply-faster-than-expected-says-united-nations-desertification-expertUN Security Council: Food insecurity tops agenda
In July, Russia [killed] a crucial grain deal brokered by Turkey and the United Nations ... The collapse of the grain deal poses a serious threat to the food security of many lower-income countries already grappling with hunger and economic crises ... The war in Ukraine and the collapse of the Black Sea grain deal are just two among several factors contributing to a long-standing global food crisis. Alarmed by rising prices and growing demand, other countries producing large amounts of staple food items have restricted their exports. Extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, drought and floods have also adversely affected harvests ... disrupting agriculture and fishing sectors, and exacerbating food cost inflation. Last year's devastating floods in Pakistan, for instance, washed away nearly half the country's crops, while record-breaking heatwaves in southern Europe severely damaged summer crops and dairy products ... about 700 million people faced hunger in 2022 [with] Africa, the Caribbean, and Western Asia experiencing the most alarming increases in hunger levels.
https://www.dw.com/en/un-security-council-food-insecurity-tops-agenda/a-66433948Pensions funds under fire over reliance on non-scientific climate change advice
Report criticises pension funds and their advisers for underestimating likely impacts from future climate change
The report, Loading the DICE Against Pension Funds, argues that many pension funds develop investment models based on advice from a handful of investment managers and consultants that drastically underestimate the negative impact global warming could have on businesses in their portfolios in the near future ... Financial institutions, central banks, regulators and governments underestimate the dangers and economic damages of climate change and the resulting impact on asset prices, because they rely on research from “a small, self-referential group of climate economists that ignores the impact of climate tipping points”, according to the report ... “Global warming is not a minor cost-benefit problem that will mainly affect future generations, as the economic literature asserts, but a potentially existential threat to the economy, on a timescale that could occur within the lifespan of pensioners alive today,” according to the report’s author, economist professor Steve Keen, a distinguished research fellow at University College of London. Keen was formerly the head of the School of Economics, History and Politics at Kingston University, London ... providers had “a fiduciary duty to correct the erroneous predictions they have given their members”. It said they should obtain second opinions on the likely scope of economic damages resulting from climate change directly from scientists rather than relying solely on economists ... Previous research has also highlighted similar dangers, including a 2021 paper from Boston University’s School of Law, which concluded that under-pricing of corporate climate risk was leading to misallocation of investment capital.
https://impact-investor.com/pensions-funds-under-fire-over-reliance-on-non-scientific-climate-change-advice/
reporting on a study at https://carbontracker.org/reports/loading-the-dice-against-pensions/From Egypt to Iran, heatwave compounds Middle East electricity problems, climate change burdens
A heat wave continued to hit the Middle East on Wednesday, leading to electricity issues in Egypt and Jordan, closures in Iran and continued challenges in drought-hit Iraq.
• Egypt: Cairo reached 100F (38C) ... daily power cuts [which] could last into September
• Jordan: Amman was 91F (33C) ... “demand for electricity has soared”
• Iraq: Baghdad high 120F (49C) ... Basra [was] hottest city in the world with 122F (50C) ... chronic electricity shortages
• Kuwait: Kuwait City 122F (50C) ... malls remain busy due to heavy air conditioning
• Iran: Tehran’s was 102F (39C) ... authorities announce national emergency holidays on Tuesday and Wednesday ... also electricity shortages
• Lebanon: electricity shortages, [also] fuel shortages that make powering generators difficult ... humidity can make the weather unbearable
https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/08/egypt-iran-heatwave-compounds-middle-east-electricity-problems-climate-change#ixzz89J3eA5VTTime-travelling pathogens and their risk to ecological communities
The unprecedented rates of melting of glaciers and permafrost are now giving many types of ice-dormant microorganisms concrete opportunities to re-emerge, bringing to the fore questions about their potential. Yet, the scientific debate on the topic has been dominated by speculation, due to the challenges in collecting appropriate data or designing experiments to elaborate and test hypotheses. For the first time, we provide an extensive exploration of the ecological risk posed to modern ecological communities by these ‘time-travelling’ pathogens [and] found that invading pathogens could often survive, evolve and, in a few cases, become exceptionally persistent and dominant in the invaded community [which suggests] that unpredictable threats so far confined to science fiction and conjecture could be powerful drivers of ecological change.
https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1011268
see also https://www.smh.com.au/national/our-permafrost-is-thawing-and-with-it-bacteria-and-viruses-20230801-p5dsu0.htmlEven frozen Antarctica is being walloped by climate extremes, scientists find
The southernmost continent is not isolated from the extreme weather associated with human-caused climate change, according to a new paper in Frontiers in Environmental Science that tries to make a coherent picture of a place that has been a climate change oddball. Its western end and especially its peninsula have seen dramatic ice sheet melt that threatens massive sea level rise ... Antarctic sea ice veered from record high to shocking levels far lower than ever seen. What follows if the trend continues, a likely result if humans fail to curb emissions, will be a cascade of consequences from disappearing coastlines to increased global warming hastened by dramatic losses of a major source of sunlight-reflecting ice. That’s something scientists have long been watching and are even more concerned about now. “A changing Antarctica is bad news for our planet,” said Martin Siegert, a glaciologist, professor of geosciences at University of Exeter and lead author on the paper ... “I’m not an alarmist, but what we see is alarming,” said Waleed Abdalati, an environmental researcher at the University of Colorado not involved with the study. He said that extreme events are one thing, but when superimposed on a trend — a trend of global warming that heightens those extreme events — that’s a cause for concern. “We can handle events,” he added, “but we can’t handle a steady increase of those destructive events.” That’s something climate scientists say we’ll need to prepare for, by continuing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while introducing adaptation measures for sea level rise and extreme weather around the world. “We’ve been saying this for 30 years,” said Ted Scambos, an ice scientist at the University of Colorado whose paper from 2000 was cited in Siegert and Hogg’s article. “I’m not surprised, I’m disappointed. I wish we were taking action faster.”
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-08-08/even-frozen-antarctica-is-being-walloped-by-climate-extremes-scientists-find
reporting on a study at https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2023.1229283/fullFears over Antarctic sea ice as yearly ozone layer hole forms ‘very early’
Experts say larger-than-normal hole could cause further warming of Southern Ocean and heighten damaging effects of 2022 Tonga volcano eruption Satellite data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts suggests the hole has already begun to form over Antarctica. Dr Martin Jucker, a lecturer at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, said the hole usually began forming at the end of September, peaking in October before closing in November or December. “Starting in August is certainly very early,” he said. “We don’t usually expect that” ... modelling by Jucker and collaborators, including Chris Lucas of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, has suggested it will be larger than usual in 2023, due to long-lasting atmospheric changes after the undersea Tonga volcano explosion in January last year ... Jucker said he was concerned about the impact of the hole on Antarctic sea ice, which has hit record lows over the past two years. “The more UV radiation that reaches Antarctica [and] the Southern Ocean means that there is more energy available to melt ice,” Jucker said. “Now that we have so little sea ice, instead of [reflective] white ice there is very dark blue ocean ... Other impacts from the Tonga volcano eruption – such as higher-than-usual surface temperatures over large regions of the world – are expected to continue until the end of the decade.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/08/fears-over-antarctic-sea-ice-as-yearly-ozone-layer-hole-forms-very-earlyNo quick fix to reverse Antarctic sea ice loss as warming intensifies
Sea ice in the Antarctic region has fallen to a record low this year as a result of rising global temperatures and there is no quick fix to reverse the damage done, scientists said on Tuesday in a new study of the impact of climate change on the continent ... "There's no quick fix to replacing this ice," said Anna Hogg, a professor at the University of Leeds and one of the study's co-authors, referring to melting icebergs and shelves. "It will certainly take a long time, even if it's possible," she told a briefing with journalists ... from phenomena such as the rapid decline in sea ice, it is "scientifically reasonable" to assume that extreme events are going to intensify as global temperatures rise, said Martin Siegert, a glaciologist at the University of Exeter and another co-author [and] described the temperature increase as "absolutely astonishing."
https://www.reuters.com/world/no-quick-fix-reverse-antarctic-sea-ice-loss-warming-intensifies-scientists-2023-08-08‘This is going to get worse before it gets better’: Panama Canal pileup due to drought reaches 154 vessels
The number of vessels waiting to cross the Panama Canal has reached 154, and slots for carriers to book passage are being reduced in an effort to manage congestion caused by ongoing drought conditions that have roiled the major shipping gateway since the spring. The current wait time to cross the canal is now around 21 days. The Panama Canal is a critical trade link for U.S. shippers heading to Gulf and East Coast ports ... “This is going to get worse before it gets better,” he said. A canal lock uses 50 million gallons of water when a single vessel traverses the canal.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/09/panama-canal-shipping-pileup-due-to-drought-reaches-154-vessels.htmlWith a fast burst of sea level rise, New Orleans’s outer defenses are drowning
Louisiana armed itself against the seas in the years after Hurricane Katrina [but] since 2010, the U.S. Gulf Coast has seen a sudden burst of rapid sea level rise, with rates that scientists didn’t expect to see until late this century. At its center lie the wetlands that make up the first line of defense for New Orleans, buffering the levees and barriers behind them ... For many of the brackish and saltwater marshes near the Gulf of Mexico, there’s been a clear uptick in land losses since around 2015 ... A group of scientists at Tulane University have also been investigating the situation. They found that across more than 200 wetland monitoring stations, seas are almost always rising faster than wetlands are able to grow — meaning that most wetlands are in a state of “drowning.” The wetlands losses are especially worrying in regions crucial to protecting New Orleans. This includes the middle part of the Barataria Basin and the lower Breton Sound Basin, on either side of the Mississippi River. The wetlands of middle Barataria are shrinking faster than 75 percent of all other Louisiana wetland regions, according to Couvillion — with the pace quickening in recent years. In the lower Breton Sound region, losses are happening even faster ... it is occurring in regions with and without major subsidence, implying a dominant role for the ocean. The faster seas rise, the less effective the state’s widely praised plans to protect its coast will be. “Over the period of 10 years, the state has gone from potentially being in a net gain situation to potentially being in [a] very significant net loss situation,” said Alex Kolker, a coastal geologist with the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2023/new-orleans-sea-level-hurricane-wetlands/Unprecedented damage from storms is upending the insurance industry
Waves of severe thunderstorms in the U.S. during the first half of this year led to $34 billion in insured losses, an unprecedented level of financial damage in such a short time, according to Swiss Re Group, as climate change contributes to the frequency and severity of violent meteorological events ... The figures for the first half of the year are in line with a report last month from another reinsurer, Munich Re, which said the series of thunderstorms that raked Texas in June was the most expensive single event in the U.S. for the year so far. The overall loss from those storms alone is estimated at approximately $8.4 billion. “Devastating storms, which now seem to be the norm rather than the exception, are expected to continue to grow in intensity and severity,” wrote Marcus Winter, Munich Reinsurance America’s North America chief executive ... The pullback by insurers is happening despite years of skyrocketing premiums for property owners in hard hit states. State Farm and Allstate have pulled back from California’s home insurance market, saying that increasing wildfire risk and soaring construction costs mean they’ll no longer write new policies in the nation’s most populous state. Last month Travelers said catastrophe losses doubled in its most recent quarter. The company, considered a bellwether for the insurance industry due to its size, said it lost money ... AAA insists that it’s not leaving Florida, but that last year’s devastating hurricane season had led to an unprecedented rise in reinsurance rates, making it more costly to operate there. Florida has struggled to maintain stability in the state insurance market since 1992 when Hurricane Andrew flattened Homestead, wiped out some insurance carriers and left many remaining insurers anxious about writing or renewing policies in Florida. Risks for carriers have also been growing as climate change increases the strength of hurricanes and the intensity of rainstorms.
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-08-09/storms-damage-insuranceRemoving carbon from Earth's atmosphere may not 'fix' climate change
In the study, Korean researchers simulated how removing large quantities of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the air [which is not currently possible] might affect the progress of local climate changes related to global warming ... results suggest that the local climate in these areas would not return to normal for more than 200 years after the carbon dioxide concentrations drop. The Mediterranean region, for example, plagued by ever more severe heatwaves, droughts and wildfires, would continue to suffer and could become even drier, the study found ... Current concentrations of carbon dioxide are even higher than those of the Pliocene Climatic Optimum, a warm period in Earth's history some 4.5 million years ago when sea levels were up to 82 feet (25 meters) higher than they are today, according to NOAA. Despite the warnings of climatologists and political pledges at international conferences, the world still lags behind the greenhouse gas emission reduction targets needed to curb the progress of global warming. The study was published in the journal Science Advances.
https://www.space.com/carbon-removal-does-not-reverse-climate-change-effects
reporting on a study at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adg1801Harmful PFOS levels in Hague [Netherlands] neighborhood far above EU norm
The Delfland Water Board measured between 98.5 and 13 nanograms of PFOS per liter of ditch water. According to the European standard, ditch water may contain no more than 0.65 nanograms of PFOS per liter ... In July, the board measured 85 nanograms of PFOS per liter of ditch water there. At the last measurement, it was no less than 260 nanograms. “Of course, we are shocked; it is just too much. We can only guess at the cause,” said a spokesperson of the water board ... PFOS is a type of PFAS, which stands for per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances - substances that don’t or hardly degrade. The chemicals are used, among other things, for non-stick coatings in pans, water-repellent clothing, fire-fighting foam, and cosmetics. They are associated with cancer, elevated cholesterol, and [endocrine disruptor] reproductive problems. In addition to PFOS, the waterboard also found other PFAS during the measurements in the ditches.
https://nltimes.nl/2023/08/10/harmful-pfos-levels-hague-neighborhood-far-eu-normRhine runs drier
The [Rhine river] is the commercial artery for 80% of the German economy's inland shipping of goods, including crude oil and natural gas. But following extended periods of low water in 2018 and 2022, Rhine levels are again too low in parts of the river for cargo vessels to sail fully loaded. At Kaub, the critical chokepoint for Rhine barges, water levels fell to their lowest this year earlier this week. Last year, 182 million metric tonnes of goods were transported via Germany's waterways, down 6.4% from 2021 and the lowest since German reunification [and] the Federal Waterways and Shipping Agency expects the downward trend to continue. Kaub levels below a metre mean that traditional barges must reduce their cargoes by more than half.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/german-industry-changes-tack-river-rhine-runs-drier-2023-07-26/Increasing levels of humidity are here to make heat waves even worse
This summer's heat is only a preview of what's in store for our future.
Climate change has supercharged this summer’s exceptionally brutal heat all around the world—heat waves are generally getting more frequent, more intense, and longer. But they are also getting more humid in some regions, which helps extend high temperatures through daytime peaks and into the night ... a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor [which] is why we’re already seeing supersize downpours ... Water vapor is actually a greenhouse gas, like carbon dioxide or methane, responsible for about half of the planet-warming effect. More warming evaporates more water, which causes more warming—a climatic feedback loop. Sea surface temperatures have been steadily climbing globally, as the oceans absorb something like 90 percent of the excess heat that humans are adding to the atmosphere. But since March, global sea surface temperatures have been skyrocketing above the norm. The North Atlantic, in particular, remains super hot, loading Europe’s air with extra humidity. The waters around Florida are also logging truly astonishing sea surface temperatures. “You have incredibly warm Gulf water that warms the atmosphere, which can then absorb more moisture. So it's kind of a feedback loop,” says Kent State University biometeorologist Scott Sheridan ... when it’s humid, the atmosphere stubbornly holds onto that heat. “I don’t think we’re ready at all for that,” says Tarik Benmarhnia, an environmental epidemiologist at the UC San Diego ... As the world continues to rapidly warm, humidity will grow worse.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/07/increasing-levels-of-humidity-are-here-to-make-heat-waves-even-worse/Forests Are Losing Their Ability to Hold Carbon
U.S. forests could worsen global warming instead of easing it because they are being destroyed by natural disasters and are losing their ability to absorb planet-warming gases as they get older, a new Agriculture Department report says. The report predicts that the ability of forests to absorb carbon will start plummeting after 2025 and that forests could emit up to 100 million metric tons of carbon a year as their emissions from decaying trees exceed their carbon absorption. Forests could become a “substantial carbon source” by 2070, the USDA report says.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/forests-are-losing-their-ability-to-hold-carbon/
reporting on a study at https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/66413Study: Increased ‘marine heat waves’ in Pacific Ocean threaten seabirds
From 2014 to 2019, five major die-offs of 250,000 or more seabirds occurred during the Pacific heat wave and subsequent El Niño, according to the study. In Alaska, an estimated 1.5 million seabirds died during the time, which University of Washington professor and study co-author Julia Parrish said is believed to be the largest seabird mortality event ever recorded ... The consequences of these warming events ripple throughout marine ecosystems. Fewer nutrients are available in ocean waters leading to a lack of forage and ultimately starvation for seabirds. The warmer water can also result in toxic algal blooms as well as disease outbreaks ... a notable finding in the study is the delayed impacts that these heat waves have on seabird populations. A marine heat wave resulted in an initial die-off of birds within the first six months followed by another die-off in 10 to 16 months, Parrish said. Overall, it takes about three years after a marine heat wave before seabird carcass counts on beaches return to their long-term normal levels. But with the warming oceans, more marine heat waves are occurring within those three-year cycles. “That means the ecosystem won’t have time to recover” ... the study clearly demonstrates how seabirds are an indicator of the health of the ecosystem overall. “People want to call it a canary in a coal mine, but it’s really a seabird on the beach” ... the scale of the die-offs detailed in the study could be brought into consideration for discussions on clean energy projects such as offshore wind energy, which have been controversial for impacts on seabirds. “If offshore wind as planned is going to kill somewhere on the order of 10,000 birds a year and these marine heat waves are killing somewhere on the order of a million birds a year, it may be that it’s a fair tradeoff,” Phillips said.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/07/25/study-marine-heat-waves-in-pacific-threaten-seabirds/
reporting on a study at https://www.int-res.com/articles/meps_oa/m14330_advview.pdfAntarctic sea ice levels dive in 'five-sigma event', as experts flag worsening consequences for planet
Usually, the ice has been able to recover in winter, when Antarctica is reliably dark and cold. But this year is different. For the first time, the sea ice extent has been unable to substantially recover this winter ... vast regions of the Antarctic coastline were ice free for the first time in the observational record. "To say unprecedented isn't strong enough," Dr Doddridge said. "For those of you who are interested in statistics, this is a five-sigma event. So it's five standard deviations beyond the mean. Which means that if nothing had changed, we'd expect to see a winter like this about once every 7.5 million years. It's gobsmacking."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-24/antarctic-sea-ice-levels-nosedive-five-sigma-event/102635204‘Era of global boiling has arrived,’ says UN chief as July set to be hottest month on record
The era of global warming has ended and “the era of global boiling has arrived”, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, has said after scientists confirmed July was on track to be the world’s hottest month on record. “Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning,” Guterres said ... Guterres’s comments came after scientists confirmed on Thursday that the past three weeks have been the hottest since records began and July is on track to be the hottest month ever recorded. Global temperatures this month have shattered records, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the EU’s Copernicus Earth observation programme. “All this is entirely consistent with predictions and repeated warnings. The only surprise is the speed of the change. Climate change is here, it is terrifying, and it is just the beginning.” Other climate scientists confirmed the findings. Karsten Haustein at Leipzig University found the world was 1.5C (2.7F) hotter in July 2023 than in the average July before industrialisation.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jul/27/scientists-july-world-hottest-month-record-climate-temperaturesMeltwater from Antarctic Glaciers Is Slowing Deep-Ocean Currents
Antarctic ice drives crucial deep-ocean currents that help regulate Earth’s climate. But the system is slowing down.
When the sea freezes around Antarctica’s fringes in winter, the ice expels salt into the water below. Trillions of metric tons of this briny, supercooled, heavy water [then] spread north through the Southern Ocean, driving abyssal circulation—the lower limb of the global ocean overturning circulation [and] the engine room of a current system that conveys heat, dissolved gases, and nutrients around the world. [But] the flows have become fresher, lighter, and smaller in volume since the 1990s and the abyssal circulation has slowed by almost a third. This meltwater from glaciers makes the ocean surface less salty, and when it freezes, the waters below are less dense than normal, falling into the deep more slowly. “Given that we expect the ice to continue melting, the most likely outcome is a continuation in the slowdown,” Gunn said.
https://eos.org/articles/meltwater-from-antarctic-glaciers-is-slowing-deep-ocean-currents
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01667-8Atlantic Ocean Current Could Collapse as Early as 2025
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is a large system of ocean currents that circulates water in the Atlantic, flowing warm water north and cold water south. The AMOC is crucial in keeping the world's oceans balanced. The circulation brings warmth to colder areas, and circulates nutrients that are integral to ocean life. Research has already suggested that the currents are slowing due to changes in the world's climate. However whether it will completely halt has remained uncertain. New research published in Nature Communications, from University of Copenhagen scientists, found that there is a possibility the system could completely collapse at the middle of our century ... By using advanced statistical tools, the researchers found signs that the AMOC may not be far from a transition that would see it shut down. They predicted this could happen from 2025, and no later than 2095. If these findings are correct, it is hugely concerning. The collapse of the AMOC would trigger multiple climate tipping points [including] a rapid sea level rise.
https://www.newsweek.com/atlantic-ocean-current-collapse-2025-1815127
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39810-wChange in cooling degree days [as] global mean temperature increasing from 1.5 °C to 2.0 °C
Limiting global mean temperature rise to 1.5 °C is increasingly out of reach. Here we show the impact on global cooling demand in moving from 1.5 °C to 2.0 °C of global warming. African countries have the highest increase in cooling requirements. Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Norway (traditionally unprepared for heat) will suffer the largest relative cooling demand surges. Immediate and unprecedented adaptation interventions are required worldwide to be prepared for a hotter world ... regions surrounding the Equator, particularly the Sub-Saharan region, will experience the largest increase in cooling demand [and] the Global North will experience dramatic relative increases in the number of days that require cooling [since these] are traditionally unprepared for high temperatures and will require large-scale adaptation to heat resilience.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01155-zDrought cycles erode tropics’ ability to absorb CO₂, study finds
In a recent study published in Nature, scientists investigated the correlation between water availability in the tropics and the carbon cycle over time. They found that tropical carbon sinks became increasingly vulnerable to water scarcity over the period from 1960 to 2018, with the most significant impacts observed during the three decades between 1989 and 2018. These findings suggest that decreased water availability is inhibiting carbon uptake, and indicates that the tropics are less resilient to climate change than previously thought ... The study builds upon a previous paper that found that global terrestrial ecosystems were less able to absorb carbon during severe droughts. The new study in Nature, which draws on historical records of global atmospheric CO2, along with terrestrial water storage and precipitation, is showing that this effect has become [larger] over time.
https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/drought-cycles-erode-tropics-ability-to-absorb-co₂-study-finds/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06056-xLong-lost Greenland ice core suggests potential for disastrous sea level rise
A recently discovered ice core taken from beneath Greenland’s ice sheet decades ago has revealed that a large part of the country was ice-free around 400,000 years ago, when temperatures were similar to those the world is approaching now, according to a new report [that] overturns previous assumptions that most of Greenland’s ice sheet has been frozen for millions of years, the authors said. Instead, moderate, natural warming led to large-scale melting and sea level rise [from the Greenland ice alone] of more than 1.4 meters (4.6 feet), according to the report published Thursday in the journal Science ... Bierman and a team of international scientists spent years analyzing frozen sediment from an ice core collected in 1966 at Camp Century, a US army base in northwest Greenland ... At the time, there wasn’t the technology to understand the sediment very well and so it was lost in a freezer for decades, Bierman said. Then, in 2017, it was rediscovered in Denmark ... they were surprised to see twigs, mosses, leaves and seeds. “We have a fossilized frozen ecosystem here [indicating] the ice sheet had gone away because you can’t grow plants under a mile of ice ... It’s really the first bulletproof evidence that much of the Greenland ice sheet vanished when it got warm,” Bierman said. “Greenland’s past, preserved in 12 feet of frozen soil, suggests a warm, wet, and largely ice-free future for planet Earth.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/20/world/greenland-ice-sheet-melt-sea-level-rise-climate/index.html
see also https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2023-07-21/greenland-ice-core-secret-us-army-base-reveals-dramatic-melting/102609654
reporting on a study at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ade4248‘We are damned fools’: scientist who sounded climate alarm in 80s warns of worse to come
The world is shifting towards a superheated climate not seen in the past 1m years, prior to human existence, because “we are damned fools” for not acting upon warnings over the climate crisis, according to James Hansen, the US scientist who alerted the world to the greenhouse effect in the 1980s. Hansen, whose testimony to the US Senate in 1988 is cited as the first high-profile revelation of global heating, warned in a statement with two other scientists that the world was moving towards a “new climate frontier” with temperatures higher than at any point over the past million years, bringing impacts such as stronger storms, heatwaves and droughts ... He said the record heatwaves that have roiled the US, Europe, China and elsewhere in recent weeks have heightened “a sense of disappointment” ... “It’s not just the magnitude of change, it’s the rate of change that’s an issue,” said Ellen Thomas, a Yale University scientist who studies climate over geologic timescales. “Almost all my colleagues have said that, in hindsight, we have underestimated the consequences. Things are moving faster than we thought, which is not good.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/19/climate-crisis-james-hansen-scientist-warningIt’s Toxic Slime Time on Florida’s Lake Okeechobee
For thousands of years, Lake Okeechobee pumped life into Florida’s swampy interior. But a vast re-engineering over the past century has transformed Okeechobee into something life-threatening as much as life-giving. Toxic algal blooms now regularly infest much of its 730-square-mile surface during the summer, producing fumes and waterborne poisons potent enough to kill pets that splash in the contaminated waters, or send their owners to the doctor from inhaling the toxins ... in recent summers the problem has become more dire. Climate change is making storms and rainfall more intense and less predictable, and last fall Hurricane Ian stirred up so much phosphorus that this summer is expected to be particularly bad. Things get further complicated when lake levels climb so high that contaminated water must be released into canals — toward coastal cities ... Adding to the worry: More than half the lake is already suffering algal blooms. And the algae season has months to go ... “We’re looking at a bullet in the chamber here,” said Eve Samples, executive director of the conservation group Friends of the Everglades ... Ms. Robinson, the jogger, said she knows how to fix a lake that has 'gone to hell.' “Stop the polluting,” she said. “That’s it. That’s the solution.” It’s not likely to happen anytime soon.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/07/09/climate/florida-lake-okeechobee-algae.htmlClimate Collapse Could Happen Fast
As temperature and weather records fall, Earth may be nearing so-called tipping points
Ever since some of the earliest projections of climate change were made back in the 1970s, they have been remarkably accurate at predicting the rate at which global temperatures would rise. Its impacts, however, are accelerating—sometimes far faster than expected [and] a growing number of climate scientists now believe we may be careening toward so-called tipping points, where incremental steps along the same trajectory could push Earth’s systems into abrupt or irreversible change—leading to transformations that cannot be stopped even if emissions were suddenly halted. “The Earth may have left a ‘safe’ climate state beyond 1°C global warming,” Armstrong McKay and his co-authors concluded in Science last fall. If these thresholds are passed, some of global warming’s effects—like the thaw of permafrost or the loss of the world’s coral reefs—are likely to happen more quickly than expected ... When melt from Greenland’s glaciers enters the ocean, for example, it alters an important system of currents called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. The AMOC is like a conveyor belt, drawing warm water from the tropics north. The water’s salinity increases as it evaporates, which, among other factors, makes it sink and return south along the ocean floor. As more glacial fresh water enters the system, that conveyor belt will weaken. Right now it’s the feeblest it’s been in more than 1,000 years. A shutdown of that ocean current could dramatically alter phenomena as varied as global weather patterns and crop yields. Messing with complex systems is chilling precisely because there are so many levers: If the temperature of the sea surface changes, precipitation over the Amazon might too, contributing to its deforestation, which in turn has been linked to snowfall on the Tibetan plateau. We may not even realize when we start passing points of no return—or if we already have. “It’s kind of like stepping into a minefield,” Armstrong McKay said. “We don’t want to find out where these things are by triggering them” ... There’s a sense of awe—in the original meaning of inspiring terror or dread—at witnessing such sweeping changes play out across the landscape. “Many scientists knew these things would happen, but we’re taken aback by the severity of the major changes we’re seeing.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/07/climate-change-tipping-points/674778/Tipping points can be triggered unexpectedly by dangerous rates of change
It is now widely understood that tipping points can occur when thresholds are crossed, such as the degree of global warming. The new study instead highlights the dangers associated with rate-induced tipping, which is triggered not by a critical level of change but instead by how quickly that level is reached. Once triggered, tipping points may lead to abrupt changes in natural and human systems including the reorganisation of large ocean circulation currents, extinction of ecosystem populations and blackouts on power grid networks. Until now, critical thresholds have been assumed to be a point of no return, but the new study – published in the journal Earth System Dynamics – concludes that dangerous rates could trigger permanent shifts in human and natural systems before these critical levels are reached. The research team say the rate of change in external forcing is often more important to control, than the peak change, if we are to avoid triggering tipping points.
https://news.exeter.ac.uk/faculty-of-environment-science-and-economy/tipping-points-can-be-triggered-unexpectedly-by-dangerous-rates-of-change/
reporting on a study at https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/14/669/2023/esd-14-669-2023.htmlMultiple ecosystems in hot water after marine heatwave surges across the Pacific
Rising ocean temperatures are sweeping the seas, breaking records and creating problematic conditions for marine life. Unlike heatwaves on land, periods of abrupt ocean warming can surge for months or years. Around the world these 'marine heatwaves' have led to mass species mortality and displacement events, economic declines and habitat loss. New research reveals that even areas of the ocean protected from fishing are still vulnerable to these extreme events fueled by climate change.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230713142059.htm
reporting on a study at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.16862Financial models on climate risk ‘implausible’, say actuaries
Many of the results emerging from the models were “implausible,” with a serious “disconnect” between climate scientists, economists, the people building the models and the financial institutions using them, a report by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and the University of Exeter finds ... Some models were likely to have “limited use as they do not adequately communicate the level of risk we are likely to face” ... significant factors were sometimes missing from models ... As a result of such overly “benign” models, large financial institutions had reported that they would suffer minimal economic impacts if the world warmed by significantly more than 1.5C higher than pre-industrial levels ... Some economists had even predicted “relatively low economic damage” from high levels of warming, said Tim Lenton, a co-author of the report who holds the chair in climate change at Exeter. It was “concerning” to see those models being used by financial institutions to estimate their risks, Lenton said.
https://www.ft.com/content/a5027391-41a4-4e21-a72d-f8189d6a7b71Intensifying Rains Pose Hidden Flood Risks Across the U.S.
As climate change intensifies severe rainstorms, the infrastructure protecting millions of Americans from flooding faces growing risk of failure ... the NOAA atlases tell you the probabilities there of various precipitation events — that is, a certain number of inches falling over a given span of time. But the atlas estimates are based on rain measurements collected over the past several decades, or, in some places, since the 19th century, “in a climate that just doesn’t exist anymore,” said Jeremy R. Porter, First Street’s head of climate implications research. By contrast, First Street’s peer-reviewed methods for estimating precipitation use only rainfall records from this century ... The result, according to First Street, is that NOAA is substantially underestimating the risk of severe rain in some of the nation’s largest cities [also] the Ohio River Basin, northwestern California and parts of the Mountain West. In other areas, including those east of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Range, First Street finds that NOAA is overestimating the likelihood of intense rain.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/26/climate/rainstorms-hidden-flood-risk.htmlWhy a sudden surge of broken heat records is scaring scientists
New precedents have been set in recent weeks and months ... historically warm oceans, with North Atlantic temperatures already nearing their typical annual peak; unparalleled low sea ice levels around Antarctica, where global warming impacts had, until now, been slower to appear; and the planet experiencing its warmest June ever charted, according to new data. And then, on Monday, came Earth’s hottest day in at least 125,000 years. Tuesday was hotter. “We have never seen anything like this before,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. He said any number of charts and graphs on Earth’s climate are showing, quite literally, that “we are in uncharted territory” ... Records are falling around the globe many months ahead of El Niño’s peak impact, which typically hits in December and sends global temperatures soaring for months to follow ... It’s not just that records are being broken — but the massive margins with which conditions are surpassing previous extremes, scientists note ... “It just raises everybody’s awareness that this is not getting better; it’s getting worse,” said Jennifer Francis, senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Massachusetts.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/07/06/earth-record-heat-climate-extremes/UN says climate change ‘out of control’ after likely hottest week on record
The UN secretary general has said that “climate change is out of control” ... average world temperatures in the seven days to Wednesday were the hottest week on record. “Chances are that the month of July will be the warmest ever, and with it the hottest month ever … ‘ever’ meaning since the Eemian [interglacial period], which is indeed some 120,000 years ago,” Dr Karsten Haustein, a research fellow in atmospheric radiation at Leipzig University, said.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/07/un-climate-change-hottest-week-worldWorld registers hottest day ever recorded on July 3
"This is not a milestone we should be celebrating," said climate scientist Friederike Otto of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Britain's Imperial College London. "It's a death sentence for people and ecosystems." Scientists said climate change, combined with an emerging El Nino pattern, were to blame.
https://www.reuters.com/world/world-registers-hottest-day-ever-recorded-july-3-2023-07-04/Climate Change Bringing More Than Heat — Malaria And Dengue On The Rise
[Last week brought] the highest temperature in recorded history, a threshold that has already been surpassed twice since then. The average global temperature ... has consistently been rising by more than 0.2 degrees each decade. This has not only impacted human activity, but also the geographical distribution of [mosquitoes and ticks] that may carry and transmit a range of infectious diseases, including malaria and dengue ... As climate and environmental factors promote the increased distribution of mosquitoes and ticks, other infectious diseases, such Powassan virus, Zika virus and Chikungunya virus may also rise in prevalence.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewbinnicker/2023/07/10/climate-change-bringing-more-than-heat---malaria-and-dengue-on-the-rise/Groundwater springs formed during glacial retreat are a large source of methane in the high Arctic
As glaciers melt, they are no longer capping trapped prehistoric methane
Permafrost and glaciers in the high Arctic form an impermeable ‘cryospheric cap’ that traps a large reservoir of subsurface methane [but] glaciers are retreating and leaving behind exposed forefields that enable rapid methane escape ... methane-rich groundwater springs have formed in recently revealed forefields of 78 land-terminating glaciers across central Svalbard, bringing deep-seated methane gas to the surface ... Our findings reveal that climate-driven glacial retreat facilitates widespread release of methane, a positive feedback loop that is probably prevalent across other regions of the rapidly warming Arctic.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-023-01210-6Researchers: We've Underestimated The Risk of Simultaneous Crop Failures Worldwide
The risks of harvest failures in multiple global breadbaskets have been underestimated, according to a study Tuesday that researchers said should be a "wake up call" about the threat climate change poses to our food systems ... In the new research published in Nature Communications, researchers in the United States and Germany looked at the likelihood that several major food producing regions could simultaneously suffer low yields. These events can lead to price spikes, food insecurity and even civil unrest, said lead author Kai Kornhuber, a researcher at Columbia University and the German Council on Foreign Relations. By "increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases, we are entering this uncharted water where we are struggling to really have an accurate idea of what type of extremes we're going to face ... these types of concurring events are really largely underestimated." [The study also] found that [computer models] underestimate the magnitude of the extremes this produces on the ground.
https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-weve-underestimated-the-risk-of-simultaneous-crop-failures-worldwide
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-38906-7June Extremes Suggest Parts of the Climate System Are Reaching Tipping Points
Earth’s critical reflective polar ice caps are at their lowest extent on record in the satellite era, with the sea ice around Antarctica at a record-low extent by far ... the month ended with the Greenland Ice Sheet experiencing one of the largest June melt events ever recorded, and with scientists reporting that June 2023 was the hottest June ever measured ... the oceans set records for warmth on the surface and down to more than 6,000 feet deep ... record-breaking heat on nearly every continent during the month [including] readings higher than 95 degrees Fahrenheit close to the Arctic Circle ... the warm El Niño phase [will] “greatly increase the likelihood of breaking temperature records and triggering more extreme heat in many parts of the world and in the ocean,” said World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Petteri Taalas ... “I expect a step change to higher global mean temperatures starting this year,” said atmospheric scientist Kevin Trenberth, a distinguished scholar at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “And next year will be the warmest on record, either 1.4 or 1.5C above pre-industrial.”
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04072023/june-extremes-climate-tipping-points/India: Extreme heat worsening domestic violence
As the climate gets hotter in South Asia, more women living in low-income households are expected to experience domestic violence. A new study shows the problem will be most extreme in India. A study published last week found that increasing temperatures in South Asia are connected to a rise in domestic violence against women, with India expected to experience the largest increase. The study, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry from the American Medical Association, examined the "association of ambient temperature" with the "prevalence of intimate partner violence" in India, Nepal and Pakistan. The researchers tracked over 194,800 girls and women aged between 15 and 49 to study the prevalence of intimate partner violence, which includes physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. Overall, the study found that a 1 degree Celsius increase in annual mean temperature was associated with a 4.5% increase in intimate partner violence.
https://www.dw.com/en/india-extreme-heat-worsening-domestic-violence/a-66111995As the climate crisis intensifies, insurers will likely reshape where people live — leaving desperate homeowners in the lurch
More frequent and destructive wildfires, hurricanes, and flooding are pushing up the price of property insurance in high-risk states ... some companies are pulling out of these markets altogether. Surging policy costs and coverage deserts in already pricey markets mean insurers could become gatekeepers determining where people find it possible to live [as] insurance is becoming more expensive nationwide ... State Farm announced it would stop accepting new applications from home and business owners in California, citing the growing risks of natural disasters, a historic increase in construction costs, and a challenging reinsurance market. Allstate announced in June that it had already made a similar move. Meanwhile, in Florida, some two dozen private companies have declared insolvency, stopped issuing policies, or withdrawn from the state since February 2022.
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-insurers-will-shape-where-people-live-climate-change-2023-7France badly hit by climate change and ill-prepared for its effects, warns report
The record heat and exceptional drought seen last year have had "serious impacts in France," and are more than the current prevention and crisis management systems can cope with, the French High Council for the Climate (HCC) said [with] temperatures at 2.9 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 average, according to the report ... Agriculture has been badly hit, with crop yields down 10-30 percent ... Tensions over drinking water have affected more than 2,000 municipalities, while 8,000 others have requested recognition as "natural disasters" due to the drought ... France was ill-prepared to fight forest fires and has been forced to call in reinforcements from abroad. And these effects are just set to intensify as climate change progresses.
https://www.france24.com/en/france/20230628-france-badly-hit-by-climate-change-and-ill-prepared-for-its-effects-warns-reportOil and gas firms making 'almost no progress' towards Paris goals, CDP says
The CDP's Oil and Gas Benchmark report, published together with the World Benchmarking Alliance, said its latest assessment had shown the oil and gas sector "has made almost no progress towards the Paris Agreement goals since 2021". None of the 100 oil and gas companies it had assessed is set to cut its overall emissions "at a rate sufficient to align with a 1.5°C pathway over the next five years", it said. CDP has emerged as the world's biggest repository of environmental data submitted on a voluntary basis by companies.
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/oil-gas-firms-making-almost-no-progress-towards-paris-goals-cdp-2023-06-29/Himalayan glaciers are melting faster than ever, and scientists say it's "going to affect us" all
The study says the melting of the glaciers will directly impact billions of people in Asia — causing floods, landslides, avalanches and food shortages as farmland is inundated. Indirectly, the melting of such a vast reserve of fresh water could impact countries as far away as the United States, even the whole of humanity, according to the report by the Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). The academic paper warns the ice and snow reserves in the Hindu Kush Himalayas (HKH) region are melting at an "unprecedented" rate and that the environmental changes to the sensitive region are "largely irreversible." The HKH region spans roughly 2,175 miles, from Afghanistan to Myanmar, and is home to the highest mountains in the world, including Mount Everest. It contains the largest volume of ice on Earth outside the two polar regions and is the source of water for 12 rivers that flow through 16 Asian nations. Those rivers provide fresh water to some 240 million people living in the HKH region, and about 1.65 billion people further downstream, the report says. For all of those people, the melting of the glaciers would be a disaster.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/himalaya-glaciers-melting-faster-study-warns-will-affect-us-all/Global ocean roiled by marine heatwaves, with more on the way
As scientists around the world sound the alarm about record sea surface temperatures, a new experimental NOAA forecast system predicts that half of the global ocean may experience marine heatwave conditions by the end of summer. The surface temperatures of about 40% of the global ocean are already high enough to meet the criteria for a marine heatwave ... The new forecast by the Physical Sciences Laboratory (PSL) projects that it will increase to 50% by September, and it could stay that way through the end of the year. “In our 32-year record, we have never seen such widespread marine heatwave conditions.” Observations show marine heatwaves are occurring across vast regions of the planet, including: the tropical North Atlantic, the Northeast Atlantic along the Iberian coast as far northward as Ireland and the UK, the equatorial Pacific, the Northeast Pacific, the Northwest Pacific in the Sea of Japan, the Southwest Pacific just southeast of New Zealand and the Western Indian Ocean southeast of Madagascar. “Normally we might expect only about 10% of the world’s oceans to be ‘hot enough’ to be considered a marine heatwave, so it’s remarkable to reach 40% or 50%, even with long-term warming.”
https://research.noaa.gov/2023/06/28/global-ocean-roiled-by-marine-heatwaves-with-more-on-the-way/The Trillion Gallon Question
Extreme weather is threatening California’s dams. What happens if they fail?
“We still haven’t severely tested California’s primary flood-control structures,” says Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles ... Dale Cox, a former project manager at the United States Geological Survey who has worked extensively with Swain, told me that California’s dams are unprepared for extreme weather because state water authorities have a false sense of how bad flooding can get ... Some of this miscalculation arises from our failure to account for climate change, a problem that will only get worse as the atmosphere heats up and the amount of water vapor it can carry increases ... In the mid-2000s, Cox assembled a group at the U.S.G.S. to study what would happen if the atmospheric rivers from two notable California flood years, 1969 and 1986, occurred back to back. They named the resulting scenario the Arkstorm: flooding throughout the state, water depths of up to 20 feet in the Central Valley and economic losses of $725 billion. When the report on this research was done, the authors presented it to emergency managers, municipal authorities and dam owners, including D.W.R. The response was demoralizing. “They said, ‘That’s too big, that’s ridiculous,’” says Lucy Jones, the chief scientist for the project. The authors of the Arkstorm report had a response ready, however. Their imaginary storm was modeled on the Great Flood of 1862, which also made a lake of the Central Valley and destroyed, by one account, a quarter of all the buildings in the state ... Did presenting state officials with these numbers make a difference? I asked. No, he said. So many of the officials he talked to about Arkstorm were like the mayor in “Jaws” — unwilling to see a problem they couldn’t fix. Most officials wanted to do nothing ... according to Cox, “D.W.R. ghosted the Arkstorm project about three-quarters of the way through.” He never got a straight answer about why ... My own reporting would eventually reveal another possible answer: The numbers were scary enough to shut down any discussion ... it’s not clear that any single entity is capable of seeing the whole picture. To remedy that, shortly before his retirement, Cox began assembling a new group of collaborators, including Albano and Swain, for a project he called Arkstorm 2.0. Specifically, the group wanted to examine how a warmer climate would strengthen atmospheric rivers, and they wanted to finally plug that weather data into a hydrological model to see what it would do to the state’s flood-control infrastructure. The first half of that work is done: In August, Swain and Xingying Huang of the National Center for Atmospheric Research published a paper that predicted a storm, called ArkFuture, that would be a supercharged version of 1862: 30 days of unrelenting rain across the whole state [which] in the next 40 years, he and Huang determined, the odds of such a storm sequence occurring were as high as 50 percent ... the Army Corps had already done a preliminary analysis [and] eventually the document arrived in my inbox: a series of charts detailing what would happen to six of the largest reservoirs in California during the 30-day storm sequence predicted by Swain and Huang. Some of the information was merely alarming [but] other parts of the document were terrifying ... Friant Dam, which is situated in the hills above Fresno, population 544,500, would take on an incredible six times its total volume in the course of the month. New Melones would have a peak inflow that was more than twice what it could release, and its spillway couldn’t be used until the water was near the crest of the dam. In the probable inundation zone for New Melones were most of the 218,800 people of Modesto. If these projections were correct, it would create an unprecedented amount of destruction.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/22/magazine/california-dams.html‘Off the charts’: Earth’s vital signs are going haywire
Meteorologists and climate scientists all around the world are in awe by the simultaneous literal “off the charts” records being broken. The steady trend of rising temperatures over the last few decades has placed Earth’s baseline climate so high that achieving these extremes – which used to be rare if not unheard of – is now expected when conditions are ripe. And right now they are, with El Niño’s added heat and several other concurrent, varying natural climate patterns ... With El Niño now in place, we are getting a glimpse of just how far we can force the climate system, with never before observed heights achieved. Many more are on the way for 2023-2024 as El Niño gets stronger ... the North Atlantic Ocean is way beyond record hot right now. The Atlantic has warmed ~2 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900, due to warming from emissions of greenhouse gases due to the burning of fossil fuels and also, more recently, the decrease in air pollution, allowing more sunlight through ... [There's] an extreme heatwave off the coast of Europe contributing to the heat as well. And it is not confined to the Atlantic. In the Pacific, El Niño is warming the Tropical waters while heat lingers from a warm blob over the North Central Pacific ocean. When you add it all up, Global Ocean temperatures are way beyond record hot, making the heat basically statistically impossible before human-caused warming existed ... Antarctic sea ice. Right now sea ice should be growing fast near the South Pole. Instead growth is labored and departures from normal are the highest ever observed ... Canada has experienced its worst wildfire season on record ... As the climate warms, areas dry, and fires spread more vigorously. This year, there has been a persistent heat dome for months across parts of Canada which has led to less rain and warmer weather. That has led to a record-setting amount of greenhouse emissions from Canadian wildfires. So many emissions it is almost equal to that of Canada’s normal greenhouse emissions in a whole year ... The bottom line is, with Earth’s overheated climate and an intensifying El Niño, we can expect to see the Earth’s climate system astonish us over and over again into next year.
https://www.wfla.com/weather/climate-classroom/off-the-charts-earths-vital-signs-are-going-haywire/Ecological ‘doom loops’ edging closer
Extreme weather events such as wildfires and droughts will accelerate change in stressed systems leading to quicker tipping points of ecological decline
[A] “perfect storm” of continuous stress from factors such as unsustainable land use, agricultural expansion and climate change, when coupled with disruptive episodes like floods and fires, will act in concert to rapidly imperil natural systems ... even if ecosystems are managed more sustainably by keeping the main stress levels like deforestation constant, new stresses like global warming and extreme weather events could still bring forward a collapse. “Our findings show the potential for each [forcing] to reinforce the other. Any increasing pressure on ecosystems will be exceedingly detrimental and could have dangerous consequences” ... “Over a fifth of ecosystems worldwide are in danger of collapsing,” said Professor Simon Willcock from Rothamsted and Bangor University, who co-led the study published in Nature Sustainability. “However, ongoing stresses and extreme events interact to accelerate rapid changes that may well be out of our control. Once these reach a tipping point, it’s too late.”
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/ecological-doom-loops-edging-closer
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01157-xSlowdown of Antarctic Bottom Water export driven by climatic wind and sea-ice changes
Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) is pivotal for oceanic heat and carbon sequestrations on multidecadal to millennial timescales. The Weddell Sea contributes nearly a half of global AABW through Weddell Sea Deep Water and denser underlying Weddell Sea Bottom Water that form on the continental shelves via sea-ice production. Here we report an observed 30% reduction of Weddell Sea Bottom Water volume since 1992, with the largest decrease in the densest classes. This is probably driven by a multidecadal reduction in dense-water production over southern continental shelf associated with a >40% decline in the sea-ice formation rate ... The observations are consistent with ocean–atmosphere–sea ice model projections published earlier this year showing that Antarctic overturning circulation could slow 40% by 2050 if greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01695-4Pace of Climate Change Sends Economists Back to Drawing Board
They underestimated the impact of global warming, and their preferred policy solution floundered in the United States.
Economists have been examining the impact of climate change for almost as long as it’s been known to science. In the 1970s, the Yale economist William Nordhaus began constructing a model meant to gauge the effect of warming on economic growth. The work, first published in 1992, gave rise to a field of scholarship assessing the cost to society of each ton of emitted carbon offset by the benefits of cheap power — and thus how much it was worth paying to avert it ... “There was an idealization and simplification of the problem that started in the economics literature,” Dr. Kopp said. “And things that start out in the economics literature have half-lives in the applied policy world that are longer than the time period during which they’re the frontier of the field” ... At the same time, Dr. Nordhaus’s model was drawing criticism for underestimating the havoc that climate change would wreak. Like other models, it has been revised several times, but it still relies on broad assumptions and places less value on harm to future generations than it places on harm to those today. It also doesn’t fully incorporate the risk of less likely but substantially worse trajectories of warming. [Now] the field is learning that simply tinkering with prices won’t be enough as the climate nears catastrophic tipping points, like the evaporation of rivers, choking off whole regions and setting off a cascade of economic effects ... “People who know what’s going on are engineers and insurers,” said Madison Condon, an associate professor at Boston University School of Law who focuses on financial risk. “Rather than doing this completely ridiculous thing, which is not mathematically possible in any way, we could just read the science about what’s going to happen literally in the next decade.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/25/business/economy/economy-climate-change.htmlThe Emperor’s New Climate Scenarios
Limitations and assumptions of commonly used climate-change scenarios in financial services
A growing threat is the approach of ‘tipping points’ – thresholds which, once crossed, trigger irreversible changes, such as the loss of the Amazon rainforest or the West Antarctic ice sheet. Some tipping point thresholds have already been reached, while others are getting closer as global warming continues. Once tipped into a new state, many of these systems will cause further warming ... However, some economists have predicted that damages from global warming will be as low as 2% of global economic production for a 3˚C rise in global average surface temperature. Such low estimates of economic damages – combined with assumptions that human economic productivity will be an order of magnitude higher than today – contrast strongly with predictions made by scientists of significantly reduced human habitability from climate change. It is concerning to see these same economic models being used to underpin climate-change scenario analysis in financial services, leading to the publication of implausible results ... Actuaries have an important contribution to make here. The application of actuarial principles to climate-change scenario analysis demonstrates the significant weaknesses in current approaches. Actuaries also wield enormous influence in the global financial system. In addition to their role in the insurance markets, their work in pensions means they can impact capital allocation in long-term savings in a way few other professions can.
https://actuaries.org.uk/media/qeydewmk/the-emperor-s-new-climate-scenarios.pdfFour alarming charts that show just how extreme the climate is right now
Soaring temperatures. Unusually hot oceans. Record high levels of carbon pollution in the atmosphere and record low levels of Antarctic ice. We’re only halfway through 2023 and so many climate records are being broken, some scientists are sounding the alarm, fearing it could be a sign of a planet warming much more rapidly than expected. In a widely shared tweet, Brian McNoldy, senior research associate at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science, called rising ocean and air temperatures “totally bonkers.” He added, “people who look at this stuff routinely can’t believe their eyes. Something very weird is happening” ... Here are four charts showing just how record-breaking this year has already been, with the hottest months still to come.
• Global temperatures spike: The first eleven days of June saw the highest temperatures on record for this time of year by a substantial margin, according to an analysis released Thursday by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. It is also the first time global air temperatures during June exceeded preindustrial levels by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, the scientists found. Heat records are being broken across the world.
• Ocean heat heads off the charts: Oceans are heating up to record levels and show no sign of stopping. Rising ocean surface temperatures began alarming scientists in March when they started to climb and then skyrocketed to reach record levels.
• Antarctic sea ice at record lows: Antarctica’s sea ice is currently at record lows for this time of year, with some scientists concerned it is a further sign the climate crisis has arrived in this isolated region. In late February, Antarctic sea ice reached its lowest extent since records began in the 1970s, at 691,000 square miles. It’s “not just ‘barely a record low, it’s on a very steep downward trend.” As the Antarctic has moved into its winter, and the sea ice has started to grow again, levels are still tracking at record low levels for this time of year. The decline is “truly exceptional and alarming,” Scambos said. “2023 is just heading off into crazy territory.”
• Record carbon dioxide levels: The record of 424 parts per million continues “a steady climb further into territory not seen for millions of years,” the scientists noted in a statement. Carbon pollution levels, which fuel the climate crisis, are now more than 50% higher than they were before the Industrial Revolution began, NOAA has said.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/17/world/four-climate-charts-extreme-weather-heat-oceans/index.htmlWorld breaks average temperature record for early June
Average global temperatures at the start of June were the warmest the European Union's climate monitoring unit has ever recorded ... "Global-mean surface air temperatures for the first days of June 2023 were the highest in the ERA5 data record for early June by a substantial margin", said Copernicus ... at the beginning of June, global temperatures exceeded pre-industrial levels by more than 1.5C (34.7 degrees Fahrenheit), which is the most ambitious cap for global warming in the 2015 Paris Agreement. According to the data, the daily global average temperature was at or above the 1.5C threshold between June 7-11, reaching a maximum of 1.69C above it on June 9.
https://phys.org/news/2023-06-world-average-temperature-early-june.htmlAntarctic tipping points: the irreversible changes to come if we fail to keep warming below 2C
The slow-down of the Southern Ocean circulation, a dramatic drop in the extent of sea ice and unprecedented heatwaves are all raising concerns that Antarctica may be approaching tipping points ... which, once crossed, would lead to irreversible changes – with global long-term, multi-generational repercussions and major consequences for people and the environment ... During the past 10,000 years of our present inter-glacial period, Earth’s greenhouse gas thermostat has been set at 300ppm of CO2, maintaining a pleasant average temperature of 14℃. A goldilocks climate ... Change is not always linear. It can be abrupt and irreversible on human timescales if a threshold or tipping point is crossed ... Unless we change our current emissions trajectory, this is what to expect. By 2070, the climate over Antarctica will warm by more than 3℃ above pre-industrial temperatures. The Southern Ocean will be 2℃ warmer. As a consequence, more than 45% of summer sea ice will be lost, causing the surface ocean and atmosphere over Antarctica to warm even faster as dark ocean replaces white sea ice, absorbing more solar radiation ... This accelerated warming of the Antarctic climate is a phenomenon known as polar amplification. This is already happening in the Arctic ... By 2070, heat in the ocean and atmosphere will have caused many ice shelves to break up into icebergs that will melt and release a quarter of their volume into the ocean as freshwater. By 2100, 50% of ice shelves will be gone. By 2150, all will have melted. Without ice shelves holding back the ice sheet, glaciers will discharge at an even faster rate under gravity into the ocean ...Future generations will be committed to unstoppable retreat of the Greenland and marine sections of the Antarctic ice sheets, causing as much as 24m of global sea-level rise.
https://theconversation.com/antarctic-tipping-points-the-irreversible-changes-to-come-if-we-fail-to-keep-warming-below-2-207410
see also https://hakaimagazine.com/news/the-atlantification-of-the-arctic-ocean-is-underway/Drought is on the verge of becoming the next pandemic
Freshwater shortages, once considered a local issue, are increasingly a global risk. In every annual risk report since 2012, the World Economic Forum has included water crisis as one of the top-five risks to the global economy. Half of the global population – almost 4 billion people – live in areas with severe water scarcity for at least one month of the year, while half a billion people face severe water scarcity all year round ... from the Yellow River in China to the Colorado River in the United States, many rivers no longer reach the sea. Often artificially straightened and dammed, water is sucked out and channelled off to supply farms, industries and households. Great lakes, from the Aral Sea in central Asia to Lake Urmia in Iran, have nearly disappeared. Groundwater aquifers, from the Ogallala and Central Valley in the US to India’s Upper Ganges and Pakistan’s Lower Indus, are being depleted faster than they can refill. The remaining freshwater is increasingly polluted with sewage and fertilisers, causing algal blooms that smother and choke ecosystems ... Mami Mizutori, the UN secretary general’s special representative for disaster risk reduction, said: “Drought is on the verge of becoming the next pandemic, and there is no vaccine to cure it” ... Not a single one of England’s rivers is classified as being in good ecological health [and] climate-change projections show that dry summers in England will increase by up to 50% ... Without significant action, the National Audit Office (NAO) forecasts that the total water demand will start to exceed supply in England no later than 2034.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/jun/15/drought-is-on-the-verge-of-becoming-the-next-pandemicSiberia swelters in record-breaking temperatures amid its ‘worst heat wave in history’
Dozens of heat records have fallen in Siberia, as temperatures climbed above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.7 Celsius). Despite only being early June, records are tumbling across parts of Siberia as extreme heat pushes into unusually high latitudes. Last Saturday, temperatures reached 37.9 degrees Celsius (100.2 Fahrenheit) in Jalturovosk, its hottest day in history, according to the climatologist Maximiliano Herrera, who tracks extreme temperatures across the globe. A slew of temperature records have fallen in Siberia since then. And it looks set to get even worse.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/08/asia/heat-wave-siberia-climate-intl/index.htmlWorld has lost battle to stop glaciers melting and sea level rising, UN meteorological chief says
The British Antarctic Survey has released its new maps and they are a stark visual depiction of the retreat of ice at our poles. Just as stark is the warning from the secretary general of the United Nations' World Meteorological Organisation, Professor Petteri Taalas [who] said: "Thanks to an already high concentration of carbon dioxide, we have lost this glacier melting game and sea level rise game ... There's no return to the climate that we used to have in the last century, so that's gone" ... The Arctic region in particular is warming up to three times faster than the rest of the world, and one recent study suggested it could be sea-ice free in the summer by the 2030s, which is a decade earlier than previous predictions. This matters because the poles essentially function as the planet’s refrigerators ... the melting of permafrost, or ground which has previously been permanently frozen, is one of the things that most worries climate scientists. Permafrost covers 25% of the Northern Hemisphere’s land surface and accounts for nearly half of all organic carbon stored in the planet’s soil. For all of these reasons, what happens in the poles will matter well beyond them.
https://www.london-globe.com/world-news/2023/06/08/world-has-lost-battle-to-stop-glaciers-melting-and-sea-level-rising-un-meteorological-chief-says/Microplastics found in every sample of water taken during Ocean Race
Sailors testing the waters during the Ocean Race, which travels through some of the world’s most remote ocean environments, have found microplastics in every sample. Up to 1,884 microplastic particles were found per cubic metre of seawater in some locations, up to 18 times higher than in similar tests during the last Ocean Race, which ended in 2018. The highest concentrations of microplastics were found close to coasts and urban areas. The most abundant chemical in the plastics is polyethylene, which is used for single-use packaging, plastic bags and containers such as bottles..
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/05/microplastics-found-in-every-sample-of-water-taken-during-ocean-raceGlobal study of 71,000 animal species finds 48% are declining
A new study evaluating the conservation status of 71,000 animal species has shown a huge disparity between “winners” and “losers.” Globally, 48% of species are decreasing, 49% remain stable, and just 3% are rising. Most losses are concentrated in the tropics. Extinctions skyrocketed worldwide with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, especially since World War II, when resource extraction and consumption rates soared, and the planet saw exponential growth in human population to 8 billion by 2022. Habitat destruction, especially in the tropics, is the major driver. But a confluence of human activities, ranging from climate change, to wildlife trafficking, hunting, invasive species, pollution and other causes, are combining to drive animal declines. The research also revealed that one-third of non-endangered species are in decline. [But that approach went nowhere, reflecting] a larger trend in public policy, one that is prompting economists to ponder why the profession was so focused on a solution that ultimately went nowhere in Congress — and how economists could be more useful as the damage from extreme weather mounts. A central shift in thinking, many say, is that climate change has moved faster than foreseen, and in less predictable ways, raising the urgency of government intervention.
https://news.mongabay.com/2023/06/global-study-of-71000-animal-species-finds-48-are-declining/The Arctic Will Have Ice-Free Summers as Soon as the 2030s
The new study, published Tuesday in Nature Communications, says this will happen even in a low-emissions scenario. Higher emissions will result in ice-free Septembers by 2030 to 2040. “We basically are saying that it has become too late to save the Arctic summer sea ice,” said Dirk Notz, an oceanographer at the University of Hamburg in Germany who specializes in sea ice and is one of the authors of the study, as well as an IPCC report author. “There’s nothing really we can do about this complete loss anymore, because we’ve been waiting for too long” ... fluctuations in the jet stream will become more intense. A warmer Arctic will quicken permafrost melt, releasing more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, accelerating a dangerous feedback loop. The Greenland ice sheet would likely melt more quickly as well, meaning higher seas.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/the-arctic-will-have-ice-free-summers-as-soon-as-the-2030s-1.1929480
see also https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/06/too-late-now-to-save-arctic-summer-ice-climate-scientists-find
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-38511-8Broken Record: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Levels Jump Again
Average May reading 3.0 parts per million higher than in 2022 Carbon dioxide levels measured at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory peaked at 424 parts per million (ppm) in May, continuing a steady climb further into territory not seen for millions of years, scientists from NOAA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego announced today.
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/broken-record-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-levels-jump-againGlobal greenhouse gas emissions at all-time high, study finds
Greenhouse gas emissions have reached an all-time high, threatening to push the world into “unprecedented” levels of global heating, scientists have warned. The world is rapidly running out of “carbon budget”, the amount of carbon dioxide that can be poured into the atmosphere if we are to stay within the vital threshold of 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures, according to a study published in the journal Earth System Science Data on Thursday.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/08/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-at-all-time-high-study-finds
reporting on a study at https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/15/2295/2023/Dry Weather to Slash Australia’s Next Wheat Crop by a Third
Dry conditions and low soil moisture in some growing regions mean that much of the 2023–24 crop has been sown dry and will require adequate and timely rain to allow plants to germinate, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences said. Apart from Australia, wild weather is affecting crops elsewhere, including in the Americas and North Africa. The harvest in top wheat consumer China has also been hit by torrential rains, potentially boosting the need for more imports. The expected onset of El Niño conditions from July will likely see winter crop output fall significantly, Abares said. Dry weather has already arrived, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, with the second-driest May on record nationwide and the driest in Western Australia since observations began.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-05/dry-weather-set-to-slash-australia-s-next-wheat-crop-by-a-thirdNations who pledged to fight climate change are sending money to strange places
Italy helped a retailer open chocolate and gelato stores across Asia. The United States offered a loan for a coastal hotel expansion in Haiti. Belgium backed the film “La Tierra Roja,” a love story set in the Argentine rainforest. And Japan is financing a new coal plant in Bangladesh and an airport expansion in Egypt ... all four countries counted their backing as so-called “climate finance.” Developed nations have pledged to funnel a combined total of $100 billion a year toward this goal, which they affirmed during climate talks in Paris in 2015 ... they broke no rules. That’s because the pledge came with no official guidelines for what activities count as climate finance. “This is the wild, wild west of finance,” said Mark Joven, Philippines Department of Finance undersecretary, who represents the country at U.N. climate talks. “Essentially, whatever they call climate finance is climate finance.” The system’s lack of transparency made it impossible to tell how much money is going to efforts that truly help reduce global warming and its impact. In some cases, even recipient governments say they don’t know what has become of climate-finance funds purportedly spent on their turf.
https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/nations-who-pledged-to-fight-climate-change-are-sending-money-to-strange-placesAnother climate tipping point to worry about: Plankton
Rising temperatures could turn one of the world's most common organisms into a major source of carbon emissions. A study, published Thursday in Functional Ecology, found that rising temperatures cause a sudden shift in these microbes’ eating habits, flipping them from carbon absorbers to carbon emitters ... it could be quite substantial, because they’re among the world’s most abundant organisms ... These tiny creatures are called “mixotrophs” because they use a mix of strategies to obtain food. Mixotrophs can, like plants, use photosynthesis to get the energy they need, or can, like predators, hunt bacteria. “When their dominant strategy is photosynthesis, they can have a net cooling effect by taking more greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere,” Wieczynski said. “If they do more eating of bacteria, they’re pumping more CO2 back into the atmosphere than they’re taking up.” Looking at temperatures from about 66 to 73 degrees F the abrupt shift from photosynthesis to carnivorousness happened about halfway up the range. “Just a couple degrees is all it takes,” Wieczynski said ... Researchers predict that once these microbes cross this tipping point, it would take a large amount of cooling, perhaps more than 1 degree C (1.8 degrees F), to turn them back into a carbon sink.
https://grist.org/science/plankton-climate-tipping-point-carbon-emissions/
reporting on a study at https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1365-2435.14350Antarctic alarm bells: observations reveal deep ocean currents are slowing earlier than predicted
Antarctic “bottom water” spreads north along the sea floor in deep ocean currents, before slowly rising, thousands of kilometres away. In this way, Antarctica drives a global network of ocean currents called the “overturning circulation” that redistributes heat, carbon and nutrients around the globe. The overturning is crucial to keeping Earth’s climate stable. It’s also the main way oxygen reaches the deep ocean. But there are signs this circulation is slowing down and it’s happening decades earlier than predicted ... melting of Antarctic ice is disrupting the formation of Antarctic bottom water. The meltwater makes Antarctic surface waters fresher, less dense, and therefore less likely to sink. This puts the brakes on the overturning circulation ... The overturning circulation carries carbon dioxide and heat to the deep ocean, where it is stored and hidden from the atmosphere. As the ocean storage capacity is reduced, more carbon dioxide and heat are left in the atmosphere. This feedback accelerates global warming ... The consequences of a slowdown will not be limited to Antarctica. The overturning circulation extends throughout the global ocean and influences the pace of climate change and sea level rise.
https://theconversation.com/antarctic-alarm-bells-observations-reveal-deep-ocean-currents-are-slowing-earlier-than-predicted-206289
see also https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/may/25/slowing-ocean-current-caused-by-melting-antarctic-ice-could-have-drastic-climate-impact-study-says
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01667-8Record sea surface heat sparks fears of warming surge
Oceans absorb most of the heat caused by planet-warming gases, causing heatwaves that harm aquatic life, altering weather patterns and disrupting crucial planet-regulating systems. While sea surface temperatures normally recede relatively quickly from annual peaks, this year they stayed high ... Higher sea surface temperatures disrupt the mixing of nutrients and oxygen that are key to supporting life and potentially alter the ocean's crucial role in absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. Scientists expect that excess heat stored in the world's waters will eventually be returned to the Earth system and contribute to more global warming. "As we heat it up, the ocean becomes a bit like a time bomb," said Jeandel.
https://phys.org/news/2023-05-sea-surface-surge.htmlThe Ocean Is Looking More Menacing
Climate changes previously projected to happen 'by 2050' are happening now
In mid-March, measures of global sea-surface temperature plotted against recent years took a sharp turn away from the pack. By April 1, it had hit a record high [later] heating up to about three quarters of a degree above the 1982-2011 mean [which was] the largest global ocean temperature anomaly on record ... In a paper published in March, researchers suggested that under a high-emissions scenario, rapid melting of Antarctic ice could slow deepwater formation in the Southern Ocean by more than 40 percent by 2050, disrupting the “conveyor belt” that regulates and stabilizes not just the temperature of the oceans but much of the world’s weather systems. And after 2050? This key part of the circulation of the Southern Ocean “looks headed towards collapse this century,” study coordinator Matthew England told Yale Environment 360. “And once collapsed, it would most likely stay collapsed until Antarctic melting stopped. At current projections that could be centuries away.” Then, last week, some of the same researchers confirmed that the process was already unfolding — in fact, that the Southern Ocean overturning circulation had already slowed by as much as 30 percent since the 1990s ... “Changes have already happened in the ocean that were not projected to happen until a few decades from now” ... Just under 90 percent of the additional heat caused by global warming goes into the ocean [and] the planet accumulated nearly as much additional heat in the past 15 years as it had over the previous 45 ... what this means for oceans is that they are dealing with about 15 times as much impact and disruption from heat as those of us walking the earth and breathing air. And that, probably, we should be spending a lot more time looking there, in the world’s water, for the clearest signs of planetary distress.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/01/opinion/the-ocean-is-looking-more-menacing.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01667-8Farm animals, crops suffer from extreme weather affecting China
With parts of China experiencing record high temperatures and heavy rains, reports of farm animals and crops suffering from extreme weather patterns are dominating headlines in the country, raising concerns about food security in the world’s second largest economy. China experienced its worst heat wave and drought in decades during the summer of 2022, which caused widespread power shortages and disrupted food and industrial supply chains. This year, extreme heat has ravaged many parts of the country even earlier than last year ... reports of farm animals killed by extreme heat have dominated the news [and] extreme weather conditions have also affected the country’s largest wheat-growing region ... precipitation in the middle reaches of the mighty Yangtze River, which bisects the country, may be significantly reduced, according to an official estimate. That could lead to a drought and affect the region’s rice crops, he said. The Yangtze River basin provides more than two thirds of China’s rice, a major food staple at home and abroad.
https://www.accuweather.com/en/climate/farm-animals-crops-suffer-from-extreme-weather-affecting-china/1536139Potential for surprising heat and drought [crop collapse] events in wheat-producing regions of USA and China
Climate change presents a key risk to food systems globally, but many risk analyses derive estimates based on past climate-yield relationships, without accounting for the fact that we live in a fundamentally changed climate ... we are likely underestimating climate risks to our food system. In the case of wheat, parts of the USA and China show little historical relationship between yields and temperature, but extreme temperatures are now possible that exceed critical physiological thresholds in wheat plants ... In the US midwest, extreme temperatures that would have happened approximately 1-in-100-years in 1981 now have a return period of 1-in-6 years, while in China, the current return period is on the order of 1-in-16 years ... We find that there is a high potential for surprise in these regions if people base risk analyses solely on historical datasets.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-023-00361-yEarth past its safe limits for humans, scientists say
Activities have pushed 7 of 8 planetary boundaries into risk zones, research finds The earth is already past safe limits for humans as temperature rise, water system disruption and destruction of natural habitats have reached boundaries, a study by a group of the world’s foremost scientists has found. The research, published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, identified eight earth system boundaries that included climate, biodiversity, water, natural ecosystems, land use and the effect of fertilisers and aerosols ... limits after which humans will suffer significant harm. That includes through a lack of access to clean water, lower food security and displacement or loss of work because of temperature rise or flooding. Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and co-author of the report, said it was “very worrying” that most of the boundaries had already been breached. “It’s starting to hurt already . . . causing extreme events and abrupt impacts which go beyond heatwaves, droughts and floods caused by climate [change], but also lower food security, worsening water quality, overdraft of groundwater [and] worsened conditions for livelihoods, particularly among the vast vulnerable majorities in the world.”
https://www.ft.com/content/b59f9fea-500c-43c0-9b70-f0f7e866fd0e
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06083-8It’s near certain that the next 5 years will be the hottest yet
El Niño may push global temperatures past 1.5C, the World Meteorological Organization warned. The meteorological association cautioned that the world could see temperatures that are 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than preindustrial times, with a two-thirds chance that at least one of the next five years will breach that threshold ... El Niño’s arrival could fuel the spread of diseases carried by mosquitoes, bacteria, and toxic algae. Malaria and dengue have spiked during past El Niño years.
https://grist.org/science/el-nino-the-next-5-years-will-be-the-hottest-on-recordClimate change could cut off the Panama Canal
Every time the canal's locks are opened, millions of liters of fresh water flow into the sea. As a consequence, the water level in the canal drops. It is eventually replaced by more water flowing in. However now residents, conservationists and meteorologists are all observing a decrease in rainfall in Central America as a result of climate change. Which means less water for the canal ... The Panama Canal uses so much fresh water because ships have to go through a dozen locks that take them up or down 26 meters (85 feet). At the start of May, authorities put out an draft adjustment advisory for the Neo-Panamax locks — the term refers to size limits of some of the largest ships going through the canal — based on projected water levels. Starting May 24, the largest ships that transit the canal will be limited to drafts of up to 13.56 meters. A week later on May 30, that will be reduced again to 13.4 meters ... analysts do not expect the situation to improve for the rest of spring. In fact, things could get worse.
https://www.dw.com/en/will-climate-change-cut-off-the-panama-canal-and-global-supply-chains/a-65761965‘Spermageddon’: What you need to know about falling sperm counts and the male fertility crisis
A recent bombshell study found that sperm counts are plummeting faster than we thought [with] the potential to “threaten mankind’s survival” ... while sperm counts are “an imperfect proxy for fertility,” they’re closely linked to fertility chances ... Are chemicals to blame for falling sperm counts? Research shows [endocrine disruptor] chemicals such as phthalates, which have long been used to make plastics soft and flexible, and bisphenol A (BPA), which is used in hard plastic bottles, can disrupt humans’ hormonal and reproductive systems, especially in their earliest stages of development, inside the expectant mother’s womb. “If you mess with the hormones you need to have a functioning reproductive system, you’re not going to have a functioning reproductive system.”
https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/05/26/sperm-count-down-are-we-facing-a-male-fertility-crisis-and-what-can-we-do-about-itWhy the climate crisis is making our insects run for the hills
In the Alps and Apennines of southern Europe, nearly all the longhorn beetles are moving uphill, and way up at the peaks, the isolation of a brown butterfly with orange-tipped wings is pushing it towards extinction. This is a snapshot of a global trend. With temperatures rising and pressure on biodiversity growing, insects vital to our ecosystems are not only moving north and south, but up. Research shows many animals are making similar moves, but insects’ high levels of mobility and short generation times allow them to respond quickly to change, meaning the uphill momentum can be rapid ... While the broader altitude shift is disquieting in itself, studies have also shown that reproduction and development can be hit as insects move upwards [yet] well over half of the mountain-dwelling insects that have been studied are shifting upwards.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/28/why-the-climate-crisis-is-making-our-insects-run-for-the-hillsFor some US residents, it is now impossible to get home insurance - and all because of the climate crisis
State Farm, the largest insurance firm in the US by premium volume [said] it has stopped accepting new homeowner insurance applications in California. In a statement, the company said the decision was based on the heightened risk of natural disasters, such as wildfires, along with historic increases in construction costs. This news didn’t come out of nowhere. Last year, two large insurance firms in California ended their coverage for some multimillion-dollar houses in wildfire-prone areas. “We cannot charge an adequate price for the risk,” one insurance company CEO explained in an earnings call ... if you can’t get insurance, it’s almost impossible to get a mortgage. This makes it harder to sell your house and will make prices go down. The writing is on the wall, as insurance companies are well aware.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/31/for-some-us-residents-it-is-now-impossible-to-get-home-insurance-and-all-because-of-the-climate-crisisGlobal temperature rise could see billions live in places where human life doesn’t flourish, study says
If the current pace of global warming goes unchecked, it will push billions of people outside the “climate niche,” the temperatures where humans can flourish, and expose them to dangerously hot conditions ... the study found that by 2030 around two billion people will be outside the climate niche ... Outside this window, conditions tend to be too hot, too cold or too dry. In the worst case scenarios, if the Earth warms up by 3.6 or even 4.4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, half of the world’s population would be outside the climate niche.
https://www.accuweather.com/en/climate/global-temperature-rise-could-see-billions-live-in-places-where-human-life-doesnt-flourish-study-says/1530384
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01132-6Spain Browned by Drought
Since the start of the hydrological year, on October 1, 2022, Spain received 28 percent less rain than expected by mid-May 2023, according to Spain’s meteorological agency. The drought dried up reservoirs, parched olive groves, and led to water restrictions across the country. The sparse rainfall further parched soils that were already unusually dry in 2022. According to a recent report by Copernicus Climate Change Services, soil moisture across all of Europe in 2022 was the second lowest in the past 50 years. Unseasonable heat exacerbated the prolonged drought.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/151366/spain-browned-by-droughtGreenland and Antarctica losing ice six times faster than expected
Greenland and Antarctica are losing ice six times faster than in the 1990s – currently on track with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s worst-case climate warming scenario. The findings, published in two separate papers in Nature, show that Greenland and Antarctica lost 6.4 trillion tonnes of ice between 1992 and 2017 ... The combined rate of ice loss has risen by a factor of six in just three decades, up from 81 billion tonnes per year in the 1990s to 475 billion tonnes per year in the 2010s. This means that polar ice sheets are now responsible for a third of all sea level rise. The new assessment comes from an international team of 89 polar scientists who have produced the most complete picture of ice loss to date.
https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Space_for_our_climate/Greenland_and_Antarctica_losing_ice_six_times_faster_than_expectedA Breakthrough Deal to Keep the Colorado River From Going Dry, for Now
Arizona, California and Nevada have agreed to take less water from the drought-strained Colorado River, a breakthrough agreement that, for now, keeps the river from falling so low that it would jeopardize water supplies for major Western cities like Phoenix and Los Angeles as well as for some of America’s most productive farmland ... reductions would amount to about 13 percent of the total water use in the lower Colorado Basin — among the most aggressive ever experienced in the region ... The Colorado River supplies drinking water to 40 million Americans in seven states as well as part of Mexico and irrigates 5.5 million acres of farmland. The electricity generated by dams on the river’s two main reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, powers millions of homes and businesses. But drought, population growth and climate change have dropped the river’s flows by one-third in recent years compared with historical averages, threatening to provoke a water and power catastrophe across the West ... The agreement runs only through the end of 2026 [when] all seven states that rely on the river — which include Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — could face a deeper reckoning, as its decline is likely to continue.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/22/climate/colorado-river-deal.htmlNowhere Should Expect a Cool Summer
Already, a heat wave in the Pacific Northwest is breaking records, with many places more than 20 degrees Fahrenheit above the seasonal norm ... years of record temperatures, sweeping wildfires, and 100-year hurricanes and floods have established a terrible, if loose, standard for what the next few months might bring. Not a sliver of the U.S. should expect a cool summer, according to the NOAA Climate Prediction Center ... When the land lacks moisture and vegetation, “all the energy from the sun goes into heating the ground and then the near-surface temperature,” says Jon Gottschalck, who runs the operational-prediction branch of the CPC. These possibilities reflect a clear long-term trend: “more frequent heat waves, stronger heat waves,” says Ed Kearns, the chief data officer at First Street Foundation, a nonprofit that models climate risk. Those heat waves, in turn, can produce heavier rainfall and powerful floods—warm air holds more water vapor—and extend droughts. With heat also comes the risk of wildfires [and] fires are becoming more intense and destructive ... High sea-surface temperatures should drive more [hurricanes] because tropical storms pull energy from warm water. But the likely arrival of El Niño—which tears apart and weakens hurricanes as they form in the Atlantic—would decrease storm activity ... A weaker El Niño would likely not counteract exceptionally warm waters; a strong El Niño might be enough. Timing matters too: The full effects of El Niño usually come in fall or winter, meaning the earlier half of hurricane season could be worse ... the long-term trend is toward more frequent and more severe storms hitting the United States.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/05/pacific-northwest-heat-wave-record-breaking-wildfires/674076/Three facilities leaking toxic 'forever chemicals' into [San Francisco Bay Area] groundwater
Metal plating companies Electro-Coatings of California and Teikuro Corporation, along with a Recology center in Vacaville, were sent legal notices by CEH after they were discovered to use PFAS, a group of potentially harmful chemicals, in their day-to-day operations. These chemicals were directly released into designated sources of drinking water below three facilities and now exceed the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed limits for PFAS by over a hundred times ... the [endocrine disruptors] affect functions of the thyroid, liver, reproductive system, and immune system, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. PFAS are known to move through soil and infect drinking water sources, and they do not break down in the environment, hence their nickname, “forever chemicals.”
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/bay-area-facilities-leaking-toxic-chemicals-water-18105368.phpAs Ocean Oxygen Levels Dip, Fish Face an Uncertain Future
“Deoxygenation is a big problem,” Pauly summarizes. Our future ocean — warmer and oxygen-deprived — will not only hold fewer kinds of fish, but also smaller, stunted fish and, to add insult to injury, more greenhouse-gas producing bacteria, scientists say. The tropics will empty as fish move to more oxygenated waters, says Pauly, and those specialist fish already living at the poles will face extinction ... The oxygen drop is driven by a few factors. First, the laws of physics dictate that warmer water can hold less dissolved gas than cooler water. Deeper down, oxygen levels are largely governed by currents that mix surface waters downward, and this too is being affected by climate change. Melting ice adds fresh, less-dense water that resists downward mixing. Finally, bacteria living in the water, which feed off phytoplankton and other organic gunk as it falls to the seafloor, consume oxygen. This effect can be massive along coastlines, where fertilizer runoff feeds algae blooms, which in turn feed oxygen-gobbling bacteria. This creates ever more “dead zones” ... By 2080, a 2021 study reported, more than 70 percent of the global oceans will experience noticeable deoxygenation [but] climate models seem to have underestimated changes in oxygen levels, which have been dropping faster than expected ... “imagine all the dead zones of the world coalescing into one, and that is the end of the thing.” If we don’t get a handle on greenhouse gas emissions, he says, “we have to expect this to happen.”
https://e360.yale.edu/features/as-ocean-oxygen-levels-dip-fish-face-an-uncertain-futureThe Upper Atmosphere Is Cooling, Prompting New Climate Concerns
The same gases that are warming the bottom few miles of air are cooling the much greater expanses above that stretch to the edge of space. This paradox has long been predicted by climate modelers ... Increases in the amount of CO2 are now “manifest throughout the entire perceptible atmosphere,” says Martin Mlynczak, an atmospheric physicist at the NASA Langley Research Center ... the rate of increase in its concentration at the top of the atmosphere is as great as at the bottom. But [in] the thinner air aloft, most of the heat re-emitted by the CO2 does not bump into other molecules. It escapes to space. Combined with the greater trapping of heat at lower levels, the result is a rapid cooling of the surrounding atmosphere ... We are “fundamentally changing” that thermal structure, he says. “These results make me very worried” ... One big concern is the already fragile state of the ozone layer in the lower stratosphere. Ozone destruction operates in overdrive in polar stratospheric clouds [and] the cooler stratosphere has meant more occasions when such clouds can form ... the continued cooling means current expectations that the ozone layer should be fully healed by mid-century are almost certainly overly optimistic. This is made more concerning because, while the regions beneath previous Antarctic holes have been largely devoid of people, the regions beneath future Arctic ozone holes are potentially some of the more densely populated on the planet.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/climate-change-upper-atmosphere-cooling
reporting on a study at https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2300758120Numerous heat records smashed in Pacific Northwest and western Canada
Record warmth has toppled many long-term records across the U.S. West Coast and western Canada since last week [and] another bout of record heat could emerge as soon as later this week ... The particularly hot and dry conditions have caused numerous ongoing wildfires to flare up again across the region, along with some new starts, particularly focused on Alberta province in Canada. At this point, there is still no real sign of a large-scale cool-down for the region. Instead, the forecast goes from scorching to a little less hot and back to broiling again ... Dozens of daily records were also set across six of Canada’s provinces. Some locations have broken multiple daily records, sometimes by major margins.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/05/15/record-heat-oregon-washington-alberta-british-columbia/The far north is burning—and turning up the heat on the planet
The Arctic and surroundings are being transformed from carbon sink to carbon emitter
Arctic permafrost has locked away thousands of years’ worth of plant matter, preventing rot that would release clouds of planet-heating carbon dioxide and methane. But in a pair of recent papers, scientists have found that wildfires and human meddling are reducing northern ecosystems’ ability to sequester carbon, threatening to turn them into carbon sources. That will in turn accelerate climate change, which is already warming the Arctic four and a half times faster than the rest of the world, triggering the release of still more carbon ... over 100 wildfires are burning across Alberta Canada right now, forcing nearly 30,000 people from their homes—an “unprecedented situation” in the region. The annual area burned in Canada has doubled since the 1970s, says Mike Flannigan, a fire scientist at Thompson Rivers University. “A warmer world means more fire,” he says ... Climate change makes these blazes more likely. As northern landscapes dry out, they accumulate dead brush that’s ready to burn catastrophically ... Wildfires dramatically accelerate the development of thermokarst, a phenomenon in which permafrost thaws so quickly the ground craters. This provides the perfect wet conditions for microbes to eat organic matter and spew methane.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/05/the-far-north-is-burning-and-turning-up-the-heat-on-the-planet/Ocean temperatures now hotter than ever recorded. El Nino will drive them higher
Following closely after the official end of the triple-dip La Niña in early March, the world’s oceans began setting new heat records on a near-daily basis. By the end of March, the average sea surface temperature (between 60°N and 60°S) climbed to above 21°C for the first time since record-keeping began ... “This prolonged period of cold was tamping down global mean surface temperatures despite the rise of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” [said] Michael McPhaden, NOAA's director of the Global Tropical Moored Buoy Array Program. “Now that it’s over, we are likely seeing the climate change signal coming through loud and clear.” If the ENSO forecast develops as expected — even if “only” a moderate El Niño develops — temperatures will climb even higher and set even more records.
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/weather/forecasts/ocean-temperatures-now-hotter-than-ever-recorded-el-nino-will-drive-them-higherOceans have been absorbing the world’s extra heat. But there’s a huge payback
The temperature at the ocean’s surface can jump around from one year to the next [but] 2km below the surface, that variability is almost nowhere to be seen. The rising heat down there has been on a relentless climb for decades, thanks to burning fossil fuels. “The ocean captures more than 90% of the imbalance of energy that we’re creating because of anthropogenic climate change” ... the atmosphere has held on to [only] 2% of the extra heat caused by global heating ... Prof Matthew England, an oceanographer and climate scientist at the University of New South Wales [says] “simple physics means the ocean “has this huge ability to absorb heat and then hold on to it” ... To heat [one cubic metre of] air by 1C, he says it takes about 2,000 joules. But to warm a cubic metre of ocean needs about 4,200,000 joules. “By absorbing all this heat, the ocean lulls people into a false sense of security that climate change is progressing slowly. But there is a huge payback ... sea level rise, coastal inundation, increased floods and drought cycles, bleached corals, intensification of cyclones, ecological impacts, melting of ice at higher latitudes in the coastal margins ... The oceans have stored the problem,” says England. “But it’s coming back to bite us.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/15/oceans-have-been-absorbing-the-worlds-extra-heat-but-theres-a-huge-paybackThe ocean is hotter than ever: what happens next?
The global ocean hit a new record temperature of 21.1 ºC in early April ... in line with the ocean warming anticipated from climate change. What is remarkable is its occurrence ahead of — rather than during — the El Niño climate event ... “We are probably looking at a string of record highs over the next year or so,” says Josh Willis, an oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California ... Warm waters are also physically less capable of holding dissolved oxygen. “With ocean warming and deoxygenation, the available habitats for many species are decreasing,” says William Cheung, a marine biologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada ... The ocean temperature spike — recorded by NOAA and probably the highest in more than 100,000 years — coincides with other warming trends. For example, in the Southern Hemisphere, the sea ice extent hit a new all-time low in February 2023. The ocean absorbs about 90% of the extra heat in the climate system resulting from global warming. But because it takes more energy to heat water than air, the surface water temperature is rising more slowly than the surface air temperature is. “This wouldn’t have happened without climate change,” tweeted Jens Terhaar, an ocean biogeochemical modeller at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, in response to the news of the new temperature record. “We are in a new climate state, extremes are the new normal.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01573-1Are New Zealand's marine heatwaves a warning to the world?
Fish strandings are by no means unheard of – schools get chased in by predators, carried by storms, caught by the shallow sandbars of a bay. [But] “when that happens, though, you’re talking about individual fish – not thousands and thousands over a six month period” ... over the year to April 2023, New Zealand’s coastal waters sat stewing in marine heatwave conditions for 208 days. Some southern regions experienced marine heatwave conditions for more than 270 days. In the north island’s Bay of Plenty, the waters remained in heatwave for an entire year ... When marine heatwaves began hitting New Zealand again in 2022, dead [fairy penguins] began washing up on beaches in their hundreds ... the birds had died starving – as warm waters redistributed fish deeper and further, the penguins could not reach them ... “We thought we had more time. Climate change is a slow process. But faster than many people think.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2023/may/13/are-new-zealands-marine-heatwaves-a-warning-to-the-worldNetherlands has had 10 straight winters with below-average number of snow days
For the tenth winter in a row, the Netherlands had fewer snow days than usual ... number of average snow days almost halved compared to the 1951-1980 climate period ... “Green winters will become the norm,” the weather service said.
https://nltimes.nl/2023/05/11/netherlands-10-straight-winters-average-number-snow-daysWhy is the ice melting so fast?
One recent study found that Greenland is the warmest it's been in 1000 years. The resulting Arctic meltdown was responsible for 40% of the world's rising seas in 2019 ... Greenland's Petermann glacier is breaking up. Sitting on the edge of the ocean, its retreat will expose the massive ice sheets behind it to warming ocean water [and] sea level rise could double as a result ... In Antarctica, sea ice last year was at its lowest-ever recorded level [with] fears that the Thwaites glacier, which is the size of Florida and the biggest chunk of ice on the planet, is starting to crack up due to warming Antarctic waters ... most of the epic Greenland ice sheet is expected to melt ... Once that happens, sea levels could rise by as much as seven meters ... The world's mountain glaciers are melting much faster than they can accumulate ... these "water towers" provide fresh water to about a quarter of the world's population.
https://www.dw.com/en/why-is-the-ice-melting-so-fast/a-6557582814,000 Abandoned Oil and Gas Wells in the Gulf of Mexico Are Spewing Methane
A study published in Nature Energy found that there are 14,000 orphaned oil and gas wells in waters throughout the Gulf of Mexico’s waters and in Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas ... Other parts of the U.S. are dotted with abandoned and unplugged wells. A 2021 study found that Central Appalachian states, including Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky, are home to more than 500,000 abandoned oil and gas wells. That’s about 20% of the country’s idle wells, according to the study.
https://gizmodo.com/14-000-abandoned-oil-and-gas-wells-in-the-gulf-of-mexic-1850416009
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-023-01248-1‘Mind-boggling’ methane emissions from Turkmenistan revealed
Methane leaks alone from Turkmenistan’s two main fossil fuel fields caused more global heating in 2022 than the entire carbon emissions of the UK, satellite data has revealed. The western fossil fuel field in Turkmenistan, on the Caspian coast, leaked 2.6m tonnes of methane in 2022. The eastern field emitted 1.8m tonnes ... Most of the facilities leaking the methane were owned by Turkmenoil, the national oil company. Further undetected methane emissions will be coming from Turkmenistan’s offshore oil and gas installations in the Caspian Sea, but the ability of satellites to measure methane leaks over water is still being developed.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/09/mind-boggling-methane-emissions-from-turkmenistan-revealedWildfires in Alberta off to an exponentially fast start compared to recent years
Devastating wildfires in Alberta have burned more than 150 times more area than in the last five years combined at this same point in the year ... With temperatures expected to rise significantly by this weekend and into next week, a provincial state of emergency has been declared as weather conditions threaten to aid in fire growth and worsen the situation. “We are expecting record breaking temperatures across British Columbia and northern Alberta through early next week,” meteorologist Terri Lang from Environment Canada tells CNN. Last week’s abnormally warm and dry conditions have set the stage for more fires this weekend. “This is when we get very aggressive fire behavior,” explained Lang. “Throw in some wind and we are off to the races with regards to the wildfire season.” Temperatures will range between 10 and 15 degrees Celsius above average.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/10/americas/canada-alberta-wildfires/index.htmlNew temperature records, food security threats likely as El Niño looms
El Niño and La Niña are natural phenomena which WMO describes as “major drivers of the Earth’s climate system”. After a three-year La Niña spell, which is associated with ocean cooling, the world faces an 80 per cent chance of an El Niño event developing between July and September ... according to the agency’s State of the Global Climate reports, the eight years from 2015 to 2022 were the warmest on record. This was even though for three of those years, “we had a cooling La Niña [that] acted as a temporary brake on global temperature increase”.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/05/1136312Records toppling as temperatures hit nearly 90 degrees in northern Canada
Parts of the northwestern United States are also seeing unprecedented temperatures
Records ha ve toppled far and wide across the Intermountain West, the interior Pacific Northwest and especially western Canada ... Maximiliano Herrera, a climate historian known for keeping track of temperature records, described the readings as “extraordinary.” In a tweet, he said the temperatures were “several degrees above anything seen that early.” In addition to the nearly 90-degree readings that were logged in northern Canada, a menagerie of records were set in the Lower 48 ... episodes of unseasonable heat are made more frequent, probable and intense due to human action. In a world unperturbed by humans, one might expect a roughly equal ratio of hot to cold records. Instead, heat records continue to vastly outpace cold records.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/05/04/canada-record-temperatures-climate-northwest/Recent, rapid ocean warming alarms scientists
Over the past 15 years, the Earth has accumulated almost as much heat as it did in the previous 45 years, with most of the extra energy going into the oceans ... not only did the overall temperature of the oceans hit a new record in April this year, in some regions the difference from the long term was enormous. In March, sea surface temperatures off the east coast of North America were as much as 13.8C higher than the 1981-2011 average ... One factor that could be influencing the level of heat going into the oceans is, interestingly, a reduction in pollution from shipping. In 2020, the International Maritime Organisation put in place a regulation to reduce the sulphur content of fuel burned by ships. This has had a rapid impact, reducing the amount of aerosol particles released into the atmosphere. But aerosols that dirty the air also help reflect heat back into space - removing them may have caused more heat to enter the waters [aerosol masking effect]... Another important factor that is worrying scientists is the El Niño Southern Oscillation. For the past three years this naturally occurring event has been in a cooler phase called La Niña, and has helped keep global temperatures in check. But researchers now believe that a strong El Niño is forming ... "The Australian Bureau's model does go strongly for a strong El Niño. And it has been trending that way and all the climate models have been trending that way to a stronger event," said Hugh McDowell from Australia's Bureau of Meteorology [and if so] "we will probably have additional global warming of 0.2-0.25C," said Dr Josef Ludescher, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research ... Several scientists contacted for this story were reluctant to go on the record about the implications. One spoke of being "extremely worried and completely stressed."
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65339934
see also https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-19/nsw-warm-oceans-waters-earth-el-nino-beach/102236916Human-driven climate crisis fuelling Horn of Africa drought – study
The drought has affected about 50 million people in the Horn of Africa directly and another 100 million in the wider area. About 20 million people are at risk of acute food insecurity and potentially famine. The region has been suffering its worst drought in 40 years since October 2020 [with] five consecutive seasons of rainfall below normal levels. ... According to a study by the World Weather Attribution group of scientists published on Thursday, the ongoing drought would not have happened without human actions that have changed the climate ... and that by a conservative estimate climate change had made droughts such as the current one about 100 more times likely to occur.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/27/human-driven-climate-crisis-fuelling-horn-of-africa-drought-studyPolar ice sheet melting records have toppled during the past decade
The seven worst years for polar ice sheets melting and losing ice have occurred during the past decade, according to new research [by] IMBIE, an international team of researchers who have combined 50 satellite surveys of Antarctica and Greenland taken between 1992 and 2020. Their findings are published today in the journal Earth System Science Data ... Data collected by the team is widely used by leading organisations, including by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ... Earth’s polar ice sheets lost 7,560 billion tonnes of ice between 1992 and 2020 – equivalent to an ice cube that would be 20 kilometres in height. The polar ice sheets have together lost ice in every year of the satellite record, and the seven highest melting years have occurred in the past decade ... This third assessment from the IMBIE Team, funded by the ESA and NASA, involved a team of 68 polar scientists from 41 international organisations using measurements from 17 satellite missions
https://newsroom.northumbria.ac.uk/pressreleases/polar-ice-sheet-melting-records-have-toppled-during-the-past-decade-3247262
reporting on a study at https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/15/1597/2023/New Detection Method Uncovers Massive Amount of Methane
Wildfires emitting methane is not new. But the amount of methane from the top 20 fires in 2020 was more than seven times the average from wildfires in the previous 19 years, according to the new UCR study. “Fires are getting bigger and more intense, and correspondingly, more emissions are coming from them,” said UCR environmental sciences professor and study co-author Francesca Hopkins. “The fires in 2020 emitted what would have been 14 percent of the state’s methane budget if it was being tracked” ... To measure emissions from 2020’s Sequoia Lightning Fire Complex in the Sierra Nevadas, the UCR research team used a remote sensing technique, which is both safer for scientists and likely more accurate since it captures an integrated plume from the fire that includes different burning phases. The technique, detailed in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, allowed the [study] to safely measure an entire plume of the Sequoia Lightning Fire Complex gas and debris from 40 miles away ... This data matches measurements that came from European space agency satellite data, which took a more sweeping, global view of the burned areas, but are not yet capable of measuring methane in these conditions. If included in the California Air Resources Board methane budget, wildfires would be a bigger source than residential and commercial buildings, power generation, or transportation, but behind agriculture and industry.
https://scitechdaily.com/concerning-new-detection-method-uncovers-massive-amount-of-methane/
reporting on a study at https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/23/4521/2023/A once-stable glacier in Greenland is now rapidly disappearing
As climate change causes ocean temperatures to rise, one of Greenland's previously most stable glaciers is now retreating at an unprecedented rate, according to a new study. Led by researchers at The Ohio State University, a team found that between 2018 and 2021, Steenstrup Glacier in Greenland has retreated about 5 miles, thinned about 20%, doubled in the amount of ice it discharges into the ocean, and quadrupled in velocity. According to the study, such a rapid change is so extraordinary among Greenland ice formations that it now places Steenstrup in the top 10% of glaciers that contribute to the entire region's total ice discharge. The study was published today in Nature Communications ... "Up until 2016, there was nothing to suggest Steenstrup was in any way interesting," said Thomas Chudley, lead author of the study, "There were plenty of other glaciers in Greenland that had retreated dramatically since the 1990s and increased their contribution to sea level rise, but this really wasn't one of them" ... Steenstrup's unique behavior reveals that even long-term stable glaciers are susceptible to sudden and rapid retreat as warmer waters begin to intrude and influence new environments.
https://phys.org/news/2023-04-once-stable-glacier-greenland-rapidly.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37764-7Heat stored in the Earth system 1960–2020: where does the energy go?
The Earth climate system is out of energy balance, and heat has accumulated continuously over the past decades, warming the ocean, the land, the cryosphere, and the atmosphere [resulting] in unprecedented and committed changes to the Earth system, with adverse impacts ... The Earth heat inventory provides a measure of the Earth energy imbalance (EEI) and allows for quantifying how much heat has accumulated in the Earth system, as well as where the heat is stored. Here we show that the Earth system has continued to accumulate heat, with 381±61 ZJ accumulated from 1971 to 2020. This is equivalent to a heating rate (i.e., the EEI) of 0.48±0.1 W m−2. The majority, about 89 %, of this heat is stored in the ocean.
https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/15/1675/2023/The world just failed its annual health checkup
The WMO’s annual State of the Climate Report analyzes a series of global climate indicators to understand how the planet is responding to climate change and the impact it is having on people and nature ... The past eight years were the hottest on record, despite three consecutive years of the La Niña climate phenomenon, which has a global cooling effect [and] with the predicted arrival later in the year of El Niño, which brings warmer global temperatures, scientists are deeply concerned that 2023 and 2024 will continue to smash climate records ... The WMO report follows an analysis published Thursday by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, which focused on how climate change affected Europe last year. It highlighted “alarming” changes to the continent’s climate, including the hottest summer ever recorded, unprecedented marine heatwaves in the Mediterranean sea and widespread wildfires.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/21/world/wmo-report-state-of-climate-intl/index.htmlGlobal rice shortage is set to be the biggest in 20 years
From China to the U.S. to the European Union, rice production is falling and driving up prices for more than 3.5 billion people across the globe, particularly in Asia-Pacific – which consumes 90% of the world’s rice. The global rice market is set to log its largest shortfall in two decades in 2023 ... partly due to result of “an annual deterioration in the Mainland Chinese harvest caused by intense heat and drought as well as the impact of severe flooding in Pakistan,” Hart pointed out. Rice is a vulnerable crop, and has the highest probability of simultaneous crop loss during an El Nino event ... swaths of farmland in the world’s largest rice producer China were plagued by heavy summer monsoon rains and floods ... Similarly, Pakistan — which represents 7.6% of global rice trade — saw annual production plunge 31% year-on-year due to severe flooding last year [which was] “even worse than initially expected” ... rice production remains at the mercy of weather conditions ... “China is the largest rice and wheat producer in the world and is currently experiencing the highest level of drought in its rice growing regions in over two decades,” said Goughary. Major European rice-growing countries like France, Germany and the UK have also been afflicted with the highest level of drought in 20 years, she added.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/19/global-rice-shortage-is-set-to-be-the-largest-in-20-years-heres-why.htmlIndustrial Revolution Reversed 7,000-Year Cooling Trend in Siberia, Bringing Temperatures to Unprecedented Highs
Scientists analyzed tree rings in partially fossilized wood from Siberia’s Yamal Peninsula to track summer temperatures over the last 7,638 years [and found] a multi-millennial cooling trend that abruptly reversed at the onset of the Industrial Revolution. The long-term decline in Siberia’s summer temperatures is consistent with changes in the Earth’s orbit, while the recent warming trend reflects the sudden rise in heat-trapping carbon dioxide over the last 150 years. Today, Siberian summers are warming faster that at any time in the last 7,000 years, reaching unprecedented temperatures. The findings were published in the journal Nature Communications. The authors write that recent warming “may result in a new climate state in which heatwaves as well as the associated melting of permafrost bodies and occurrence of wildfires may become routine” ... So far this year, wildfires in Siberia have burned more than 8 million acres of forest, an area roughly the size of the Netherlands. More ferocious wildfires and permafrost loss threaten to unleash more greenhouse gases, spurring further warming.
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/climate-change-warming-siberia-russia
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-32629-xA winter drought grips southern Europe
Southern Europe is experiencing its second major drought in less than a year. This time it is an unusual one: a winter drought. For 32 consecutive days in January and February no rain fell anywhere in France—the longest dry spell in winter since monitoring began ... The Alps are Europe’s water-tower. They provide 25-50% of the water running through the continent’s main rivers, the Danube, the Po, the Rhine and the Rhône. With so little snow to melt in the coming months, river levels are likely to be unusually low, and with them water supplies for the people and plants along their banks ... [In Spain’s south] reservoirs are running low. Those southern regions also produce much of the country’s olive oil and a large share of Europe’s vegetables.
https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/04/13/a-winter-drought-grips-southern-europeUK bird numbers continue to crash
48% of species declined between 2015 and 2020 with woodland birds faring worst Dr Richard Gregory, the RSPB’s head of science, said: “This is a crucial indicator of the condition of our environment and health of our natural world. We cannot keep publishing report after report charting the decline of the UK’s wildlife without UK governments delivering on their commitments to take urgent action ... We are in a nature and climate emergency ... not something on the distant horizon, but on our doorsteps. The UK is among the most nature-depleted countries in the world, bottom of the table compared to the rest of the G7.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/13/uk-bird-populations-continue-to-crash-as-government-poised-to-break-own-targetsLatest IPCC warming projections looking grim
The most recent AR6 Synthesis report by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was released last month, painted a sobering projection for future warming based on different greenhouse gas emission scenarios. It is now very likely that global warming will continue to increase in the near term in nearly all considered scenarios. These projections were for the period 2081-2100 and were measured against the period from 1850-1900. It is very likely that even under low greenhouse gas emissions, the planet may warm 1.4 degrees Celcius on average by the end of the century. Under the intermediate greenhouse gas emission scenario, the world is projected to warm 2.7 degrees on average. Under the high emissions scenario, that number rises to an average of 4.4 degrees above the 1850-1900 mean. Based on a continuation of current, worldwide greenhouse gas emission policies [IPCC] now estimates that the world will warm an average of 3.2 degrees by the end of the century, compared to the second half of the 19th century [and] even with rapid and major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, it would take at least 20 years to see a sustained slowing of the global warming trend.
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/climatechange/latest-ipcc-warming-projections-looking-grim/1511865
reporting on a study at https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/Bubble trouble: Climate change is creating a huge and growing U.S. real estate bubble
Homes constructed in flood plains, storm surge zones, regions with declining water availability, [in] the wildfire-prone West are overvalued by hundreds of billions of dollars, recent studies suggest, creating a housing bubble that puts the U.S. financial system at risk. The problem will get worse ... “As awareness of risk grows, the financial value of risky places drops. Where meeting that risk is more expensive than decision-makers think a place is worth, it simply won’t be defended. Then, value will crash” ... A 2023 study in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change has drawn attention to a massive real estate bubble in the U.S. — property that is overvalued by $121-$237 billion because of current flood risk. And that may be an underestimate. A 2022 study by actuarial and consulting firm Milliman put a much higher price tag on this bubble — $520 billion, with almost 3.5 million homeowners facing a decrease in property value greater than 10% ... Lack of water in dry states with water availability issues, like Arizona and California, has also created increased risk of property overvaluation ... home insurers are already pulling out of the most at-risk areas, which has led to an insurance crisis in three states — Florida, Louisiana, and California ... Homebuyers who can’t afford insurance can’t get a mortgage, and in those fire and flood zones where insurance rates skyrocket, many owners will try to sell, potentially triggering panic selling and a housing market collapse ... the underlying causes will worsen — sea levels will continue to rise, flooding heavy rains will intensify, and wildfires will grow more severe, increasing risk [and] a housing crisis can morph into a systemic financial crisis ... The 2023 study warned “declines in property values due to climate risk are unlikely to be temporary” ... One period of increased risk will likely occur in the mid-2030s, when a wobble in the moon’s orbit (part of a cycle that repeats every 18.6 years) will bring unusually high tides [but] given the highly concerning ramp-up in extreme weather in recent years, the housing bubble could burst sooner than that ... One thing is certain: The present-day trickle of Americans being displaced from high-risk areas because of climate change-worsened impacts is just beginning ... There isn’t going to be an orderly transition to a new society that is in balance with the 21st-century climate; a massive climate-change disruption is already underway.
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/04/bubble-trouble-climate-change-is-creating-a-huge-and-growing-u-s-real-estate-bubble/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01594-8
reporting on a study at https://www.milliman.com/en/insight/unpriced-costs-of-flooding-an-emerging-risk-for-homeowners-and-lendersBook review: “The Great Displacement” is a must-read
This timely, important book by Jake Bittle argues that mass migration triggered by climate change will fundamentally rock U.S. society.
A massive worldwide societal upheaval is underway — the uprooting and displacement of huge numbers of people living in places growing increasingly risky to live in because of climate change ... [Bittle suggests] the patterns of displacement that arise because of climate change have already begun in small towns and remote places. Over time, the instability will spread to major cities and entire regions ... “The result will be a shambling retreat from mountain ranges and flood-prone riverbeds, back from the oceans, and out of the desert. It will take decades for these movements to coalesce, but once they do, they will reshape the demographic geography of the United States” ... Long before rising seas inundate coastal cities, the coastal real estate market will fall, and once property values decline, they will not go back up, Bittle writes. He likens owning a coastal home to holding a stick of dynamite with a long fuse ... Sea level rise will “cause a plunge in coastal property values that will inflict economic harm even on people whose homes have not suffered any damage, sharply reducing the value of the most valuable assets they own. As a city’s housing values decline, so, too, does its tax base ... Among the portion of the population that stays, there will be many who want to leave but can’t, who are tethered by their mortgages to homes they can’t sell.” Where will the displaced people go?
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/04/book-review-the-great-displacement-is-a-must-read/Europe Is Drying Up
“What we are looking at is something like a multiyear drought,” says Rohini Kumar of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany. Unusually low rainfall and snowfall was recorded this winter not just in France but also in the UK, Ireland, Switzerland, and parts of Italy and Germany. The current predicament follows European droughts in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2022. Last summer, drought exacerbated by record temperatures around the continent was in the headlines. The subsequent dry winter has meant that many aquifers—places underground that retain water—and surface reservoirs have not had a chance to recover. Now, summer beckons once again, and experts are worried that a severe water shortage could threaten lives, industry, and biodiversity in a big way.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/europe-drought-2023A Toxic Time Bomb Is Ticking in the Arctic
An alarming new paper in the journal Nature Communications estimates that between 13,000 and 20,000 contaminated sites are splayed across Arctic permafrost regions, with 3,500 to 5,200 in areas that’ll be affected by thawing soils [warming] more than four times faster than the rest of the planet. And that estimated number of sites is likely low, the scientists warn, because thaw might dramatically accelerate in some places. As permafrost degrades, it collapses, releasing buried contaminants that flow out in the melted ice. The ground sinks—often spectacularly and rapidly—dragging down aboveground infrastructure like fuel tanks and pipelines ... 70 percent of these sites are in Russia, with others across Alaska, Canada, and Greenland ... Once the ground is no longer frozen enough to form a barrier, those contaminants will seep into rivers and ponds [that] will eventually empty into the ocean and ride elsewhere on currents. Toxicants can also get airborne ... Permafrost is already deforming communities in the far north. Airport runways are sinking, roads are wrinkling, and buildings are crumbling. “It's no longer some ambiguous thing that might happen in the future—it's happening today, even as we speak,” says Schaefer.
https://www.wired.com/story/a-toxic-time-bomb-is-ticking-in-the-arctic/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37276-4Carbon dioxide hits highest sustained rate ever recorded as greenhouse gases creep toward "uncharted levels," NOAA says
NOAA's latest report, published on Wednesday, looked at atmospheric levels of the three most significant contributors to climate change – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide – in 2022. All of them, the agency said, continued to have "historically high rates of growth" ... Carbon dioxide was once again of particular concern ... Last year was also the 11th consecutive one in which carbon dioxide saw an increase greater than 2 ppm, marking "the highest sustained rate of CO2 increases in the 65 years since monitoring began," NOAA said in its report. "Prior to 2013, three consecutive years of CO2 growth of 2 ppm or more had never been recorded ... The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere today is comparable to where it was around 4.3 million years ago during the mid-Pliocene epoch, when sea level was about 75 feet higher than today, the average temperature was 7 degrees Fahrenheit higher than in pre-industrial times and studies indicate large forests occupied areas of the Arctic that are now tundra."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/carbon-dioxide-highest-sustained-rate-ever-greenhouse-gases-uncharted-levels/
reporting on a study at https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/greenhouse-gases-continued-to-increase-rapidly-in-2022Ice sheets can collapse at 600 metres a day, far faster than feared, study finds
Ice sheets can collapse into the ocean in spurts of up to 600 metres (2,000 feet) a day, a study has found, far faster than recorded before [showing] that some ice sheets in Antarctica, including the “Doomsday” Thwaites glacier, could suffer periods of rapid collapse in the near future, further accelerating the rise of sea level ... The research, published in the journal Nature, used high-resolution mapping of the sea bed off Norway ... As the tides lifted the ice sheets up and down, sediments at the grounding line were squashed into ridges twice a day. As the base of the ice sheet melted over days and weeks, the grounding line retreated towards the shore, leaving behind sets of parallel ridges. Measuring the distance between the ridges enabled the scientists to calculate the speed of the Norwegian ice sheet collapse. They found speeds of between 50 metres a day and 600 metres a day. That is up to 20 times faster than the speediest retreat recorded previously by satellites.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/05/ice-sheets-collapse-far-faster-than-feared-study-climate-crisis
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05876-1California’s Snowpack is Now One of the Largest Ever, Bringing Drought Relief, Flooding Concerns
Readings from 130 snow sensors placed throughout the state indicate the statewide snowpack’s snow water equivalent is 61.1 inches, or 237 percent of average for this date. “This year’s severe storms and flooding is the latest example that California’s climate is becoming more extreme,” said DWR Director Karla Nemeth. “After the driest three years on record and devastating drought impacts to communities across the state, DWR has rapidly shifted to flood response and forecasting for the upcoming snowmelt. We have provided flood assistance to many communities who just a few months ago were facing severe drought impacts" ... Just as the drought years demonstrated that California’s water system is facing new climate challenges, this year is showing how the state’s flood infrastructure will continue to face climate-driven challenges [with] severe flood risk to areas of the state, especially the Southern San Joaquin Valley. DWR [is] providing flood fight specialists to support ongoing flood response activities [to] plan for the spring snowmelt season.
https://water.ca.gov/News/News-Releases/2023/April-23/Snow-Survey-April-2023Buildings Crumble High in the Alps as Permafrost Thaws
Safe access to the world’s tallest peaks could disappear as temperatures rise in the Alps
Giacomelli is president of the association that owns [722] huts and bivouacs—smaller, unattended buildings that are crucial waystations for people ascending numerous peaks ... Geologic studies confirmed [that] Rifugio Casati sat on permafrost-rich soil that warming temperatures were thawing. The soil’s shifting morphology was straining the building’s foundation, and the southern part of the building appeared to be sinking. Rock falls were becoming more frequent on the mountainside, too, and coming closer and closer to the building ... Temperatures over the past few decades have risen considerably in the Alps ... twice as fast as the global average [and] as the ground warms, ice in the permafrost melts, and the soil thaws. The soil slumps and pulls apart, which increases the frequency of landslides, as well as rock falls. “The glue isn’t there anymore,” says Antonella Senese, a glaciology and climate science researcher at the University of Milan in Italy.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/buildings-crumble-high-in-the-alps-as-permafrost-thaws/Delaying the inevitable: Italy’s desperate attempts to revive snowless ski resorts
Rising temperatures threaten the skiing industry worldwide but Italy, with its many relatively low-altitude resorts in the Apennines as well as the Alps, is particularly badly affected. Some 90 per cent of Italy's pistes rely on artificial snow ... the annual water consumption of Italy's Alpine pistes may soon be as much as a city of a million people [and] the energy consumed by an ever-growing battery of snow cannons is also exorbitant ... economists and climatologists argue that trying to keep low-altitude ski resorts in business is destined to fail, and snow-making merely delays the inevitable. "Even if artificial snow can reduce the financial losses from occasional instances of snow-deficient winters, it cannot protect against systemic long-term [climate] trends," Bank of Italy researchers said in a report.
https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/04/03/delaying-the-inevitable-italys-desperate-attempts-to-revive-snowless-ski-resorts‘Forever chemicals’ linked to infertility in women, study shows
Women with higher levels of so-called “forever chemicals” in their blood have a 40% lower chance of becoming pregnant within a year of trying to conceive, according to the first known study on the effect of PFAS on female fertility. PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, have been found in almost everyone tested for them ... PFAS are a group of chemicals that are water- and oil-resistant, and are used in a vast array of products, from non-stick cookware and food containers to clothing and furnishings. They are often called forever chemicals because they are very slow to break down in the environment and are now widely found in water and soil. They have been increasingly linked to health damage ... [endocrine disruptor] effect of PFAS levels on fertility was greater when they were considered as a mixture, rather than individually. “That makes sense, because multiple chemicals may act together to impact our health at a much greater level than one chemical,” said Valvi ... previous work has shown the chemicals impact hormones and egg production and function, as well as being linked to polycystic ovarian syndrome ... PFAS also affect the health of the mother and baby, Valvi said, such as preeclampsia and neurodevelopmental delays. “PFAS have been detected in cord blood, the placenta, and breast milk. Preventing exposure to PFAS is therefore essential to protect women’s health as well as the health of their children” ... The link between PFAS exposure and reduced fertility in women was also reported in an analysis of 13 earlier studies.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/06/forever-chemicals-infertility-women-pfas-blood
reporting on a study at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00489697230088351 in 6 people globally affected by infertility: WHO
Large numbers of people are affected by infertility in their lifetime, according to a new report published today by WHO ... The new estimates show limited variation in the prevalence of infertility between regions. The rates are comparable for high-, middle- and low-income countries, indicating that this is a major health challenge globally. Lifetime prevalence was 17.8% in high-income countries and 16.5% in low- and middle-income countries. “The report reveals an important truth: infertility does not discriminate,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General at WHO. “The sheer proportion of people affected show the need to widen access to fertility care and ensure this issue is no longer sidelined in health research and policy, so that safe, effective, and affordable ways to attain parenthood are available for those who seek it.” Infertility is a disease of the male or female reproductive system, defined by the failure to achieve a pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse.
https://www.who.int/news/item/04-04-2023-1-in-6-people-globally-affected-by-infertilityScientists in Arctic race to preserve 'ice memory'
Italian, French and Norwegian researchers are in Norway's Svalbard archipelago in what they called a race against time to preserve crucial ice records for analyzing past environmental conditions ... "Glaciers at high latitudes, such as those in the Arctic, have begun to melt at a high rate," said paleoclimatologist Carlo Barbante, vice-chairman of the Ice Memory Foundation that is running the mission. "We want to recover and preserve, for future generations of scientists, these extraordinary archives of our Planet's climate before all the information they contain is completely lost" ... the ice cores will be transported by sea to Europe and later to the other end of the globe, for storage at a Franco-Italian Antarctic research station. There, on territory protected by the Antarctic Treaty, they will be stored under the snow at minus 50C, where no power is needed to keep them cool. "In coming decades, researchers will have new ideas and techniques to give voice to these archives," the researchers said in a statement.
https://phys.org/news/2023-04-scientists-arctic-ice-memory.htmlIt keeps getting worse: Florida property insurance rates set to jump up to 60%
“The containment system has failed on rates, and rates are going through the roof, and they are all justified rate increases, especially Hurricane Ian and what is going on in the reinsurance space,” says Brandes. Reinsurance, the insurance that insurance carriers buy to protect themselves from high claims, has been a major concern for years, with carriers going into receivership as they struggle with costs. In May, the Florida Legislature set aside $2 billion to help cover reinsurance, adding another $1 billion in December. The state has also passed several laws to limit the ability of homeowners to sue for claims while also curtailing the assignment of benefits and one-way attorney’s fees. The plan from state leaders was to create an environment where large private carriers, who have all but abandoned the state, would return. That has not happened.
https://www.wftv.com/news/local/it-keeps-getting-worse-florida-property-insurance-rates-set-jump-up-60/H2VSAYGFSNEBDGXAMFIESJP4B4/Climate tipping points triggered extreme warming
As temperatures on Earth keep rising, many climate scientists have cautioned [that underground reservoirs with huge quantities of stored carbon] could become unstable and lead to a tipping point: an abrupt release of huge amounts of greenhouse gases ... A new NESSC study published in Science Advances now shows for the first time that rapid global warming phases in the geological past ... were indeed caused by climate tipping points [which] destabilized other carbon reservoirs, triggering the release of more carbon. Global temperatures spiked even further [allowing] the chain reaction to continue ... “After crossing a tipping point, a new stable situation arises that is irreversible for a long time. From the perspective of a human life span, these changes can be described as permanent,” says Setty.
https://www.nessc.nl/climate-tipping-points-triggered-extreme-warming/
reporting on a study at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ade5466Water [rationing] in drought-stricken Tunisia adds to growing crisis
Risk of unrest rises amid fourth dry year, poor grain harvest, weak economy and likely food subsidy cuts
Tunisia has introduced water rationing as the country suffers its fourth year of severe drought. The state water distribution company, Sonede, has already begun cutting mains water supplies every night between 9pm and 4am ... Reservoirs across the country are said to be about 30% short of capacity. Levels at the Sidi Salem reservoir, which serves the north of the country, including Tunis, are only about 16% full ... While water shortages will directly affect householders, the water ban for farmers, who account for about 75% of Tunisia’s water consumption, will be especially significant. The drought will prove “disastrous”, a farmers union official, Mohamed Rjaibia, told Reuters last week, when rationing was announced. This year’s grain crop is already predicted to be only a third of last year’s [and] there are fears the water cuts could further stoke social unrest.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/apr/05/water-ban-in-drought-stricken-tunisia-adds-to-growing-crisisThe next deadly pandemic is just a forest clearing away. But we’re not even trying to prevent it.
Dangerous conditions were brewing before [ebola] leaped from animals to humans in Meliandou, an event scientists call spillover. Researchers considered more than 100 variables that could contribute to an Ebola outbreak and found that the ones that began in Meliandou and six other locations in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo were best explained by forest loss in the two years leading up to the first cases ... the same dangerous pattern of deforestation has increased. “I think this is very powerful,” said Raina Plowright, a professor of disease ecology at Cornell University and senior author of the model, who reviewed ProPublica’s findings. “Even though we know the fundamental driver of these outbreaks, we have effectively done nothing to stop the ignition of a future outbreak” ... land-use change, especially clearing forests for agriculture, is the biggest driver of spillover. Researchers have also found that it’s not just the amount of forest cut down but the pattern of deforestation that matters. Cutting one big chunk out of a forest would create less edge than cutting out many holes [where] people and animals overlap ... Experts convened at the request of the WHO acknowledged that deforestation was leading to more collisions between humans and wildlife, but last June, they argued that spending much of the fund on spillover would be a waste of money. Scientists warn that this defeatist attitude is setting our world up for another catastrophe. Studies have shown that spillover events are increasing ... The experts convened by the WHO are not wrong about the gargantuan effort it would take to reduce the chances of spillover worldwide [but] the expense would be a drop in the bucket compared with the hundreds of billions of dollars in economic losses from outbreaks each year, not to mention the cost of lives lost.
https://www.propublica.org/article/pandemic-spillover-outbreak-guinea-forest-clearingCrucial Antarctic ocean circulation heading for collapse if planet-warming pollution remains high, scientists warn
Melting ice in the Antarctic is not just raising sea levels but slowing down the circulation of deep ocean water with vast implications for the global climate and for marine life, a new study warns. Led by scientists from the University of New South Wales and published Wednesday in the journal Nature, the peer-reviewed study modeled the impact of melting Antarctic ice on deep ocean currents [and] found the Antarctic overturning circulation – also known as abyssal ocean overturning – is on track to slow 42% by 2050 if the world continues to burn fossil fuels and produce high levels of planet-heating pollution ... [The current] does an important job moving nutrient-dense water north from Antarctica, past New Zealand and into the North Pacific Ocean, the North Atlantic and Indian Ocean [and] is considered vital for the health of the sea ... “One of the concerning things of this slowdown is that there can be feedback to further ocean warming at the base of the ice shelves around Antarctica. And that would lead to more ice melt, reinforcing or amplifying the original change,” England said.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/29/world/antarctic-overturning-collapse-2050-climate-scn-intl-hnk
see also https://e360.yale.edu/features/climate-change-ocean-circulation-collapse-antarctica
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05762-wThawing permafrost poses environmental threat to thousands of sites with legacy industrial contamination
Industrial contaminants accumulated in Arctic permafrost regions have been largely neglected in existing climate impact analyses. Here we identify about 4500 industrial sites where potentially hazardous substances are actively handled or stored in the permafrost-dominated regions of the Arctic. Furthermore, we estimate that between 13,000 and 20,000 contaminated sites are related to these industrial sites. Ongoing climate warming will increase the risk of contamination and mobilization of toxic substances since about 1100 industrial sites and 3500 to 5200 contaminated sites located in regions of stable permafrost will start to thaw before the end of this century. This poses a serious environmental threat, which is exacerbated by climate change in the near future.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37276-4How pollution is causing a male fertility crisis
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230327-how-pollution-is-causing-a-male-fertility-crisis
reporting on a study at https://academic.oup.com/humupd/article/29/2/157/68244141,000 Years of Tree Rings Show Just How Hardcore the 2021 Pacific Northwest Heat Wave Was
A study published in the journal Climate and Atmospheric Science looked at tree rings in the Pacific Northwest going back to the year 950. The rings showed how the last 40 years have been some of the hottest on record ... “Even during the warmest interval of the [Medieval Climate Anomaly], mean of summer temperatures during this time are approximately 0.59 °C cooler than those documented since 1979,” the study says. They also noted that the largest rates of temperature change have occurred in the last decades ... “While the 2021 value substantially increases the period’s average anomaly, even without its inclusion, the period from 1979—2020 CE is still the warmest on record,” the team wrote.
https://gizmodo.com/2021-pacific-northwest-heat-wave-tree-rings-science-1850280268
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-023-00340-3This Winter's Floods May Be 'Only a Taste' of the Megafloods to Come, Climate Scientists Warn
Climate scientists warn that what Californians have lived through in recent months is just a preview of what’s to come, with exponentially worse flooding predicted in future years. “As disruptive as this year's events have been, we're nowhere near to a plausible worst-case storm and flood scenario for California,” said UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain ... A 2022 study Swain co-authored found that the warming climate has already doubled the probability of a megaflood caused by a string of extreme atmospheric rivers. Every degree of new warming increases that likelihood even more, he said. In other words, what was once considered unlikely to happen in our lifetimes “has become quite likely.”
https://www.kqed.org/science/1982079/this-winters-floods-may-be-only-a-taste-of-the-megafloods-to-come-climate-scientists-warnA new tropical mosquito has come to Florida. The buzz it's creating isn't good
The mosquito — known by its scientific name of Culex lactator — is typically found in Central and South America. Researchers with the University of Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory first discovered it in a rural area near Miami in 2018. It's since spread to other counties in Southwest Florida. Scientists say climate change appears to be a factor that's making the state and other parts of the U.S. welcoming to non-native mosquitoes that can carry diseases. The U.S. faces public health challenges related to diseases like West Nile, dengue, and chikungunya, all of which are spread by non-native mosquitoes that have become established.
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/22/1164937874/uh-oh-a-new-tropical-mosquito-has-come-to-florida-the-buzz-its-creating-isnt-goo
see also https://weather.com/news/climate/news/2023-03-01-climate-change-malaria-mosquitoes-heatAfter food crisis, massive water shortage to hit Pakistan
Pakistan, the country which is currently facing its worst economic collapse along with a food crisis during the holy month of Ramadan, is now heading toward a massive water shortage [just] months after unprecedented floods submerged large swathes of land ... The cash-strapped country is struggling with a food crisis [with] long queues for free flour across several parts of the country.
https://www.livemint.com/news/world/after-food-crisis-massive-water-shortage-to-hit-pakistan-in-kharif-season-11680149530492.htmlUN warns against 'vampiric' global water use
"In our report, we say that up to 3.5 billion people live under conditions of water stress at least one month a year," he told the BBC. According to the most recent UN climate report, "roughly half of the world's population currently experience severe water scarcity for at least part of the year". Mr Connor told reporters that "uncertainties are increasing" when it comes to global water supply. "If we don't address it, there definitely will be a global crisis," he said
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-65035041Record Heat Waves Push India Closer to Limit of Human Survival
India, on course to becoming the world’s most-populous country, risks approaching the limit of human survival as it experiences more intense and frequent heat waves ... “India is typically more humid than equivalently hot places, like the Sahara. This means sweating is less efficient, or not efficient at all.” This is why in India a measurement known as the wet-bulb reading — which combines air temperature and relative humidity — provides a better gauge of heat stress on the human body. A November report by the World Bank cautioned that India could become one of the first places in the world where wetbulb temperatures could soar past the survivability threshold of 35°C.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-27/record-heat-waves-push-india-closer-to-limit-of-human-survivalArctic Sea Ice Likely Irrevocably Lost Norwegian Scientists Conclude
Researchers have identified the mechanism leading to the rapid collapse of sea ice extent between 2005 and 2007. More ocean heat in ice formation areas in Siberia resulted in weaker ice, which was more prone to being ejected from the Arctic Basin through the Fram Strait. This ice loss is likely irreversible, the study concludes ... Arctic sea ice entered a new state following the record-melt in 2007, the scientists explain. Rather than a gradual change in sea ice pattern, 2007 represents a “stepwise shift” to a new normal.
https://www.highnorthnews.com/en/arctic-sea-ice-likely-irrevocably-lost-norwegian-scientists-conclude
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05686-xSupercharged El Niño Could Speed Up Southern Ocean Warming
El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), will become more intense if global temperatures continue to rise. Research now has revealed that projected changes to this global weather maker will also influence the remote Southern Ocean. Using the latest climate models, scientists have shown that enhanced El Niño events will likely speed the heating of deep-ocean waters around Antarctica, with the potential for accelerated melting of the continent’s land-held ice. Scientists are concerned about how stronger El Niño events could affect the Antarctic because of the potential for sea level rise. The Antarctic Ice Sheet holds about 60% of the world’s freshwater—enough to raise global sea levels by around 70 meters ... The analysis also showed that although the ocean surface will warm more slowly, the deeper ocean around Antarctica will warm more quickly, exposing the ice shelves that fringe the continent to heat from below. These shelves do the important job of holding back glaciers on land. Deep-ocean warming could destabilize and melt the floating ice, allowing land-held ice sheets to slide more easily into the ocean, raising sea level ... “Scientists have known from satellite observations that Antarctic ice shelves typically lose mass during El Niño events,” said Helen Fricker, a glaciologist with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography who was not involved in the study. The loss occurs because an influx of warm water melts the ice shelves from below, she explained. “What’s new is that we now have a preview of how they could respond as El Niño intensifies.”
https://eos.org/articles/supercharged-el-nino-could-speed-up-southern-ocean-warming
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01610-xSpain mulls options as wildfires gain in size, intensity
Walking through the charred remains of the forested hillsides of Sierra de la Culebra that were devastated by Spain's worst wildfire last year, Pablo Martin Pinto is blunt. "We are moving from the era of big forest fires to mega forest fires in Spain," says this wildfire expert from Valladolid University, warning that such vast blazes were "here to stay" ... Although spring has only just begun, some 700 firefighters have been battling Spain's first major forest fire [which] was more typical of summer than spring ... If Spain experiences "another summer in which temperatures don't fall below 35C for 20 days and it doesn't rain for four months, the vegetation will be liable to go up in flames" with the first lightning bolt, he warned ... The forest might one day live again, but "no-one who is alive today will be around to see it", says Juarez ... "We are going to see more and more fires, and bigger ones."
https://phys.org/news/2023-03-spain-mulls-options-wildfires-gain.htmlSpain enters long-term drought after another abnormally warm winter
For the first time on record, Spain has seen five unusually warm winters in a row ... This winter, despite moments of chilly temperatures, there were no official “cold waves.” Instead, temperatures were an average of 0.8 C (1.44 F) warmer than usual in Peninsular Spain. At the same time, Spain saw its hottest December on record. While Spain received slightly more precipitation than normal this winter, it wasn’t enough to pull the country out of a drought ... summer is even more challenging to predict accurately, but the weather agency said signs point to another abnormally hot summer that could be marked by major forest fires.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/spain-enters-long-term-drought-after-another-abnormally-warm-winter/2848528Wall Street is thirsty for its next big investment opportunity: The West’s vanishing water
Critics accuse Greenstone – a subsidiary of the East Coast financial services conglomerate MassMutual – of trying to profit off Cibola’s most precious and limited resource: water. And it comes at a time when Arizona’s allocation of Colorado River water is being slashed amid a decadeslong megadrought. “These companies aren’t buying up plots of land because they want to farm here and be a part of the community, they’re buying up land here for the water rights,” said Holly Irwin, a Cibola resident and La Paz County district supervisor ... “These companies are actually pretty savvy in that they come out West, purchase and pick up cheap rural agricultural land, they sit on it for a little while and then they’re trying to sell the water,” Lingenfelter said ... East Coast firms have bought up thousands of acres of irrigated land across the Southwest. Water Asset Management, a New York-based investment firm, has become one of the biggest players in the field, with purchases in Arizona, California, Colorado and Nevada as well as pending deals in New Mexico and Texas.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/22/business/southwest-water-colorado-river-wall-street-climate/index.htmlThis is how the German forest is doing
The old giants are dying in the forest. But this ailing can also be seen in the younger trees
About every fourth tree in Germany struggles with “medium crown thinning”, i.e. has lost between a quarter and almost two thirds of its leaves or needles in its crown. Damage to all tree species has increased since 1984, sometimes significantly. 40 percent of the spruces in the Federal Republic have clearly lost needles – or even all of them. In the case of pine, even 13 percent more trees than in the previous year are affected by significant needle loss ... only every fifth tree in Germany still has an intact crown. These are the results of the “Forest Condition Survey 2022” presented by Federal Minister of Agriculture Cem Özdemir in Berlin this Tuesday. “The year 2022 was again too dry and too warm. Even the wet months of February and September could not compensate for the summer water deficit in our forest” ... Significant crown thinning [means] that between 26 and 100 percent of the leaves or needles are missing – or the tree is completely dead. A long-term comparison shows how much the situation of the forests has deteriorated ... In 2022, in all of Germany, only 19 percent of the oak trees examined [were still healthy and had a full crown] ... A lack of water, climate change and pest infestation hit some conifers particularly hard.
https://newsingermany.com/this-is-how-the-german-forest-is-doing-politics/
original German version at https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/wald-waldsterben-kronenverlichtung-waldschadensbericht-1.5772543Number of city dwellers lacking safe water to double by 2050
UN report predicts water demand will increase by 80% as crisis threatens to get out of control Nearly 1 billion people in cities around the world face water scarcity today and the number is likely to reach between 1.7 billion and 2.4 billion within the next three decades, according to the UN World Water Development Report, published on Tuesday ahead of a vital UN summit. Urban water demand is predicted to increase by 80% by 2050. Water shortages are also becoming a more frequent occurrence in rural areas, the report found. Currently, between 2 billion and 3 billion people experience water shortages for at least a month a year.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/22/number-city-dwellers-lacking-access-safe-water-double-2050UN climate report shows world is flying blind into the storm
Global warming is bad and getting worse ... In its latest report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) describes a world of long-foreseen impacts arriving now with shocking power. Human suffering — especially among the poor — will increase rapidly in the coming decades ... in many critical areas, IPCC scientists say the world is flying blind into the storm [and] there are still far too many unknowns to say with certainty how and when the most devastating impacts will hit ... Experts still know relatively little about when and where these types of extreme climate events will happen. Or what happens when two events, like a drought and a heat wave, hit one place simultaneously ... IPCC classified between 3.3 billion to 3.6 billion people — almost half of the world's total population — as being among the most vulnerable, with people in the developing world hit hardest. But in rich countries too, the poor, the old, the sick, the young and the marginalized will be less equipped to face the challenges ahead ... What’s clear is that there’s a direct correlation between rising temperatures and the likelihood of changes turning increasingly irreversible.
https://www.politico.eu/article/un-climate-crisis-report-ipcc-world-fly-blind-storm/Fertilizer additive makes [farm animal] slurry more climate-friendly
Over the past 200 years, the concentration of methane in the atmosphere has more than doubled. This is mainly due to human meat consumption [and] the excrement of the animals ... [German scientists] have now presented a promising solution to the problem, presented in Waste Management. “We combined slurry from a farm in the lab with calcium cyanamide, a chemical that has been used as a fertilizer in agriculture for more than 100 years. This brought methane production to an almost complete halt.” Overall, emissions fell by 99 per cent. This effect started barely an hour after the addition and persisted until the end of the experiment half a year later. The long effectiveness is important, because slurry is not simply discarded. Rather, it is stored until the beginning of the following growing season and then spread on the fields as a valuable fertilizer. Months of storage are therefore quite common. [Calcium cyanamide] has other advantages as well: It enriches the slurry with nitrogen and thus improves its fertilizing effect.
https://www.the-microbiologist.com/news/fertilizer-additive-makes-slurry-more-climate-friendly/721.article
reporting on a study at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956053X23001952New research highlights an overlooked accelerant of ice loss from Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier
Thwaites Glacier is often called the "doomsday glacier" because of its massive size and potential to dramatically raise global sea levels ... new research, published March 7 in Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface [found] that the observed thinning of Thwaites Glacier, together with changes in the slope of its surface and the conditions at its base, makes both sides prone to move a few miles outward over the next 20 years ... "If the widening trend were to continue and were to accelerate, then we'd better know. It would mean that we would have to prepare for higher sea levels," said [senior study author Jenny Suckale, an assistant professor of geophysics at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability], who is one of dozens of scientists working to understand the glacier and its response to climate change as part of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration.
https://phys.org/news/2023-03-highlights-overlooked-ice-loss-antarctica.html
reporting on a study at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2022JF006958Total weight of wild mammals less than 10% of humanity’s
The total weight of Earth’s wild land mammals – from elephants to bisons and from deer to tigers – is now less than 10% of the combined tonnage of men, women and children living on the planet ... wild land mammals alive today have a total mass of 22m tonnes. By comparison, humanity now weighs in at a total of around 390m tonnes. At the same time, the species we have domesticated, such as sheep and cattle, in addition to other hangers-on such as urban rodents, add a further 630m tonnes to the total mass of creatures that are now competing with wild mammals for Earth’s resources. The biomass of pigs alone is nearly double that of all wild land mammals. The figures demonstrate starkly that humanity’s transformation of the planet’s wildernesses and natural habitats into a vast global plantation is now well under way – with devastating consequences for its wild creatures. As the study authors emphasise, the idea that Earth is a planet that still possesses great plains and jungles that are teeming with wild animals is now seriously out of kilter with reality.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/18/a-wake-up-call-total-weight-of-wild-mammals-less-than-10-of-humanitys
see also https://www.science.org/content/article/who-rules-earth-wild-mammals-far-outweighed-humans-and-domestic-animals
reporting on a study at https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2204892120This community’s quarter century without a newborn shows the scale of Japan’s population crisis
Japan's rural communities are dying out. The problem is, so are its cities
More than 90% of Japanese now live in urban areas like Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. That has left rural areas and industries like agriculture, forestry, and farming facing a critical labor shortage that will likely get worse in the coming years as the workforce ages. [Plus,] people in the cities aren’t having babies either ... the world’s third-largest economy [is] facing the unenviable task of trying to fund pensions and health care for a ballooning elderly population even as the workforce shrinks ... Amid a flood of disconcerting demographic data, [Prime Minister Fumio Kishida] warned earlier this year the country was “on the brink of not being able to maintain social functions” ... The country saw 799,728 births in 2022, the lowest number on record and barely more than half the 1.5 million births it registered in 1982. Its fertility rate – the average number of children born to women during their reproductive years – has fallen to 1.3 – far below the 2.1 required to maintain a stable population. Deaths have outpaced births for more than a decade.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/17/asia/japan-population-crisis-countryside-cities-intl-hnk-dst/index.htmlGlobal fresh water demand will outstrip supply by 40% by 2030, say experts
The world is facing an imminent water crisis, with demand expected to outstrip the supply of fresh water by 40% by the end of this decade ... Johan Rockstrom, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, and a lead author of the report, [said] the world’s neglect of water resources was leading to disaster. “The scientific evidence is that we have a water crisis. We are misusing water, polluting water, and changing the whole global hydrological cycle, through what we are doing to the climate. It’s a triple crisis.” The report marks the first time the global water system has been scrutinised comprehensively and its value to countries – and the risks to their prosperity if water is neglected – laid out in clear terms.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/17/global-fresh-water-demand-outstrip-supply-by-2030
reporting on a study at https://turningthetide.watercommission.org/
see also https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/half-world-face-severe-water-stress-2030-unless-water-use-decoupledConfirmed: Global floods, droughts worsening with warming
The intensity of extreme drought and rainfall has "sharply" increased over the past 20 years, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Water. These aren't merely tough weather events, they are leading to extremes such as crop failure, infrastructure damage, even humanitarian crises and conflict ... researchers say the data confirms that both frequency and intensity of rainfall and droughts are increasing due to burning fossil fuels and other human activity that releases greenhouse gases ... [this] means continued global warming will mean more drought and rainstorms that are worse by many measures—more frequent, more severe, longer and larger ... it's a mistake to assume that future wet and dry extremes can be managed the same as in the past because "everything's going to get amplified on both ends of the dry-wet spectrum."
https://phys.org/news/2023-03-global-droughts-worsening.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s44221-023-00040-5'Endless, brutal heat': Argentina's late-season heatwave has 'no similarities in history'
The country's summer, which technically runs from December to February, was by far the hottest on record, according to Maximiliano Herrara, a climatologist who tracks extreme temperatures across the globe. And, so far, March has offered no relief. Temperatures during the first 10 days of March were 8 to 10 degrees Celsius (14 to 18 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal in east-central Argentina, according to the country's National Meteorological Service. These temperature anomalies, which have persisted over huge areas, are unprecedented, Herrara said. "There is nothing similar that has ever happened in climatic history in Argentina at this scale." Herrara said he had expected a "scorching summer" in Argentina due to the impacts of La Niña, a climate pattern which tends to bring hotter, drier summers to the region.
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/endless-brutal-heat-argentinas-late-season-heatwave-has-no-similarities-in-history/1498132Heat waves happen at the bottom of the ocean too
In a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, a team led by NOAA researchers [generated] the first broad assessment of bottom marine heat waves ... Marine heat waves dramatically impact the health of ocean ecosystems around the globe [but most] research has focused on temperature extremes at the ocean’s surface [and] bottom marine heat waves tend to persist longer than their surface counterparts.
https://research.noaa.gov/article/ArtMID/587/ArticleID/2954/Heat-waves-happen-at-the-bottom-of-the-ocean-too
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-36567-0Why East Antarctica is a 'sleeping giant' of sea level rise
Scientists once thought the East Antarctic ice sheet, which contains enough water to raise sea levels 52m (170ft), was stable. But now its ice shelves are beginning to melt. He had not expected to see [Conger ice shelf] disintegrate so quickly. "All of a sudden the rest of the land-fast ice collapsed ... features we had been monitoring for years weren't there anymore" ... When [ice shelves] break up, the glaciers behind them can start flowing faster into the sea, contributing to sea level rise. [Conger] was the first ice shelf on record to collapse in East Antarctica ... While the melting West Antarctic ice sheet may have already reached a tipping point, scientists had long thought that its eastern counterpart, the coldest place on Earth, was resistant to global warming. But new research is revealing chinks in East Antarctica's icy armour ... The speedy collapse of the Conger's ice shelf came after some of the most dramatically warm weather ever observed in Antarctica.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230309-climate-change-the-sea-level-rise-locked-in-east-antarcticaThe Greenland Ice Sheet is close to a melting point of no return
A new study using simulations identified two tipping points for the Greenland Ice Sheet: releasing 1000 gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere will cause the southern portion of the ice sheet to melt; about 2500 gigatons of carbon means permanent loss of nearly the entire ice sheet ... "The first tipping point is not far from today's climate conditions, so we're in danger of crossing it," said Dennis Höning, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research who led the study. "Once we start sliding, we will fall off this cliff and cannot climb back up." ... Previous research identified global warming of between 1 degree to 3 degrees Celsius (1.8 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) as the threshold beyond which the Greenland Ice Sheet will melt irreversibly ... If it melts entirely, global sea level would rise about 7 meters (23 feet) ... The study was published in AGU's journal Geophysical Research Letters.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/03/230327163212.htm
reporting on a study at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022GL101827Greenland temperatures surge up to 50 degrees above normal, setting records
Researchers say this early warm spell could make its ice sheet more vulnerable to melt events this summer. Recent summers have brought record-setting melting of the massive ice sheet, which is the world’s largest contributor to rising sea levels, outpacing the Antarctic ice sheet and mountain glaciers ... Because of human-caused climate change, the Arctic is warming as much as four times as fast as the rest of the globe, and additional rapid warming and melting ice are projected into the future ... The study [was] conducted by scientists at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), the University of La Rochelle in France and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in the United States (NCAR) ... ocean temperatures are the highest they’ve ever been and expected to continue increasing. A January report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration noted that ocean temperatures were at a record high last year, surpassing the previous record set in 2021. The past four years have been the warmest four on record for the planet’s oceans. “And unfortunately, we’re predicting that 2023 will actually be warmer than 2022,” Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist at NASA, said in January.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/03/07/greenland-record-warmth-ice-sheetArctic climate modeling too conservative, says new research
Climate models used by the UN's IPCC and others to project climate change are not accurately reflecting what the Arctic's future will be. Researchers at the University of Gothenburg argue that the rate of warming will be much faster than projected. [They] compared the results of the climate models with actual observations [and] concluded that the warming of the Arctic Ocean will proceed at a much faster rate than projected by the climate models. "These climate models underestimate the consequences of climate change. In reality, the relatively warm waters in the Arctic regions are even warmer, and closer to the sea ice. Consequently, we believe that the Arctic sea ice will melt away faster than projected," explains Céline Heuzé, climatologist at the University of Gothenburg and lead author of one of the studies. The work is published in the Journal of Climate.
https://phys.org/news/2023-03-arctic-climate.html
reporting on a study at https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/36/8/JCLI-D-22-0194.1.xmlArctic ice has seen an ‘irreversible’ thinning since 2007, study says
New research suggests the loss was a fundamental change unlikely to be reversed this century, if ever — perhaps proof of the sort of climate tipping point that scientists have warned the planet could pass as it warms. The conclusion comes from three decades of data on the age and thickness of ice escaping the Arctic each year as it flows into the North Atlantic to the east of Greenland. Scientists at the Norwegian Polar Institute found a marked difference in the ice level before and after it reached an unprecedented low in 2007. In the years since, the data shows, the Arctic has entered what the researchers called a “new regime” — one that brings with it a trend toward ice cover that is much thinner and younger than it had been before 2007, the researchers say. They link the change to rising ocean temperatures in the rapidly warming Arctic, driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases. “Our analysis demonstrates the long-lasting impact of climate change on Arctic sea ice,” they wrote in the journal Nature.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/03/15/artic-sea-irreversible-low/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05686-xThreat of rising seas to Asian megacities could be way worse than we thought, study warns
Sea levels have already been on the rise due to increasing ocean temperatures and unprecedented levels of ice melting caused by climate change. But a report published in the journal Nature Climate Change offers fresh insight and stark warnings about how bad the impact could be for millions of people ... the study suggests that previous analysis underestimated the degree of sea level rise and subsequent flooding caused by natural ocean fluctuations ... In the Philippine capital Manila, for example, the study predicts that coastal flooding events within the next century will occur 18 times more often than before, solely because of climate change. But factoring in naturally-occurring fluctuations in sea level increases the frequency of coastal flooding up to 96 times more often than before, the study found.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/07/asia/rising-sea-levels-asia-cities-threat-climate-intl-hnk-scn/index.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01603-wWestern forests three times the size of Yellowstone could be transformed by midcentury
The onslaught of destructive fire and climate change risks turning an area of Western forests three times the size of Yellowstone National Park — about 2.2 million acres — into ecosystems where pine, spruce and fir seedlings cannot grow, according to the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ... The front lines of that change are the southern Rockies, the Front Range of Colorado, Northern California and Southern Oregon. How different these landscapes become depends on wildly different local conditions, the precise character of government interventions — and the broader questions of how quickly the world can slow the burning of fossil fuels, the primary contributing factor to climate change ... [The study] found that in many regions, heat, drought and fire are beginning to scour conifers from the landscape. That’s partly due to higher-severity fires, which consume the fire-resistant seed cones that would usually create the next generation of trees, Higuera said. But it is also due to environmental conditions that are growing ever less hospitable to young, vulnerable saplings.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/3886380-western-forest-three-times-the-size-of-yellowstone-could-be-transformed-by-midcentury/Mosquitoes That Carry Malaria On The Move As Temperatures Rise
A new study shows that mosquitoes that carry malaria are spreading in Africa at the same time global temperatures are rising. Researchers say the work is the most comprehensive of its kind, using data compiled by medical entomologists to track the range of malaria-carrying mosquito species in sub-Saharan Africa from 1898 to 2016. The study found that the species moved not only farther south of the equator, but also to higher elevations. "By merely warming the climate by a couple of degrees, the area that mosquitoes can survive has been expanding ... bringing malaria to regions in Africa that have not had to worry about the disease in the past." The paper was published Feb. 15 in the journal Biology Letters.
https://weather.com/news/climate/news/2023-03-01-climate-change-malaria-mosquitoes-heatAntarctic sea ice reaches lowest levels ever recorded
“By the end of January we could tell it was only a matter of time. It wasn’t even a close run thing,” says Dr Will Hobbs, an Antarctic sea ice expert at the University of Tasmania with the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership. “We are seeing less ice everywhere. It’s a circumpolar event” ... Hobbs and other scientists said the new record – the third time it’s been broken in six years – has started a scramble for answers among polar scientists ... the continent holds enough ice to raise sea levels by many metres if it was to melt ... “All the models project that as the climate warms, we expect to see [Antarctic sea ice] decline ... There’s widespread consensus on that. So this low sea ice is consistent with what the climate models show.” Antarctic scientists are now scrambling to work out what’s happening.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/04/everyone-should-be-concerned-antarctic-sea-ice-reaches-lowest-levels-ever-recordedAntarctic peninsula [land based] glaciers on the run
Like many places, the Antarctic Peninsula is falling victim to rising temperatures. However, when scientists used radar images from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission acquired between 2014 and 2021, they were taken aback to discover just how the fast 105 glaciers on the west coast are flowing ... Along the west coast of the peninsula, over 100 large glaciers drain ice from the ice sheet directly into the Southern Ocean. A team of scientists from the University of Leeds in the UK and the Utrecht University in the Netherlands processed over 10,000 Copernicus Sentinel-1 radar images to measure the speed of 105 glaciers on the Peninsula’s west coast over a six-year period, from 2014 to 2021. The paper published today in Nature Geoscience describes how they found that the glaciers experiencing the most seasonal change actually flow over 22% faster in summer than winter ... Anna Hogg, from the University of Leeds, added, “These results show that it is essential to account for short-term seasonal change in glacier speeds when measuring how much ice is being lost from Antarctica and contributing to global sea-level rise. The Antarctic Peninsula has seen some of the most rapid warming of any region on Earth.”
https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Copernicus/Sentinel-1/Antarctic_Peninsula_glaciers_on_the_runAs the Horn of Africa drought enters a sixth failed rainy season, UNHCR calls for urgent assistance Displacement continues to climb as millions from Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya struggle to survive amid scarce water sources, hunger, insecurity and conflict ... life-threatening food and water shortages resulting from massive losses of harvests, livestock, and income ... over 1.7 million people have been internally displaced in Ethiopia and Somalia due to the drought, most of them last year. More than 180,000 refugees from Somalia and South Sudan also crossed into drought-affected areas of Kenya and Ethiopia.
https://www.unhcr.org/news/briefing/2023/2/63fdbcee4/horn-africa-drought-enters-sixth-failed-rainy-season-unhcr-calls-urgent.htmlItaly, France[, Germany, Spain] confront 2nd year of western Europe drought
Italy’s second consecutive year of drought for the first time in decades ... the last time the nation experienced two back-to-back years of drought was 1989-90 but that conditions are more severe now. With scant winter snowfall translating into vastly insufficient snowmelt to supply streams and tributaries that flow into Po River, farmers in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region worry they might have to abandon traditional crops like corn and soy and plant sunflowers instead. The region is one of Italy’s most productive agricultural areas ... France recorded 32 days without rain this winter — the longest such winter drought since record-keeping began in 1959. Snow levels in the French Alps, the Pyrenees and other French mountain ranges are also much lower than usual for this time of year, according to the national weather service. Since snowmelt is crucial to filling rivers and reservoirs, weather watchers are worried about depleted water supplies later this year. Around France, residents are sharing images of dried-up riverbeds and shrunken lakes — shocking sights in the depths of winter ... In Germany, experts say that rain around the start of the year will not be enough to replenish deeper parts of the soil that have become worryingly dry in recent years. Germany’s Federal Statistical Office said this week that drought and heat led to a significant drop in the vegetable harvest last year ... in Spain, water reserves are at 51% of capacity, way above the dangerously low 35% of late 2022. Last year was Spain’s third-driest year and the hottest one since 1961, when record-keeping started. Dry conditions remain a worry in Spain’s Catalonia region, where water use has been restricted in agriculture and industry since November and using potable water to wash cars or fill swimming pools is prohibited.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/italy-france-confront-2nd-year-of-western-europe-drought/2023/03/01/da974338-b860-11ed-b0df-8ca14de679ad_story.html
see also https://www.theguardian.com/weather/2023/mar/04/very-precarious-europe-faces-growing-water-crisis-as-winter-drought-worsensThe projected future degradation in air quality is caused by more abundant natural aerosols in a warmer world
Previous studies suggest that greenhouse gas-induced warming can lead to increased fine particulate matter concentrations and degraded air quality ... we show that thirteen models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 [CMIP6] all project an increase in global average concentrations of fine particulate matter in response to rising carbon dioxide concentrations [due to] increased abundance of dust and secondary organic aerosols [which] highlight the importance of natural aerosols in degrading air quality under current warming.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-023-00688-7The race to stop starfish from melting into goo
For the past decade, a mysterious illness has spread along the Pacific Coast, causing sea stars — more commonly known as starfish — to literally melt into goo. The outbreak has hit starfish from southern Alaska to Baja California in Mexico, decimating more than a dozen species. The ailment is so pervasive among the invertebrates in the region that even specimens in aquariums contract it. Some die within hours of showing symptoms. No one is sure where the outbreak came from. But many biologists are sure of one thing: The disease, dubbed sea star wasting syndrome, threatens to drive some starfish to extinction and hints at deeper problems in Earth’s seas. The disease isn’t just a disaster for sea stars. The crash of starfish populations is poised to make climate change even worse for other creatures on Earth by upending ecosystems that are home to hundreds of other species and crucial for keeping CO2 out of the atmosphere. Scientists call it the largest known outbreak of any disease among marine animals to date, killing billions of individual sea stars.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/03/04/sea-star-wasting-disease-starfishWastewater sector emits nearly twice as much methane as previously thought
Municipal wastewater treatment plants emit nearly double the amount of methane into the atmosphere than scientists previously believed ... And since methane warms the planet over 80 times more powerfully than carbon dioxide over 20 years, that could be a big problem. “The waste sector is one of the largest anthropogenic sources of methane in the world,” said Mark Zondlo, professor of civil and environmental engineering [who] led one of two new studies on the subject, both reported in papers published in Environmental Science & Technology ... they found that the IPCC guidelines consistently underestimated treatment plants of all sizes and treatment processes ... treatment plants equipped with anaerobic digesters were among the biggest methane leakers. Anaerobic digesters are airtight vessels containing anaerobic microbes that work without oxygen to break down wastewater sludge or solid waste and produce methane-rich biogas in the process ... when anaerobic digesters operate inefficiently, leaks and pressure buildups can allow methane to escape as fugitive emissions.
https://engineering.princeton.edu/news/2023/02/28/wastewater-sector-emits-nearly-twice-much-methane-previously-thoughtPhosphorus Saved Our Way of Life—and Now Threatens to End It
Fertilizers boosted our ability to feed the planet. Today, they’re creating vast and growing dead zones in our lakes and seas.
Since the early nineteen-sixties and the start of the Green Revolution, global consumption of phosphorus fertilizers has more than quadrupled ... crop yields increase when phosphorus is applied. Phosphorus that makes its way into lakes, streams, and canals also promotes plant growth. Unfortunately, the aquatic organisms that tend to do best are the kind that no one wants to see around. And so there are two sides to the phosphorus problem—one shortage, the other excess. In a toxic algae bloom, tiny photosynthetic organisms reproduce explosively, then throw off chemicals that, in addition to nausea, can cause brain and liver damage. And, when the algae die en masse, a fresh hell ensues. Their decomposition sucks oxygen out of the water, creating aquatic dead zones where almost nothing can survive ... [There are] concentrated animal feeding operations, or cafos, that dot the Maumee River watershed, in northwestern Ohio. Millions of cows and pigs in these cafos spend their days converting phosphorus-fertilized soy and corn into phosphorus-laden manure, much of which washes out of the operations and into the water ... the Maumee now functions “like a syringe” that pumps thousands of tons of phosphorus a year ... “a map of US lakes and rivers suffering from blue-green algae outbreaks today looks like, well, a map of the United States.” And the situation isn’t much better outside the US ... dead zones in the oceans, too, are expanding. These zones are also produced by fugitive nutrients. Scientists warn that, as nutrient loads continue to grow and the oceans heat up, the problem will only get worse ... human beings might produce “large-scale and long-lasting global anoxia”—which is to say, a planet-wide marine dead zone ... How likely is it that the world will mobilize in time? “We’re not going to sugarcoat it,” Elser and Haygarth write. “There are many in the water quality/phosphorus management communities who think that phosphogeddon is, indeed, where we’re heading and where we will end up” ... This is the hazard of innovation. Short-term solutions often turn out to have long-term costs. But, by the time these costs have become apparent, it’s too late to reverse course. In this sense, the world’s phosphorus problem resembles its carbon-dioxide problem, its plastics problem, its groundwater-use problem, its soil-erosion problem, and its nitrogen problem. The path humanity is on may lead to ruin, but, as of yet, no one has found a workable way back.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/06/phosphorus-saved-our-way-of-life-and-now-threatens-to-end-it
see also https://www.wired.com/story/the-worlds-farms-are-hooked-on-phosphorus-its-a-problem/Every Coastal Home Is Now a Stick of Dynamite
When humans began to warm the Earth, we lit the fuse. Ever since then, a series of people have tossed the dynamite among them, each owner holding the stick for a while before passing the risk on to the next. Each of these owners knows that at some point, the dynamite is going to explode, but they can also see that there’s a lot of fuse left. As the fuse keeps burning, each new owner has a harder time finding someone to take the stick off their hands ... Hurricanes are growing stronger, wiping out swaths of houses along the Gulf Coast each year. Wildfires now burn relentlessly in California, incinerating homes in mountainous areas and contaminating major cities with smoke for weeks at a time. Cities across the West are considering restricting housing development out of fear that they won’t have enough water for new arrivals. As these disasters continue, a new trend of displacement is emerging ... moving in response to climate change, churning through the housing market as they seek out safe and affordable shelter. This displacement is at once profound and not very visible in the coastal housing market, where buyers and lenders are just beginning to digest the immense consequences of future sea-level rise. The value of all of the coastal real estate in the United States exceeds a trillion dollars, and a large portion of that value may vanish as buyers starts to shy away from homes most vulnerable to erosion and frequent flooding ... Homeowners buy insurance to prepare for natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods, but they can’t protect themselves from the possibility that the value of their home will collapse as the market grows more worried about sea-level rise, leaving them stuck holding toxic assets. Thus, home sellers and real-estate agents in risky areas have every incentive to understate the danger that their properties face ... Local governments also have an incentive to understate the danger, because they rely on new arrivals and new development to sustain their tax bases ... over time, the mounting signals about climate risk will force people to change their mind about where it’s safe or wise to live [and property values will collapse].
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/02/coastal-cities-housing-sea-level-flooding-climate-change/673106New study reveals biodiversity loss drove ecological collapse after the “Great Dying”
In a study published today in Current Biology, researchers analyzed marine ecosystems before, during, and after the “Great Dying” [252 million years ago] to better understand the series of events that led to ecological destabilization. [The study] revealed that biodiversity loss may be the harbinger of a more devastating ecological collapse, a concerning finding given that the rate of species loss today outpaces that during the “Great Dying” [which] wiped out 95% of life on Earth ... it caused climatic conditions similar to the human-driven environmental challenges seen today, namely global warming, ocean acidification, and marine deoxygenation ... “In this study, we determined that species loss and ecological collapse occurred in two distinct phases” ... “Despite the loss of over half of Earth’s species in the first phase of the extinction, ecosystems remained relatively stable,” says Academy researcher Yuangeng Huang, PhD, now at the China University of Geosciences. Interactions between species decreased only slightly in the first phase of the extinction but dropped significantly in the second phase, causing ecosystems to destabilize. “Ecosystems were pushed to a tipping point from which they could not recover,” Huang continues. [Then] “when environmental disturbances like global warming or ocean acidification occurred later on, ecosystems were missing that reinforced resistance, which led to abrupt ecological collapse” ... “We are currently losing species at a faster rate than in any of Earth’s past extinction events. It is probable that we are in the first phase of another, more severe mass extinction,” Huang says. “We cannot predict the tipping point that will send ecosystems into total collapse, but it is an inevitable outcome if we do not reverse biodiversity loss.”
https://www.calacademy.org/press/releases/new-study-reveals-biodiversity-loss-drove-ecological-collapse-after-the-“great-dying”
reporting on a study at https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(23)00146-XLow ice on the Great Lakes this winter
Ice coverage has reached a record low in the Great Lakes for this time of year. As of February 13, 2023, only 7 percent of these five freshwater lakes was covered in ice, which is significantly below the 35-40 percent ice cover that is expected for this time of year ... NOAA research has found that in recent years ice cover is in a downward trend. An analysis led by Jia Wang, an ice climatologist at NOAA's GLERL, found significant declines in average ice cover of the Great Lakes between 1973 and 2017. During the winter period of those 44 years, which runs from December 1 to April 30, average ice cover on the Great Lakes declined about 70 percent.
https://research.noaa.gov/article/ArtMID/587/ArticleID/2941/Low-ice-on-the-Great-Lakes-this-winterVenice canals run dry amid fears Italy faces another drought
Weeks of dry winter weather have raised concerns that Italy could face another drought after last summer’s emergency, with the Alps having received less than half of their normal snowfall, according to scientists and environmental groups. The warning comes as Venice, where flooding is normally the primary concern, faces unusually low tides that are making it impossible for gondolas, water taxis and ambulances to navigate some of its famous canals ... Italian rivers and lakes are suffering from severe lack of water, the Legambiente environmental group said Monday, with attention focused on the north of the country. The Po, Italy’s longest river which runs from the Alps in the northwest to the Adriatic, has 61% less water than is normal at this time of year.
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/venice-canal-drought-italy-climate-scli-intl/index.htmlStronger El Nino could cause irreversible Antarctic melting: Study
The new study, published on Tuesday by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia’s national science agency, demonstrated that the variability of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (Enso) reduces warming near the surface of the ocean but accelerates warming of deeper waters ... rising temperatures there are already leading to faster melting of ice, especially in West Antarctica. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet would raise sea levels by about 3m if it were to melt completely. Some large glaciers in West Antarctica are already losing huge amounts of ice every year ... “This new research shows that stronger El Nino may speed up warming of deep waters in the Antarctic shelf, making ice shelves and ice sheets melt faster.”
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/stronger-el-nino-could-cause-irreversible-antarctic-melting-study
reporting on a study at https://ecos.csiro.au/unravelling-enso-mysteries-on-ice/Regions in US, China most at risk for climate damage: report
Major industrial and economic centres in China and the United States are among the most vulnerable regions in the world to the increasingly destructive power of climate change ... 9 of the top 10 most at-risk regions are in China, with two of the country's largest sub-national economies -- Jiangsu and Shandong -- leading the global ranking by The Cross Dependency Initiative (XDI) ... China, India and the United States make up over half the states and provinces in the top 100 ... The analysis covers over 2,600 territories globally, modelling damage from 1990 to 2050 based on a "pessimistic" scenario of global warming of three degrees Celsius by the end of the century outlined by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The researchers say it is the most comprehensive data crunch of its kind.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230220-regions-in-us-china-most-at-risk-for-climate-damage-reportAntarctic sea ice extent sets a new record low
On February 13, 2023, Antarctic sea ice extent fell to 1.91 million square kilometers. This set a new record low, dropping below the previous record of 1.92 million square kilometers set on February 25, 2022. This year represents only the second year that Antarctic extent has fallen below 2 million square kilometers. In past years, the annual minimum has occurred between February 18 and March 3, so further decline is expected. Extent has tracked well below last year’s melt season levels since mid-December [and] the sharp decline in sea ice extent since 2016 has fueled research on potential causes and whether sea ice loss in the Southern Hemisphere is developing a significant downward trend.
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2023/02/antarctic-sea-ice-extent-sets-a-new-record-low/Doomsday Glacier Is “In Trouble”
New data from an international expedition and underwater robot Icefin [shows that] the rapid retreat of Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is driven by different processes under its floating ice shelf than researchers previously understood ... while melting beneath much of the ice shelf is weaker than expected, melting in cracks and crevasses is much faster. Despite the suppressed melting the glacier is still retreating ... Two papers in the journal Nature this week (February 15, 2023) provide a clearer picture of the changes taking place under the glacier ... the melting had formed stair-case-like topography across the bottom of the ice shelf. In these areas, as well as in cracks in the ice, rapid melting is occurring.
https://scitechdaily.com/doomsday-glacier-is-in-trouble-surprising-results-from-underwater-robot-close-up-view-of-melting/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05691-0Scientists Warn of Irreversible Loss of the West Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets and Rapid Acceleration of Sea Level Rise
A study published in Nature Communications shows that an irreversible loss of the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, and a corresponding rapid acceleration of sea level rise, may be imminent if global temperature change cannot be stabilized below 1.8°C, relative to the preindustrial levels ... Using a new computer model, which captures for the first time the coupling between ice sheets, icebergs, ocean, and atmosphere, the team of climate researchers found that an ice sheet/sea level run-away effect can be prevented only if the world reaches net zero carbon emissions before 2060. “If we miss this emission goal, the ice sheets will disintegrate and melt at an accelerated pace, according to our calculations” says Prof. Axel Timmermann, co-author of the study and Director of the IBS Center for Climate Physics.
https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-warn-of-irreversible-loss-of-the-west-antarctic-and-greenland-ice-sheets-and-rapid-acceleration-of-sea-level-rise
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-36051-9Insects are vanishing worldwide—now it's making it harder to grow food
[M]ore and more sophisticated studies [are] confirming that although not all insect species are declining, many are in serious trouble ... A new study offers fresh data on the seasonal migrations of insects [and] indicates that insect declines are indeed a global problem ... Insects are by far the most numerous of all animals on Earth. The estimated global total of new insect material that grows each year is an astonishing 1,500 million tons. Most of this is immediately consumed by an upward food chain of predators and parasites [thus] all the Earth's animal diversity is built on a foundation of insects and their arthropod relatives. If insects decline, then other wild animals must inevitably decline too. There is already evidence that this is happening ... the vast majority of insects are friendly: they pollinate crops, provide natural pest control, recycle nutrients and form soil by aiding the decomposition of dead animals and plants. All these processes will slow down if insects become scarce [and] agriculture could not continue for long without them.
https://phys.org/news/2023-02-insects-worldwidenow-harder-food.htmlUnprecedented 21st century heat across the Pacific Northwest of North America
In summer 2021, the Pacific Northwest region of North America (PNW) experienced a 2-week-long extreme heatwave, which contributed to record-breaking summer temperatures. Here, we use tree-ring records to show that summer temperatures in 2021, as well as the rate of summertime warming during the last several decades, are unprecedented within the context of the last [thousand years] for the PNW. In the absence of committed efforts to curtail anthropogenic emissions below intermediate levels (SSP2–4.5), climate model projections indicate a rapidly increasing risk of the PNW regularly experiencing 2021-like extreme summer temperatures, with a 50% chance of yearly occurrence by 2050.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-023-00340-3Lake Powell drops to a new record low as feds scramble to prop it up
The nation’s second-largest reservoir is under pressure from climate change and steady demand, and is now the lowest it’s been since it was first filled in the 1960s. Water levels fell to 3,522.16 feet above sea level, just below the previous record set in April 2022. The reservoir is currently about 22% full ... Even though strong snow and heavy rains have blanketed the West this winter, climate scientists say the severity of a 23-year megadrought means that one wet year won’t be nearly enough to substantially boost Lake Powell ... the federal government has scrambled to prop up the reservoir, resulting in a patchwork of water conservation agreements insufficient to prevent the reservoir from declining.
https://www.kunc.org/news/2023-02-15/lake-powell-drops-to-a-new-record-low-as-feds-scramble-to-prop-it-upItaly faces another year of severe drought after little winter rain or snow
Vast areas of the Po – the country’s longest river that nourishes several northern and central regions – are already parched, while the water level on Lake Garda is the lowest during winter in 35 years. Unusually lower water levels in Venice have dried up the lagoon city’s canals, leaving gondolas stranded. Italy’s National Research Council (CNR) said rainfall in the north was down 40% in 2022 and the absence of precipitation since the beginning of 2023 had been significant ... In the Pavia area of the Po valley the water level is 3 metres below the zero gauge, turning the riverbanks into beaches ... “Nothing has changed since 2022,” said Luca Mercalli, the president of the Italian Meteorological Society. “We are still in a situation of deficit.” The Po also flows through Emilia-Romagna and Veneto, one of the most important agricultural zones in Europe ... “If you have no water you cannot produce energy, so this is another problem,” Bratti said. “It is very critical because it hasn’t snowed or rained during this period and the forecast says it will stay this way.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/17/italy-faces-another-year-severe-drought-little-winter-rain-snow-po-riverCalifornia’s snowpack is melting faster than ever before, leaving less available water
For decades, Californians have depended on the reliable appearance of spring and summer snowmelt to provide nearly a third of the state’s supply of water. But as the state gets drier, and as wildfires climb to ever-higher elevations, that precious snow is melting faster and earlier than in years past — even in the middle of winter. That’s posing a threat to the timing and availability of water in California, according to authors of a recent study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, which found that the effects of climate change are compounding to accelerate snowpack decline ... snowmelt is critical in California because it typically provides water in hot, dry months when precipitation is low and demand is high, Siirila-Woodburn said. “So, if snow melts earlier in the year, then there is a further disconnect between that supply and demand.”
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-02-14/wildfire-and-drought-are-shrinking-california-snowpack
reporting on a study at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022GL101235The world’s largest natural skating rink is closed because it’s too warm
The Rideau Canal Skateway in Ottawa ... the world’s largest natural ice skating rink and part of a UNESCO World Heritage site ... typically runs from January through early March [on its] 4.8-mile ice path ... has raised fears in a region familiar with biting cold that climate change is whittling away at not just glaciers and coastlines, but also culture and ordinary life ... In a 2005 report commissioned by the NCC, a University of Waterloo professor predicted the average Skateway season would decrease from about 61 days to between 43 and 52 in the 2020s ... The skateway was created in 1971 [and] was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest naturally frozen ice rink in the world.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/16/ottowa-rideau-ice-skating-rink-closed/Rising seas threaten ‘mass exodus on a biblical scale’, UN chief warns
António Guterres calls for urgent action as climate-driven rise brings ‘torrent of trouble’ to almost a billion people
The climate crisis is causing sea levels to rise faster than for 3,000 years, bringing a “torrent of trouble” to almost a billion people ... some nations could cease to exist, drowned under the waves, he said. Significant sea level rise is already inevitable with current levels of global heating, but the consequences of failing to tackle the problem are “unthinkable”. Guterres said: “Low-lying communities and entire countries could disappear for ever. We would witness a mass exodus of entire populations on a biblical scale.” A new compilation of data from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) shows that sea levels are rising fast and the global ocean has warmed faster over the past century than at any time in the past 11,000 years.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/14/rising-seas-threaten-mass-exodus-on-a-biblical-scale-un-chief-warnsFour times as many trees died in California in 2022. Here’s why.
A recent report from the U.S. Forest Service revealed that more than 36 million California trees died in 2022, marking a significant increase from 2021, when the total was only 9.5 million ... report issued on Feb. 7 found that the extreme three-year drought was the leading cause of tree mortality ... the bark beetle is also killing off trees. The beetles thrive in drought conditions when trees weaken due to a lack of water.
https://www.sfgate.com/california/article/california-drought-increased-tree-deaths-17782367.phpGlaciers in Kashmir, Ladakh melting rapidly
Kolahoi, the largest glacier of Kashmir valley’s Jhelum Basin, is retreating rapidly due to spurt rise in temperature triggered by global warming and extreme pollution. Thajiwas, Hoksar, Nehnar, Shishram, and glaciers around Harmukh are also retreating slowly. The Kolahoi Glacier is the main source of water for River Jhelum, which is considered to be the lifeline of Kashmir ... earth scientist Prof Shakil Romshoo said, “This year, glacier melting in Kashmir and Ladakh regions has been unprecedented. Since we began monitoring the glaciers in Kashmir and Zanskar Himalaya about 15 years ago, this year has seen the highest melting of glaciers, as also reported from the rest of the Himalaya and the Alps.” In the mountainous Kashmir Himalayas, he said below-normal snowfall during last winter accompanied by high winter temperatures and followed by summer heat waves contributed significantly to high glacier melting that was seen last year. “Kolahoi Glacier has lost almost 23 percent of its area since 1962 ... mass loss of the glaciers is expected to exacerbate in future as a result of the projected climate change.”
https://www.greaterkashmir.com/todays-paper/front-page/glaciers-in-kashmir-ladakh-melting-rapidlyHalf the wetlands in [US, China, and] Europe lost in past 300 years, researchers calculate
Half the wetlands in Europe, continental US and China have been destroyed in the past 300 years ... with Ireland losing more than 90% of its wetlands, Germany, Lithuania and Hungary more than 80% and the UK, the Netherlands and Italy more than 75% ... in the past century the rate of destruction has increased rapidly. This, combined with the impact of the climate crisis, groundwater extraction, fires and rising sea levels has made wetlands among the most threatened ecosystems in the world, researchers write in the paper, published in Nature ... Wetlands are important for biodiversity: up to 40% of the planet’s species live and breed in them. They also purify water, protect against flooding and improve the physical wellbeing of people in urban areas. The destruction was fastest in the 1950s when government subsidies were given to farmers to drain land in North America, Europe and China to create fertile land for agriculture and forestry.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/08/world-wetlands-europe-lost-study-aoe
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05572-6.epdfTree study shows how drought may have doomed ancient Hittite empire
Around 1200 BC, human civilization experienced a harrowing setback ... an event called the Bronze Age collapse. One of the mightiest to perish was the Hittite empire, centered in modern Turkey and spanning parts of Syria and Iraq ... [the] evidence indicated three straight years of severe drought, in 1198, 1197 and 1196 BC, coinciding with the known timing of the empire's dissolution. "There was likely near-complete crop failure for three consecutive years. The people most likely had food stores that would get them through a single year of drought. But when hit with three consecutive years, there was no food to sustain them," University of Georgia anthropology professor and study co-author Brita Lorentzen said.
https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/science/tree-study-shows-how-drought-may-have-doomed-ancient-hittite-empire-2023-02-08/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05693-yCacti replacing snow on Swiss mountainsides due to global heating
The residents of the Swiss canton of Valais are used to seeing their mountainsides covered with snow in winter and edelweiss flowers in summer. But as global heating intensifies, they are increasingly finding an invasive species colonising the slopes ... cacti have also proliferated in some of the hills around the capital of Valais, in Sion, where estimates suggest Opuntia plants now make up 23-30% of the low vegetation cover. Their presence has also been reported in neighbouring Alpine regions, including Ticino and Grisons in Switzerland, and the Aosta valley and Valtellina in Italy. ... “These species bear -10C or -15C without any problem,” says Peter Oliver Baumgartner, a retired geology professor with a longstanding side interest in botany who has been commissioned by the canton to study and write a report on the plants. “But they want to be in a dry place and don’t like snow cover” ... According to Meteo Swiss, the number of snow days under 800 metres of altitude in Switzerland has halved since 1970. A recent study published in Nature Climate Change said snow covers the Alps for about a month less than historical averages.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/10/cacti-replacing-snow-on-swiss-mountainsides-due-to-global-heatingMore frequent atmospheric rivers hinder seasonal recovery of Arctic sea ice
A new study found powerful storms called atmospheric rivers are increasingly reaching the Arctic in winter, slowing sea ice recovery ... the scientists found these storms are increasingly reaching the Arctic—particularly the Barents and Kara seas off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia—during the winter ice-growing season. They reported their findings Monday, Feb. 6, in the journal Nature Climate Change. "We often think that Arctic sea ice decline is a gradual process due to gradual forcings like global warming," said L. Ruby Leung, Battelle Fellow at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and a co-author. "This study is important in that it finds sea ice decline is due to episodic extreme weather events—atmospheric rivers, which have occurred more frequently in recent decades partly due to global warming" ... the scientists observed sea ice retreat almost immediately following atmospheric river storms and saw the retreat persisted for up to 10 days. Because of this melting and because the storms are becoming more common, atmospheric rivers are slowing down seasonal sea-ice recovery in the Arctic.
https://phys.org/news/2023-02-frequent-atmospheric-rivers-hinder-seasonal.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01599-3The return of El Nino could make the world even hotter — endangering a critical climate threshold
Early forecasts suggest the El Nino climate phenomenon could return later this year, potentially paving the way for global temperatures to exceed the critical 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold for the first time ... El Nino is the warming of the sea surface temperature, which occurs every few years. An El Nino event is declared when sea temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific rise 0.5 degrees Celsius above the long-term average ... The last eight years have been recorded as the eight warmest on record, despite La Nina conditions [lowering temperatures] for a third successive year in 2022 ... The effects of El Nino tend to peak during December, but the impact typically takes time to spread across the globe. This lagged effect is why forecasters believe 2024 could be the first year that humanity surpasses 1.5 degrees Celsius.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/10/el-nino-earth-could-overshoot-1point5-degrees-for-the-first-time-in-2024.htmlA Looming El Niño Could Dry the Amazon
The past few years of cold “La Niña” conditions are weakening, potentially giving way to warm “El Niño” conditions later this year, according to modeling by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ... in the journal Nature Climate Change, Brando and his colleagues calculate that as the world warms and dry periods intensify, the shrinking of South America’s humid regions could account for 40 percent of the biomass loss across all the world’s tropics ... scientists are already finding that all these stressors—longer dry seasons, drought, deforestation, wildfires—are conspiring to flip a critical carbon switch. [Historically] the Amazon’s vegetation absorbs CO2 and exhales oxygen as it grows. But if people chop down the forest and light it on fire, that carbon heads right back into the atmosphere [so] instead of being a reliable tool for pulling our carbon emissions out of the atmosphere, the Amazon could be turning into a climate problem. Drought will only make matters worse.
https://www.wired.com/story/a-looming-el-nino-could-dry-the-amazon/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01600-z.epdfHuge chunk of plants, animals in U.S. at risk of extinction
A leading conservation research group found that 40% of animals and 34% of plants in the United States are at risk of extinction, while 41% of ecosystems are facing collapse ... NatureServe, which analyzes data from its network of over 1,000 scientists across the United States and Canada, said the report was its most comprehensive yet, synthesizing five decades' worth of its own information on the health of animals, plants and ecosystems ... The threats against plants, animals and ecosystems are varied, the report found, but include "habitat degradation and land conversion, invasive species, damming and polluting of rivers, and climate change." California, Texas and the southeastern United States are where the highest percentages of plants, animals and ecosystems are at risk, the report found. Those areas are both the richest in terms of biodiversity in the country, but also where population growth has boomed in recent decades, and where human encroachment on nature has been harshest.
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/huge-chunk-plants-animals-us-risk-extinction-report-2023-02-06/
reporting on a study at https://www.natureserve.org/bifEssential insects in East Asia have declined massively, study finds
Plant-eating insects crucial to ecosystems have declined dramatically in East Asia over the past two decades — along with dragonflies and other predator insects that eat them, according to a study published Friday in the journal Science Advances ... The drop in plant-eating bugs contributed to the decrease in predator insects, reducing their ability to act as a control at the top of the food chain. ... The study echoes other research that has found similarly alarming rates of insects vanishing, including butterflies on the American prairie, beetles in the forests of Puerto Rico and flies in Germany’s swamps ... a massive bug die-off could throw ecosystems around the world out of balance, cause food chains to unravel, and lead to an overabundance of some species and the extinction of others.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/03/insects-china-decline-east-asia/
reporting on a study at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ade9341Clue to rising sea levels lies in DNA of four million-year-old octopus
Genes of Turquet’s octopus hold memories of melting of previous Antarctic ice sheet, raising fears of what another thawing could bring
Climate scientists have been struggling to work out if the ice sheet collapsed completely during the most recent “interglacial” period about 125,000 years ago, when global temperatures were similar to today ... The scientists say they detected clear signs that, about 125,000 years ago, some octopus populations on opposite sides of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet had mixed together, with the only likely route being a seaway between the south Weddell Sea and the Ross Sea. “That could only have happened if the ice sheet had completely collapsed,” said Dr Sally Lau, a geneticist at James Cook University who led the research ... over the past two decades, the rate of ice loss from west Antarctica had been increasing. According to the most recent UN climate assessment, [while] temperatures during the last interglacial were [similar to today], sea levels were between 5 and 10 metres higher than today. The authors of the octopus research say their findings suggest that even under global heating of 1.5C – the most ambitious goal under the global Paris climate agreement – the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could be consigned to collapse.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/05/clue-to-rising-sea-levels-lies-in-dna-of-4m-year-old-octopus-scientists-sayAt the heart of Colorado River crisis, the mighty ‘Law of the River’ holds sway
Seven states — all reliant on a single mighty river as a vital source of water — failed to reach an agreement this week on how best to reduce their use of supplies from the rapidly shrinking Colorado River. At the heart of the feud is the “Law of the River,” a body of agreements, court decisions, contracts and decrees that govern the river’s use and date back to 1922, when the Colorado River Compact first divided river flows among the states. But as California argues most strongly for strict adherence to this system of water apportionment, the other states say it makes little sense when the river’s largest reservoir, Lake Mead, continues to decline toward “dead pool” level, which would effectively cut off the Southwest from its water lifeline ... “We can argue about whether interpretations of the Law of the River match the physical reality,” said Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources. “But if you end up in a courtroom arguing these points and something isn’t done, the Colorado River system is going to crash” ... California’s water districts have legal rights to the largest share of the river [but] the other states — Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — say it’s unreasonable to let large population centers that are lower in the pecking order such as Phoenix and Tucson go thirsty ... California established senior rights to the water before the Colorado River Compact — meaning it holds high-priority rights ... Arizona, by contrast, agreed to junior rights to the river in 1968 in exchange for building the Central Arizona Project, the system that transports river water through the state. In other words, according to the Law of the River, if there’s not enough water to go around, states like Arizona are supposed to be cut off before California ... Rhett Larson, a water law professor at Arizona State University, said California comes out as the “clear winner” if the Law of the River is interpreted as it’s presently written. “[T]he law says that California’s proposal is basically right — legally. It may not be right practically or morally, but it’s right legally” ... Salzman, of UCLA, said the likely outcome of the impasse is federal intervention followed by litigation [and] feared the states will run out of time as the river gets drier and lower.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-02-03/law-of-the-river-now-battleground-in-colorado-river-crisisWater crises due to climate change: More severe than previously thought
New data indicate that previous models systematically underestimate how sensitively water availability reacts to certain changing climate parameters. An analysis of measurement data from over 9,500 hydrological catchments from all over the world shows that climate change can lead to local water crises to an even greater extent than previously expected. The results have now been published in the journal Nature Water ... the connection between precipitation and the amount of water in the rivers is much more sensitive than was previously thought and thus much more sensitive than is assumed in the models currently used to predict climate change. Forecasting models of the effects of climate change on water supply should therefore be fundamentally revised ... the danger of climate change on the water supply in many parts of the world may have been underestimated so far. Especially for Africa, Australia and North America, the new data predict a significantly higher risk of water supply crises by 2050 than previously assumed.
https://phys.org/news/2023-02-crises-due-climate-severe-previously.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s44221-023-00030-7The Great Salt Lake is disappearing. Utah has 45 days to save it
Great Salt Lake has no outlet. The lake can only hold its own against evaporation if sufficient water arrives from three river systems fed by mountain snowmelt ... Each year since 2020, the Great Salt Lake received less than a third of its average (since 1850) stream flow ... This largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere is essentially a shallow saucer, with an average depth of just under 15 feet. Every one-foot drop in surface level matters. By the end of last year, the lake had lost 73% of its water and 60% of its area, exposing more than 800 square miles of lakebed sediments dense with heavy metals and organic pollutants ... Nearly 70% of water used by Utah farmers goes to raising alfalfa hay — a water-intensive crop that adds just 0.2% to the state’s gross domestic product. Nearly all that water is unmetered; farmers have no financial incentive to conserve. As for household consumption, Utahns use the most domestic water per capita in the Southwest and pay the least for their water of any state ... The Utah Legislature began its 2023 session on Jan. 17. Its members have 45 days until the end of the session on March 3 to take action to save the Great Salt Lake from collapse. Scientists say waiting another year will be too late for the lake to recover.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-02-04/great-salt-lake-disappearing-utah-water-diversions-agriculture-brine-shrimp-grebe-phalarope-toxic-dustClimate Crisis Making Millions Too Poor to Escape... the Climate Crisis
As the worsening climate emergency creates an increasing number of migrants around the world, the economic effects of the planetary crisis are paradoxically making millions of people throughout the Global South too poor to escape its ravages ... "Climate change reduces economic growth in almost all countries of the world. But it has very divergent effects in poorer and richer countries," study co-author Jacob Schewe said Monday. "Overall, migration related to climate change has increased—but it has done so to a lesser extent than might have been expected. The reason is bitter: In poor countries, many people in need are lacking the means to migrate. They have no choice but to stay where they are" ... According to a 2017 study published by the British medical journal The Lancet, climate change could create a billion refugees by 2050. Other studies conclude the number could be even higher.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/climate-migrants
reporting on a study at https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aca6feBreathless oceans: Warming waters could suffocate marine life and disrupt fisheries
Climate change is leaching oxygen from the ocean by warming surface waters [and could make] vast swaths of ocean less hospitable to sea life, altering ecosystems, and pushing valuable fisheries into unfamiliar waters. As global warming continues, the problem is sure to get worse ... Scientists for years have documented oxygen-starved dead zones in places like the Gulf of Mexico and the Baltic Sea. In the open ocean, currents and storms churn the water, keeping oxygen levels higher. Yet since the 1990s climate models have foretold that a warming climate would deplete oxygen there, too ... In 2008, a paper in Science sounded the alarm. German and U.S. scientists found that the low-oxygen zones off Africa and the Americas were growing deeper and losing still more oxygen. Since the 1960s these areas had expanded by about 4.5 million square kilometers, close to the area of the European Union. The global trend, the scientists warned, “may have dramatic consequences for ecosystems and coastal economies.” In 2017, scientists delivered more troubling news in Nature. Overall, the world’s oceans had already lost some 2% of their oxygen since 1960, roughly double what climate models predicted.
https://www.science.org/content/article/breathless-oceans-warming-waters-suffocate-marine-life-disrupt-fisheriesGlen Canyon revealed: what comes next for Lake Powell?
Lake Powell, like its downstream neighbor Lake Mead, stands at a quarter of its full capacity. An increasingly arid climate, high demand from thirsty agriculture, and the bad math embedded in the century-old compact that divides the Colorado River’s water have shrunk the two reservoirs to levels not seen since they were first filling. On Lake Powell’s new shoreline, old boat propellers lie in the dust along with scads of sunglasses ... At its low point last year, Lake Powell’s surface was only 32 feet above operating levels for Glen Canyon Dam’s hydropower intakes, reducing the dam’s power output by half. If reservoir levels fall as dramatically this year as they did last year, the hydropower system — which supplies seven states — will fail. If the reservoir can no longer release adequate amounts of water from the upper reaches of the Colorado, downstream water rights could be rendered meaningless. Lake Powell, the second-largest reservoir in North America after Lake Mead, is on its way out. Water levels in the canyon system have fallen more or less steadily for two decades, and refilling it to full capacity, or even half capacity, appears to be off the table.
https://www.hcn.org/issues/55.2/features-water-glen-canyon-revealedUK butterflies vanish from nearly half of the places they once flew – study
Butterfly species have vanished from nearly half of the places where they once flew in the UK since 1976, according to a study. The distribution of 58 native species has fallen by 42% as butterflies disappear from cities, fields and woods. Those that are only found in particular habitats, such as wetlands or chalk grassland, have fared even worse, declining in distribution by 68%.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/03/uk-butterflies-vanish-from-nearly-half-of-the-places-they-once-flew-studyFungal Pathogens May Be Adapting Dangerously to Global Warming
Researchers have demonstrated how pathogenic fungi could evolve in a warming climate to better withstand the heat inside our bodies. Considering it's that heat that does most of the job of protecting us against these threats, the implication is that these pathogens might become a greater hazard in terms of disease as they adapt to a planet that is consistently getting hotter. "These are not infectious diseases in the communicable sense; we don't transmit fungi to each other," says molecular geneticist and microbiologist Asiya Gusa from the Duke University School of Medicine in North Carolina. "We breathe in spores of fungi all the time and our immune systems are equipped to fight them." The team looked in detail at a pathogenic fungus called Cryptococcus deneoformans, putting it in lab conditions and raising its temperature from 30 °C (86 °F) to 37 °C (98.6 °F). These heat stresses significantly changed the genetic landscape of the fungi [and] drives faster genetic changes in C. deneoformans. The takeaway is that dangerous fungi could be evolving more quickly than we thought as temperatures around the globe climb higher. The research has been published in PNAS.
https://www.sciencealert.com/fungal-pathogens-may-be-adapting-dangerously-to-global-warming
see also https://frontlinegenomics.com/warmer-temperatures-may-increase-mutation-rate-in-human-fungal-pathogen/
reporting on a study at https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2209831120Scientists used AI to find planet could cross critical warming threshold sooner than expected
The planet could cross critical global warming thresholds sooner than previous models have predicted, even with concerted global climate action, according to a new study [which] estimates that the planet could reach 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels in a decade, and found a “substantial possibility” of global temperature rises crossing the 2-degree threshold by mid-century, even with significant global efforts to bring down planet-warming pollution. “Our results provide further evidence for high-impact climate change, over the next three decades,” noted the report, published on Monday in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. If emissions stay high the AI predicted a 50% probability that 2 degrees will be reached before 2050.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/30/world/global-warming-critical-threshold-climate-intl/index.html
reporting on a study at https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2207183120War, politics, business make 1.5 C target far-fetched — experts
Keeping global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius is “currently not plausible,” warns a new report from the University of Hamburg. The types of swift, transformative social change needed to reach that target just aren’t happening fast enough ... studies consistently find that global climate action isn’t happening fast enough ... the climate policies currently in place around the world aren’t even enough to meet the 2 C target, let alone 1.5 C. As it is, studies suggest that humanity could blow past the 1.5 C threshold in about a decade. Though it’s still technically possible to achieve it — if world leaders took the necessary steps right away — climate scientists and policy experts increasingly acknowledge that it’s probably not going to happen ... The report examines 10 different social drivers that can affect the world’s ability to achieve “deep decarbonization” in time to meet the Paris targets [but] not one of them supports deep decarbonization by 2050, the report finds. And two social drivers actively impair global efforts to achieve 1.5 C. Those are corporate responses and global consumption patterns. The report finds that “the majority of companies are still not responding adequately to support decarbonization” ... another nail in the coffin for the swiftly approaching 1.5 C target. “The deep decarbonization required is simply progressing too slowly,” said Anita Engels, a social scientist at the University of Hamburg and a co-author of the report.
https://www.eenews.net/articles/war-politics-business-make-1-5-c-target-far-fetched-experts/Why global food supplies are at risk despite falling crop prices
Food prices were already elevated before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine early last year, due to droughts and coronavirus pandemic-related hoarding by governments and businesses. Then crop nutrient prices soared as a result of Moscow’s position as the world’s largest fertiliser exporter, while the jump in natural gas prices, a critical ingredient for nitrogen fertilisers, also piled pressure onto agricultural markets ... Another threat is climate. Last year’s record-breaking temperatures in Europe and other parts of the world occurred despite the La Niña weather phenomenon. La Niña involves the cooling of the Pacific Ocean’s surface. After three consecutive years of La Niña conditions, many meteorologists have warned about the rising chances of the opposite — the El Niño phenomenon, which has a warming effect — occurring this year. The shift from La Niña to El Niño “is likely to lead to global temperatures in 2023 being warmer than 2022”, the UK Met Office warned late last year ... Relatively low grain inventory levels have added to analysts’ concerns about global food supplies. For wheat, the stock-to-use ratio, a measure used by grain market participants and agricultural economists to assess the availability of commodities ... shows projected stocks for the end of the crop year in June are forecast at 58 days, the lowest level since 2008.
https://www.ft.com/content/067a22f4-20e8-4bce-8eb4-7a928f7ee65cWorst impacts of sea level rise will hit earlier than expected, says modeling study
A new study finds the biggest increases in inundation will occur after the first 2 meters (6.6 feet) of sea level rise, covering more than twice as much land as older elevation models predicted. The study used high-resolution measurements of land elevation from NASA's ICESat-2 lidar satellite, launched in 2018, to improve upon models of sea level rise and inundation ... The underestimates of land elevation mean coastal communities have less time to prepare for sea level rise than expected, with the biggest impacts of rising seas occurring earlier than previously thought.
https://phys.org/news/2023-01-worst-impacts-sea-earlier.html
reporting on a study at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022EF002880Earth's 'geological thermostat' is too slow to prevent climate change
Reactions between rocks, rain and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have helped to stabilise the climate throughout Earth’s history, but they won’t prevent our carbon emissions from causing severe warming, a study of these processes has concluded. Previous studies have found that chemical weathering may speed up in higher temperatures, taking more CO2 out of the atmosphere and thus acting to control the climate, a bit like a thermostat. Brantley and her colleagues wanted to determine if this was true in all conditions [and] were able to determine that chemical weathering is only particularly temperature-sensitive in areas with high rainfall and high rates of rock erosion due to this rainfall. This means natural rock weathering is too slow to counteract the very large amounts of CO2 being released by human activities ... some scientists have proposed efforts to slow down climate change by mining and grinding rock and laying it out on crop fields so that extra weathering occurs [but] “To make it work in a big enough way you would have to mine a lot of rock and spread it over a very large area and make sure it’s in an area with high rainfall,” says Brantley.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2356654-earths-geological-thermostat-is-too-slow-to-prevent-climate-change/Satellite data shows sustained severe drought in Europe
Across the continent, groundwater levels have been consistently low since 2018, even if extreme weather events with flooding temporarily give a different picture ... The effects of this prolonged drought were evident in Europe in the summer of 2022. Dry riverbeds, stagnant waters that slowly disappeared and with them numerous impacts on nature and people. Not only did numerous aquatic species lose their habitat and dry soils cause many problems for agriculture, but the energy shortage in Europe also worsened as a result. Nuclear power plants in France lacked the cooling water to generate enough electricity and hydroelectric power plants could not fulfill their function without sufficient water.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/977646Netherlands losing one winter day per year due to global warming
“In 30 years, the period with winter temperatures has become 28 days shorter, almost one day a year.”
Due to climate change, the winter in the Netherlands is becoming almost one day shorter every year, according to the meteorological institute KNMI. The meteorological institute looked at average temperatures in the climate periods 1961-1990 and 1991-2020. It found that temperatures in the Netherlands were higher in every month of the latter period.
https://nltimes.nl/2023/01/27/netherlands-losing-one-winter-day-per-year-due-global-warming-knmi‘A perfect storm for the whole food system right now’: One of the world’s largest fertilizer companies warns that every country—even those in Europe—is facing a food crisis
When natural gas prices surged last year after Russia invaded Ukraine, so did prices for fertilizer, which manufacturers such as Yara produce with ammonia and nitrogen obtained as a byproduct from natural gas. Fertilizer prices had already begun increasing in 2021 due to high energy costs and supply-chain issues ... prices remain high by historical standards, and the World Bank warned earlier this month that global supply is still tight due to the war, production cuts in Europe, and stricter export controls in China. If fertilizer is in short supply or prices remain unaffordable to many countries, farmers may be unable to keep their soil fertile enough for crops. Concerns over fertilizer have taken center stage in recent weeks in Africa, which is heavily reliant on Russian food imports, and where agricultural production has taken a blow in recent years due to drought in many countries. The eastern Horn of Africa—including Somalia, Sudan, and Kenya—has been particularly hard-hit, as it is likely on the verge of a sixth straight failed rainy season.
https://fortune.com/2023/01/26/global-food-crisis-fertilizer-shortage-yara-ukraine-russia-warLooming El Niño could push us into a new era of global heating
According to the United Nations’ chief climate body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to have a 50 per cent chance of remaining beneath 1.5 degrees we can emit just 2890 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. Of that amount, 2390 billion had already been emitted by 2019, leaving a pre-pandemic carbon budget of 500 billion tonnes. As The Economist observed in its recent story, “The world is going to miss the totemic 1.5 degrees climate target” ... But greenhouse gas emissions are no longer the only problem. Global meteorological data also shows that during La Niña years [2019-22], global average temperatures are cooler than in those years when the system is not in place. Similarly, the El Niño weather pattern brings us hotter temperatures. Despite these cyclical peaks and troughs, the past eight years have been the hottest on average globally. It is clear now that each peak and trough is growing warmer than those before it [and] when a new El Nino takes hold [likely mid-2023] temperature increase will be even higher. In a paper for Columbia University last year, leading climatologist Professor James Hansen and colleagues wrote: “We suggest that 2024 is likely to be off the chart as the warmest year on record."
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/looming-el-ni-o-could-push-us-into-a-new-era-of-global-heating-20230127-p5cfy0.htmlThe Colorado River is overused and shrinking. Inside the crisis transforming the Southwest
A century ago, the signing of the Colorado River Compact established a system that overpromised what the river could provide [and] is now colliding with the reality of a river that is overused and shrinking. Reservoirs have dropped to record-low levels [and] the Colorado River Basin, which stretches from Wyoming to northern Mexico, is facing unresolved questions about how to adapt, at what cost, and where the cuts will fall the hardest. Over the last several years, managers of water agencies have reached deals to take less water from the river. But those reductions haven’t been nearly enough to halt the river’s spiral toward potential collapse ... During the last decade, scientists have found that roughly half the decline in the river’s flow has been due to higher temperatures; that climate change is driving the aridification of the Southwest; and that for each additional 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), the river’s average flow is likely to decrease about 9% ... So far, negotiators for states and water agencies have failed to agree on how to share such large reductions. Some fear these disputes could lead to lawsuits. As the reservoirs’ levels continue to drop, time is swiftly running out.
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-01-26/colorado-river-in-crisis-the-west-faces-a-water-reckoningDrought hits Türkiye's 3rd-largest city İzmir amid global warming
The Mediterranean Basin is getting drier due to the effects of anthropogenic climate change. As a result, average temperatures are slowly creeping up and rainfall getting scarcer ... Climate expert professor Doğan Yaşar, a faculty member at Dokuz Eylul University's (DEU) Marine Sciences and Technology Institute, said, "While Tahtalı Dam, the main water source of İzmir, was around 55% [full] last year, today it has dropped to 39% ... a sign that Türkiye will suffer from the worst water shortages ever this summer ... We had the hottest December and January of the last 52 years with no precipitation this year. The precipitation that fills the dams falls in December and January ... but we have come to the end of January and still nothing."
https://www.dailysabah.com/turkey/drought-hits-turkiyes-3rd-largest-city-izmir-amid-global-warming/newsHorn of Africa may see record sixth straight failed rainy season
The eastern Horn of Africa just saw an unprecedented fifth straight failed rainy season on record, making it the longest and most severe drought in 70 years of precipitation data. The region is likely headed for a sixth poor rainy season this spring, a new forecast warns. The drought has tipped the region, which encompasses much of Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, into widespread severe food insecurity. It has also driven Somalia to the brink of famine. The ongoing drought has its roots in a combination of human-induced global warming and La Niña conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean.
https://www.axios.com/2023/01/24/famine-somalia-droughtIn the Middle East, temperatures are soaring. Will the region remain habitable?
According to research by the German Max Planck Institute of Chemistry in Mainz and the Cyprus Institute in Nicosia, the situation is critical. Based on a ‘business-as-usual pathway’, meaning no climate action is taken, the Middle East – including countries with large populations such as Egypt, Iran and Iraq – will face unprecedented heatwaves ... “This scenario would be disastrous; some places can expect 60-degree temperatures ... if you don’t [have air conditioning] you won’t survive the heat” ... but not everyone can afford it. In Iraq, for example, where temperatures this summer reached 52 degrees, only wealthier residents have access to 24/7 cooling. The national power grid is unreliable, with some city neighbourhoods only getting a few hours of electricity a day in the summer. Those with the money for a private generator can keep their air conditioning units going during these power cuts, but poorer Iraqis do not have this luxury. Within a few decades, the heat for them could be fatal.
https://water.fanack.com/in-the-middle-east-temperatures-are-soaring-will-the-region-remain-habitable/There May Not Be Enough Food For Everyone in 2023
David Beasley, the head of the World Food Programme, talked to TIME about why he is worried about 2023
We may not have enough food for everybody in 2023. There’s no doubt we can produce enough food for the world’s population ... the question is whether—because of war and conflict and corruption and destabilization—we do ... six years ago, there were 80 million people marching to starvation. That number went to 135 million right before COVID [then] COVID comes along and the number goes to 276 million. That’s before Ethiopia. That’s before Afghanistan. That’s before Ukraine. Ukraine grows enough food to feed 400 million people. It went from the biggest breadbasket of the world to the longest breadlines. Compounded by fertilizer pricing, droughts, supply-chain disruption, fuel costs, food costs, shipping costs, we now have 349 million people marching to starvation ... If you want to know which countries over the next 12 to 18 months could have destabilization and mass migration, start with the 49 knocking on famine’s door right now. And the new numbers are coming in on wheat production, grain production, cereal production in India, Argentina, Brazil, and it’s down, down, down, down ... I tell leaders, if you honestly believe that industrialized nations have contributed to climate change, then you have a moral obligation to provide solutions ... And if you don’t, be prepared for mass migration that’s going to cost a thousand times more.
https://time.com/6246278/david-beasley-global-hunger-interview
alternate source https://finance.yahoo.com/news/may-not-enough-food-everyone-140325565.htmlOne Hundred Years of Certitude
We thought we knew how often heavy storms were supposed to occur. We were wrong.
American infrastructure is designed around a simple idea: We can predict how often the worst storms will come. Take the benchmark that undergirds the $1.2 trillion National Flood Insurance Program: the 100-year flood. That’s a flood that’s supposed to occur once a century, on average. A once-in-a-lifetime event ... older data [is what] determines much about the way we plan cities, price flood insurance, and build infrastructure, because historical records determine the crucial benchmark [like] the “100-year” storm and all its derivatives ... yesterday’s numbers are currently being used to plan tomorrow’s stormwater infrastructure [but] the consequences of predicting the future on a flawed set of records are not abstract. Last year marked the 100th anniversary of one of America’s most consequential forecasting mistakes. The Colorado River Compact of 1922, which set the course for a century of infrastructure, agriculture, and development in the western United States, predicted how much water the mighty river would send toward the Gulf of California based on a small, and very wet, sample of years. The river has since receded to the historical mean and then some, as the western United States has faced repeated severe droughts. States are bickering over their river-water allocations. Hydroelectric dams are running low on fuel ... All of it adds up to a sense that what happened in the last 100 years may not be the best predictor of the weather today—let alone tomorrow.
https://slate.com/business/2023/01/100-year-floods-california-rain-climate-change-infrastructure.htmlEarth’s temperature could near danger point with return of El Niño
After three years of a persistent La Niña cooling pattern influencing weather around the world, that regime is forecast to fade away in the coming months. Early forecasts project that 2024 — and potentially even 2023 — could set global average heat records ... El Niño is marked by warmer-than-normal Pacific Ocean waters that trigger droughts in northern Australia, Indonesia and southern Africa, above-average precipitation across the southern United States, including in Southern California, and often severe coral bleaching. And it tends to bring a rise in average global temperatures, including pronounced warmth over southern Asia, Alaska and parts of South America [with] average temperatures close to or above 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming above preindustrial temperatures.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/01/19/el-nino-return-climate-record/Climate Change is Fueling Conflict and Migration in Lake Chad
Droughts, flooding and a shrinking Lake Chad caused in part by climate change is fueling conflict and migration in the region ... around 3 million people have been displaced and an additional 11 million were in need of humanitarian assistance ... United Nations weather agency warned that Lake Chad basin “is particularly vulnerable to climate change related extreme events such as floods and droughts” and issued alerts that “extreme events will likely become more abundant causing more frequent droughts and flooding with impacts on food security and general security in the region” ... The U.N. environment agency notes that Lake Chad has shrunk 90% in 60 years, which climate change a significant contributor.
https://time.com/6248389/climate-change-conflict-migration-lake-chad/More than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by biggest provider are worthless, analysis shows
Investigation into Verra carbon standard finds most are ‘phantom credits’ and may worsen global heating The forest carbon offsets approved by the world’s leading provider and used by Disney, Shell, Gucci and other big corporations are largely worthless and could make global heating worse, according to a new investigation. The research into Verra, the world’s leading carbon standard for the rapidly growing $2bn (£1.6bn) voluntary offsets market, has found that, based on analysis of a significant percentage of the projects, more than 90% of their rainforest offset credits – among the most commonly used by companies – are likely to be “phantom credits” and do not represent genuine carbon reductions ...Only a handful of Verra’s rainforest projects showed evidence of deforestation reductions, according to two studies, with further analysis indicating that 94% of the credits had no benefit to the climate.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/revealed-forest-carbon-offsets-biggest-provider-worthless-verra-aoeTemperatures on Greenland haven’t been this warm in at least 1,000 years, scientists report
After years of research on the Greenland ice sheet scientists reported Wednesday in the journal Nature that temperatures there have been the warmest in at least the last 1,000 years – the longest amount of time their ice cores could be analyzed to. And they found that between 2001 and 2011, it was on average 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than it was during the 20th century. The report’s authors said human-caused climate change played a significant role in the dramatic rise in temperatures in the critical Arctic region, where melting ice has a considerable global impact ... Although the study only covered temperatures through 2011, Greenland has seen extreme events since then. In 2019, an unexpectedly hot spring and a July heat wave caused almost the entire ice sheet’s surface to begin melting ... Then in 2021, rain fell at the summit of Greenland – roughly two miles above sea level – for the first time on record.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/18/world/greenland-ice-sheet-warming-climate/index.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05517-zThe deadly link between diarrheal disease and climate change
Diarrheal diseases, and the intense dehydration that accompanies them, kill more children under 5 years old than almost anything else ... primarily in middle- and low-income countries. Many parts of the globe have made progress against the viruses, bacteria, and parasites that cause diarrhea in recent decades but climate change is threatening to slow those advancements. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences highlights the relationship between rising temperatures and diarrheal disease in children under 3 years old. The study’s authors found that weather anomalies called “precipitation shocks” are associated with an increased risk of diarrhea in many parts of the world. These unusually wet or dry periods have grown increasingly common as the planet warms and higher-than-normal temperatures contribute to an atmosphere that oscillates between exceedingly moist and extremely dry, depending on the region ... “I think the challenge moving forward is, what are we going to do about it? [Addressing] climate change is going nowhere, so how do we adapt to this new set of hazards as a society?”
https://grist.org/health/the-deadly-link-between-diarrheal-disease-and-climate-change/
see also https://www.forbes.com/sites/anuradhavaranasi/2023/01/14/climate-change-could-worsen-the-dangers-of-pediatric-diarrheaExtreme heat could put 40% of land vertebrates in peril by end of century
Study shows ‘disastrous consequences for wildlife’ if human-caused emissions push global temperatures up 4.4C
More than 40% of land vertebrates will be threatened by extreme heat by the end of the century under a high emissions scenario, with freak temperatures once regarded as rare likely to become the norm, new research warns. Reptiles, birds, amphibians and mammals are being exposed to extreme heat events of increasing frequency, duration and intensity, as a result of human-driven global heating. This poses a substantial threat to the planet’s biodiversity, a new study warns. Under a high emissions scenario of 4.4C warming, 41% of land vertebrates will experience extreme thermal events by 2099, according to the paper, published in Nature. In worse affected regions, such as the Mojave desert in the US, Gran Chaco in South America, the Sahel and Sahara in Africa and parts of Iran and Afghanistan, 100% of species would be exposed to extreme heat. It is not possible to say if these areas would be uninhabitable, but it is likely that more species would become extinct ... “A couple of studies have shown recent climate warming trends match the 4.4C scenario much better than the other scenarios,” said lead author Gopal Murali, who was at Ben-Gurion University of Negev, Israel when he carried out the research. “We wanted to highlight the disastrous consequences for wildlife if we end up with a high, unmitigated emission scenario.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/extreme-heat-could-put-40-percent-land-vertebrates-peril-end-of-century-aoeNew [San Francisco Bay] area maps show hidden flood risk from sea level rise and groundwater
Amid dramatic ocean swells and drenching atmospheric rivers, a new report lays bare a hidden aspect of sea level rise that has been exacerbating flooding in the [San Francisco Bay] area. The report, which was released Tuesday, maps areas that could flood from groundwater hovering just a few feet, or even inches below ground. This layer of water gets pushed upward as denser water from the ocean moves inland from rising tides. On its way up, even before the water breaks the surface, it can seep into the cracks of basements, infiltrate plumbing, or, even more insidiously, re-mobilize toxic chemicals buried underground. Communities that consider themselves “safe” from sea level rise might need to think otherwise ... The new findings are the result of an unprecedented joint effort by May, the San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI), UC Berkeley and a wide-ranging team of regulators, building officials, and flood-control agencies ... Similar research into vulnerable communities in Southern California is now also being conducted by a team led by Cal State Long Beach and Cal State Northridge ... A lot more work also needs to be done to understand what the actual damage will look like for gas lines, septic systems, foundations and other buried infrastructure, said Patrick Barnard, whose research team at the U.S. Geological Survey has done extensive flood modeling that is used by officials across the state. “We need to start merging this information with the engineering world,” he said. “We built everything assuming the soil is dry. What does it mean to have it now be saturated all the time?”
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-01-17/new-sea-level-rise-maps-show-hidden-flood-risk-in-bay-area
reporting on a study at https://www.sfei.org/projects/shallow-groundwater-response-sea-level-riseMass Climate Migration Is Coming
With rising sea levels and extreme weather events, the global north needs to prepare to welcome displaced people.
Climate displacement is adding to a massive migration already underway to the world’s cities, and it is becoming a critical issue globally. In 2022, the number of forcibly displaced people exceeded 100 million for the first time, with climate change displacing more people than conflicts. Models show that for every degree of temperature rise, a billion people will be displaced ... The global map of today’s climate impacts [shows] that people will have to retreat from large swathes of the tropics, which will become unlivable for at least parts of the year [and] agriculture will become impossible in places which are now breadbaskets. Where will they move to? Largely, northwards [to] the habitable fringes of Europe, Asia, and North America. Managed well, this migration could supply a much-needed population boost to countries with worker shortages due to low birth rates, and it could help reduce poverty in some of the worst-hit nations. Managed badly, it will be a catastrophic upheaval with huge loss of life.
https://www.wired.com/story/migration-climate-environment-refugees/A review of the endocrine disrupting effects of micro and nano plastic and their associated chemicals in mammals
Over the years, the vast expansion of plastic manufacturing has dramatically increased the environmental impact of microplastics [MPs] and nanoplastics [NPs], making them a threat to marine and terrestrial biota because they contain endocrine disrupting chemicals [EDCs] and other harmful compounds. MPs and NPs have deleterious impacts on mammalian endocrine components such as hypothalamus, pituitary, thyroid, adrenal, testes, and ovaries ... As the EDCs are not covalently bonded to plastics, they can easily leach into milk, water, and other liquids affecting the endocrine system of mammals upon exposure. The toxicity induced by MPs and NPs is size-dependent, as smaller particles have better absorption capacity and larger surface area, releasing more EDC and toxic chemicals. Various EDCs contained or carried by MPs and NPs share structural similarities with specific hormone receptors; hence they interfere with normal hormone receptors, altering the hormonal action of the endocrine glands ... [we found] oxidative stress, reproductive toxicity, neurotoxicity, cytotoxicity, developmental abnormalities, decreased sperm quality, and immunotoxicity ... there is growing evidence for ingested MPs bioaccumulation in mammalian tissues and organs with deleterious outcomes including endocrine abnormalities, reproductive toxicity, gut microbiota dysbiosis, and defective immunological responses.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2022.1084236/fullChemicals alter ovarian function and may contribute to infertility
FREIA, an international consortium of scientists ... explored the association between endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) and female fertility ... Endocrine-disrupting chemicals can be found in a wide range of products, such as plastics, electronics and cosmetics, but may also be present in food, especially food that has been heated in a plastic container in the microwave. This study adds to the increasing evidence that endocrine-disrupting chemicals can contribute to female infertility and warrants interventions to lower exposure to these substances.
https://vu.nl/en/news/2023/chemicals-alter-ovarian-function-and-may-contribute-to-infertility
reporting on a study at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935122017741Freshwater fish more contaminated with ‘forever chemicals’ than in oceans
Wild caught, freshwater fish in the United States are far more contaminated with toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” [endocrine disruptors] than those commercially caught in oceans, and the highest levels are found in fish from the Great Lakes, a new analysis of federal data suggests. The peer-reviewed study by public health advocate Environmental Working Group (EWG) also found eating one serving of US freshwater fish contaminated with median PFAS levels could be equivalent to drinking highly contaminated water every day for a month ... PFAS are a class of about 12,000 compounds, including PFOS, used to make products resist water, stains and heat. They are known as “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down, and they have been linked to cancer, high cholesterol, liver disease, kidney disease, fetal complications and other serious health problems.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/freshwater-fish-contaminated-forever-chemicalsCalifornia’s Devastating Storms Are a Glimpse of the Future
On the morning of January 10, 1862, Leland Stanford, the industrialist and railroad magnate, departed his mansion in downtown Sacramento, en route to the state capitol building about five blocks away to be sworn in as the eighth governor of California. [But] Sacramento lay under as much as eighteen feet of river water after the region’s second major flood in as many months ... The storms that have buffeted the state since December 31 2022 evoke scenes from the great flood that afflicted Stanford’s inauguration. In recent days, gale-force winds toppled century-old trees onto cars and homes in Sacramento; ocean waves wiped out a portion of a pier at Capitola; rivers have exceeded their capacities, running over banks and into residential streets and homes, tens of thousands of people have been displaced ... The Great Flood of 1861-62 and its lessons had largely disappeared from public memory until 2010, when a study funded by state and federal agencies, dubbed ARkStorm—short for Atmospheric River thousand-year Storm—modelled a hypothetical weather event based in part on the great flood. (Though its name suggests that such an event happens every thousand years, the geologic record shows that it actually occurs every hundred to two hundred years.) [But] that study did not take climate change into account ... More recently, a research team co-led by Daniel Swain, a UCLA climate scientist, has been updating the 2010 report to factor in human-caused climate change. So far, the results of ARkStorm 2.0 render the astonishing predictions of the original study twice as terrifying. “Climate change over the past century has doubled the risk of an extreme winter storm sequence capable of causing widespread, severe flooding,” [says] a summary of their study, which was published in the journal Science Advances ... Swain, like other scientists, sees what he considers the direct impact of human activity altering the Earth’s atmosphere. “Warming temperatures increase the water-vapor-holding capacity of the atmosphere.” In other words, this storm is bad. The next big one is likely to be worse.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/californias-devastating-storms-are-a-glimpse-of-the-futureReinsurers Retreat From US Disaster Hotspots on Climate Risks
Reinsurers are increasingly reconsidering their business in natural disaster-prone locations including California and Florida as losses mount, according to Moody’s Investors Service ... Five-year average loss ratios for homeowner insurance in Florida and California are among the highest in the US ... Many reinsurers “are raising prices, limiting coverage and even exiting some markets to improve returns” ... Moody’s said the industry is focusing increasingly on so-called secondary perils, such as convective storms and wildfires [because] these events are accounting for an increasing amount of economic damage. Secondary perils’ share of total insured losses globally has reached over 60% on average over the last three years, Moody’s said.
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2023/01/12/702887.htmIn Kenya, an Epidemic of Children Hospitalized for Starvation
The ward experienced an 800 percent rise in admissions of children under 5 who needed treatment for malnourishment — a surge that aid groups blame mostly on a climate change-fueled drought [and even for those who survive] the longer-term health effects of this drought — weakened immune systems, developmental problems — will persist for a generation or more ... more refugees have fled drought and violence in the chronically unstable countries around Kenya’s perimeter. Millions of people in Ethiopia, Somalia, and South Sudan are already facing catastrophic famine, according to the United Nations. Malnutrition levels in children have reached all-time highs. Doctors, nurses, aides, wards have all been overwhelmed ... The majority of children who die of climate-related causes will do so because of malnutrition, the UN says. And 1 billion — half of the planet’s children — live in developing countries that are projected to experience more extreme and unpredictable weather, putting them at greater risk of climate and food shocks ... some children go for months or years without adequate food, leading to a long-term effect of malnutrition known as stunting. “With stunting, over time, it starts to affect their mental development and their ability to grow,” Monthe explains ... child malnutrition will likely rise with climate change, largely because extreme weather or warming temperatures will limit food production or access to food ... researchers found that if global temperatures rise by 2 degrees Celsius, which climate experts expect unless radical steps are taken, stunting rates will double [and] that high temperatures are a bigger driver of child malnutrition than water sanitation, education, or poverty.
https://undark.org/2023/01/09/in-kenya-an-epidemic-of-children-hospitalized-for-starvation/Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s
A trove of internal documents and research papers has previously established that Exxon knew of the dangers of global heating from at least the 1970s, with other oil industry bodies knowing of the risk even earlier, from around the 1950s. They forcefully and successfully mobilized against the science to stymie any action to reduce fossil fuel use. A new study, however, has made clear that Exxon’s scientists were uncannily accurate in their projections from the 1970s onwards, predicting an upward curve of global temperatures and carbon dioxide emissions that is close to matching what actually occurred as the world heated up at a pace not seen in millions of years. Exxon scientists predicted there would be global heating of about 0.2C a decade due to the emissions of planet-heating gases from the burning of oil, coal and other fossil fuels. The new analysis, published in Science, finds that Exxon’s science was highly adept and the “projections were also consistent with, and at least as skillful as, those of independent academic and government models”. Geoffrey Supran, whose previous research of historical industry documents helped shed light on what Exxon and other oil firms knew, said it was “breathtaking” to see Exxon’s projections line up so closely with what subsequently happened. “This really does sum up what Exxon knew, years before many of us were born,” said Supran, who led the analysis conducted by researchers from Harvard University and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/12/exxon-climate-change-global-warming-research
reporting on a study at http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.abk0063Global warming is about to accelerate
Temperatures are expected to jump this year — and 2024 could set a new global record. A rare [three years of] La Niña in the tropical Pacific Ocean kept temperatures in check in 2022 [but] 2022 still wound up as the fifth warmest year on record according to NASA and the Copernicus Climate Change Service. And if the phenomena dissipates, as forecasts increasingly indicate, global temperatures would likely jump this year and even more so next year. "I forecast about a 15% possibility of a new record in 2023. And if we are in an El Niño by the end of 2023, an almost certainty of a new record in 2024," [said] Gavin Schmidt, who heads NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.
https://www.axios.com/2023/01/14/global-warming-accelerates-2023The Last 8 Years Were the Hottest on Record
The eight warmest years on record have now occurred since 2014, the scientists, from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service ... “We are continuing the long-term warming trend of the planet,” said Zeke Hausfather, a researcher at Berkeley Earth, an independent organization that analyzes environmental data. “If you draw a straight line through temperatures since 1970, 2022 lands almost exactly on where you’d expect temperatures to be” ... The Copernicus scientists said Europe had its hottest summer ever in 2022, with several heat waves rolling across the continent that set temperature records in many cities. The effects of such a warm year were felt elsewhere around the world as well. Eastern and Central China, Pakistan and India all experienced lengthy and extreme heat waves in 2022, and monsoon floods in Pakistan ravaged much of the country.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/climate/earth-hottest-years.html
see also https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/past-eight-years-confirmed-be-eight-warmest-recordRelentless Rise of Ocean Heat Content Drives Deadly Extremes
The heat of global warming will keep penetrating deeper into the oceans for centuries after greenhouse gas emissions cease The findings published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Science show that just in the past year, the planet’s seas absorbed about 10 Zetta joules of heat—equivalent to 100 times the world’s total annual electricity production. The scientists found that the warmth keeps working its way deeper into the ocean, as greenhouse gases have trapped so much heat that the oceans’ deeper waters will continue to warm for centuries after humans stop using fossil energy. Oceans cover 71 percent of Earth’s surface and have absorbed more than 90 percent of the heat energy trapped by greenhouse gases since the start of the industrial age.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11012023/relentless-rise-of-ocean-heat-content-drives-deadly-extremes/Climate change makes heat waves, storms and droughts worse, climate report confirms
A sweeping new report by top climate scientists and meteorologists describes how climate change drove unprecedented heat waves, floods and droughts in recent years. The annual report from the American Meteorological Society compiles the leading science about the role of climate change in extreme weather. "It's a reminder that the risk of extreme events is growing, and they're affecting every corner of the world," says Sarah Kapnick, the chief scientist at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration ... One of the big takeaways from the new report is that heat waves that used to be virtually impossible are increasingly likely. "Extreme heat events are more extreme than ever," says Stephanie Herring, one of the authors of the report and a scientist at NOAA. "Research is showing they're likely to become the new normal in the not so distant future."
https://www.npr.org/2023/01/09/1147805696/climate-change-makes-heat-waves-storms-and-droughts-worse-climate-report-confirm
reporting on a study at https://www.ametsoc.org/ams/index.cfm/publications/bulletin-of-the-american-meteorological-society-bams/explaining-extreme-events-from-a-climate-perspective/Great Salt Lake will disappear in 5 years without massive ‘emergency rescue,’ scientists say
Without a “dramatic increase” in inflow by 2024, experts warn the lake is set to disappear in the next five years. “Its disappearance could cause immense damage to Utah’s public health, environment, and economy,” the authors wrote in the report. [The lake] has dropped to record-low levels two years in a row. The lake is now 19 feet below its natural average level and has entered “uncharted territory” after losing 73% of its water and exposing 60% of its lakebed, the report notes. “The lake’s ecosystem is not only on the edge of collapse. It is collapsing,” [said] Benjamin Abbott, a professor of ecology at Brigham Young University and lead author of the report. “It’s honestly jaw-dropping to see how much of the lake is gone.” With the climate getting hotter and drier, many lakes across the West will only see more evaporation, more demand for water, and just ultimate decline in levels. The grim climate reality already unfolding in the Great Salt Lake, Abbott said, is a “microcosm” of what is happening or is set to happen around the world on a warming planet.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/06/us/great-salt-lake-disappearing-drought-climate/index.html
reporting on a study at https://pws.byu.edu/great-salt-lakeTexas [Department of Agriculture] says climate change threatens state’s food supply
On the heels of a historic drought that devastated crops from the High Plains to South Texas, a new Texas Department of Agriculture report released Tuesday linked climate change with food insecurity and identified it as a potential threat to the state’s food supply. The food access study, coordinated by the TDA and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, notes that “climate instability” is strongly associated with soil loss, water quality, droughts, fires, floods and other environmental disasters. 2022 was one of the driest years on record for Texas, and about 49% of the state was still in drought conditions at the end of December. The drought resulted in failed crops, low yields for farmers and diminished grazing ... Extended dry periods devastated Texas’ agricultural production, said Victor Murphy, a climate service program manager with the National Weather Service. “We’re seeing longer periods without any precipitation, then when it does come, it’s in shorter, more intense bursts,” he said.
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/01/03/texas-climate-change-food-insecurity/Compound extreme heat and drought will hit 90% of world population
More than 90% of the world's population is projected to face increased risks from the compound impacts of extreme heat and drought ... Warming is projected to intensify these hazards ten-fold globally under the highest emission pathway, says the report, published in Nature Sustainability. According to the research, "The frequency of extreme compounding hazards is projected to intensify tenfold globally due to the combined effects of warming and decreases in terrestrial water storage, under the highest emission scenario. Over 90% of the world population and GDP is projected to be exposed to increasing compounding risks in the future climate, even under the lowest emission scenario."
https://phys.org/news/2023-01-compound-extreme-drought-world-population.html
reporting on a study at https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-01024-1The world’s torrid future is etched in the crippled kidneys of Nepali workers
In recent years, scientists and groups have increasingly warned about the deadly, yet often overlooked, link between exposure to extreme heat and chronic kidney disease ... As the world grows hotter and climate change ushers in more frequent and extreme heat waves, public health experts fear kidney disease cases will soar among laborers who have no choice but to work outdoors. “These epidemics of chronic kidney disease that have surfaced [are] just the beginning,” said Richard Johnson, a professor of medicine at the University of Colorado who is studying pockets of kidney disease globally. “As it gets hotter, we expect to see these diseases emerge elsewhere” ... [The American Society of Nephrology] noted that global surface temperatures are expected to rise by 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by mid-century, and pointed to one population of particular concern: the global poor who must work “in an increasingly hostile outdoor environment” ... Medical researchers have long established the link between heat and kidney damage. When the body is severely dehydrated, calcium and uric acid in urine form crystals, scarring the kidneys. When internal temperatures soar past 104F degrees, organs, including the brain, can break down.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/01/06/climate-change-heat-kidney-disease/The 100th Meridian, Where the Great Plains Begin, May Be Shifting
Warming Climate May Be Moving Western Aridity Eastward
The 100th meridian [is] the boundary between the humid eastern United States and the arid Western plains. Running south to north, the meridian cuts through eastern Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and the Canadian province of Manitoba ... two just-published papers [say] the line appears to be slowly moving eastward, due to climate change, and that it will probably continue shifting in coming decades, expanding the arid climate of the western plains into what we think of as the Midwest ... temperatures are going up, increasing evaporation from the soil. Further south, shifts in wind patterns are causing less rain to fall. Either way, this is pushing aridity eastward. As a result, data collected since about 1980 suggests that the statistical divide between humid and arid has now shifted closer to the 98th meridian, some 140 miles east.
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/04/11/the-100th-meridian-where-the-great-plains-used-to-begin-now-moving-east/Thousands of records shattered in historic winter warm spell in Europe
As temperatures soared 18 to 36 degrees Fahrenheit (10 to 20 Celsius) above normal from France to western Russia, thousands of records were broken ... The extreme warm spell followed a record-warm year in many parts of Europe and provided yet another example of how human-caused climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of such extraordinary weather events. Those who track worldwide weather records described the warm spell as historic and could hardly believe its scope and magnitude. Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist who tracks global weather extremes, called the event “totally insane” and “absolute madness” ... It’s “the most extreme event ever seen in European climatology,” Herrera wrote. “Nothing stands close to this” ... This exceptional wintertime warmth comes on the heels of the warmest 2022 in many parts of Europe [which] was intensified by a historically severe summer drought.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/01/02/record-warm-new-year-europe/El Niño Is Coming—and the World Isn’t Prepared
In 2023, the relentless increase in global heating will continue, bringing ever more disruptive weather that is the signature calling card of accelerating climate breakdown. According to NASA, 2022 was one of the hottest years ever recorded on Earth. This is extraordinary, because the recurrent climate pattern across the tropical Pacific—known as ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation)—was in its cool phase. During this phase, called La Niña, the waters of the equatorial Pacific are noticeably cooler than normal, which influences weather patterns around the world. [In 2023] the equatorial Pacific will begin to warm again [so] 2023 has a very good chance—without the cooling influence of La Niña—of being the hottest year on record ... higher temperatures will mean that severe drought will continue to be the order of the day, slashing crop yields in many parts of the world. In 2022, extreme weather resulted in reduced harvests in China, India, South America, and Europe, increasing food insecurity. Stocks are likely to be lower than normal going into 2023, so another round of poor harvests could be devastating ... La Niña tends to limit hurricane development in the Atlantic, so as it begins to fade, hurricane activity can be expected to pick up. The higher global temperatures expected in 2023 could see extreme heating of the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico surface waters. This would favor the formation and persistence of super-hurricanes.
https://www.wired.com/story/climate-environment-hurricane/Record warm winter in parts of Europe forces closure of ski slopes
Europe’s record-breaking warm winter weather has closed ski slopes and forced resorts to open summer trails or shut altogether, as grass and mud replace seasonal snow from Chamonix in France to Innsbruck in Austria. Eight countries across the continent have recorded their warmest January day ever, with temperatures in parts of Switzerland and southern Germany exceeding 20C and 90 monitoring stations in France setting new records over new year ... Altitude is no guarantee of immunity. The eastern Swiss resort of Splügen, long considered “snow safe” at 1,500 metres, on Monday closed all its 30km (18 miles) of slopes until further notice, blaming “lack of snow, heavy rainfall and high temperatures” ... “There was a good start to the season ... But then last week there was quite a bit of rain and warm temperatures, so runs had to close again.” Only half of all France’s slopes were open over the holidays.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/04/warmest-january-ever-forces-ski-slopes-across-europe-to-closeDire Predictions Suggest Antarctic Rainfall Will Dramatically Intensify This Century
[T]he rain in Antarctica is projected to become more frequent and more intense, according to the new research. In total, we could be looking at an increase in rainfall of around 240 percent across the continent ... "We expect not only more frequent rain events but also more intense rain events," says atmospheric physicist Étienne Vignon from Sorbonne University in France. Snow is much more common than rain in Antarctica, but it's difficult to measure precipitation. Antarctica is classed as a desert, and even snow falls rarely.
https://www.sciencealert.com/climate-change-spells-more-rain-for-earth-s-driest-continent-and-its-penguins
reporting on a study at https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL092281270 Cities In Iran Facing Critical Water Shortage: Official
An Iranian official has confirmed that 270 cities and towns are suffering from acute water shortage as water levels at dams have dropped to critically low levels. CEO of Iran Water and Wastewater Company, Atabak Jafari issuing the warning on Sunday ... Jafari [said] the drought in the last three years is the reason why water reservoirs feeding cities and towns are near empty. The worsening of the water crisis, caused by global climate change, combined with the inefficient management of the Islamic Republic, has led experts to warn about possible social and political crises. Water reservoirs in Iran are at an all-time low, threatening nationwide rationing soon ... water behind 10 important dams have decreased 25 to 75 percent in comparison to the average in previous years.
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202301017189?mibextid=Zxz2cZEnvironmental review of 2022: another mile on the ‘highway to climate hell’
[T]he climate crisis is bleaker than it has ever been. In October, a slew of reports laid bare how close the planet had neared to irreversible climate breakdown, with one UN study stating there was “no credible pathway in place to 1.5C”, the internationally agreed limit for global heating, and that progress on cutting carbon emissions was “woefully inadequate”. Scientists had revealed in September that five “disastrous” tipping points may already have been passed due to the 1.1C of global heating to date. These included the collapse of Greenland’s ice cap, eventually producing a huge sea level rise and the collapse of a key current in the north Atlantic, disrupting rain upon which billions of people depend for food. The climate equation remains simple: carbon emissions must halve by 2030 to have an even chance of keeping to the 1.5C limit. But in 2022 emissions will have risen to a record level. “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator,” said the UN secretary general, António Guterres ... the Pakistan floods were preceded by a searing heatwave that also hit India and was made 30 times more likely by global heating. Dangerous heatwaves also engulfed parts of China, Europe, and the US, with scientists saying a northern hemisphere summer as hot as 2022 would have been “virtually impossible” without global heating, and led to a record drought ... the American west continued to struggle with the most extreme megadrought in at least 1,200 years. In Australia, hot seas led to the Great Barrier Reef suffering its fourth mass bleaching in just seven years. Flooding also struck around the world, including Nigeria, Australia, Thailand and Vietnam, and Venezuela ... people across the world are losing their lives and livelihoods to heatwaves, floods, wildfires and droughts, all made more deadly and more frequent by the climate crisis. Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s climate minister, said in September: “This dystopia is on our doorstep; it’s going to be next in their country [in the global north]. If you’re not understanding that it’s right here, right now, then you’re really sleepwalking into annihilation” ... The Cop27 UN climate summit in Egypt in November was the key event intended to ramp up global action, but two weeks of increasingly fractious and messy talks ended in “disappointment” ... destruction of wildlife and nature is seen by scientists as just as serious as the climate crisis [with] the average size of animal populations now having plunged by 70% since 1970 ... the deal struck by the world’s nations in Montreal was largely seen as historic [but] the test will be whether these targets are met – the ones set a decade ago were all missed ... the cocktail of chemicals pervading the planet now threatens the stability of global ecosystems upon which humanity depends ... More of the impacts of pollution on people were revealed in 2022, with environmental toxins being linked to the worsening obesity pandemic and to falling sperm quality.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/30/environmental-review-of-2022-another-mile-on-the-highway-to-climate-hell2022 on Track to Break Grim Record as Earth Becomes an "Atlas of Human Suffering"
Catastrophic floods, crop-wilting droughts, and record heatwaves this year have shown that climate change warnings are increasingly becoming reality, and this is "just the beginning", experts say, as international efforts to cut planet-heating emissions founder ... the goal of keeping warming within a safer limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius since the pre-industrial era appears in peril, with carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels – the main driver of global heating – on track to reach an all-time high in 2022. United Nations chief Antonio Guterres warned world leaders at a climate summit in Egypt in November that humanity faces a stark choice between working together in the battle against global warming or "collective suicide". They opted to put off the most important decisions for another time ... "The year 2022 will be one of the hottest years on earth, with all the phenomena that go with higher temperatures," said climate scientist Robert Vautard, head of France's Pierre-Simon Laplace Institute.
https://www.sciencealert.com/2022-on-track-to-break-grim-record-as-earth-becomes-an-atlas-of-human-sufferingThe collapse of insects
The most diverse group of organisms on the planet are declining at an unprecedented rate.
https://www.reuters.com/graphics/GLOBAL-ENVIRONMENT/INSECT-APOCALYPSE/egpbykdxjvq/Water managers across drought-stricken [US] West agree on one thing: ‘This is going to be painful’
Two decades of drought and poor planning have caused the river’s biggest reservoirs — Lakes Mead and Powell — to drop to their lowest collective volume since they were filled. “Time is not on our side. Hydrology is not on our side. That’s the frightening reality,” said Rebecca Mitchell, director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board ... this winter both reservoirs were about a quarter full [and] more water cuts for lower basin states are likely in 2024 due to even lower water levels. Even further restricting water allocation “doesn’t mean the lakes won’t go lower than that,” said Ted Cooke, the general manager for the Central Arizona Project. If nothing is done, there is a real possibility water levels in both reservoirs will drop so low in the next two years that water will no longer flow downstream to the 40 million people in the West who rely on the Colorado River ... Officials for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation warned that aridification, the long-term shift to a drier climate, means even less snow runoff is making it to the river each year.
https://www.nevadacurrent.com/2022/12/19/water-managers-across-drought-stricken-west-agree-on-one-thing-this-is-going-to-be-painful/
see also https://www.propublica.org/article/colorado-river-water-uncompahgre-california-arizonaAfter a year of rain, towns on Australia’s giant river system await the slow, inevitable deluge
Some 4,000 properties and 200 businesses lie in the path of the water, as do Aboriginal burial grounds. The earth is saturated, and the water has nowhere to go
Intense rainfall and storms first hit the east coast, filling rivers, lakes and dams and destroying homes, towns and businesses ... the rain and the waves of floods kept coming, spreading gradually west and south later in the year, with recovering communities hit again in November. The earth is saturated, and the water has nowhere to go, and so it continues its inexorable path through the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia’s biggest river system. It’s become an inevitable, slow-moving natural disaster ... Up to 220 gigalitres a day will be funnelled into South Australia, with the peak set to cross the border over Christmas. Then it will take three weeks to travel through towns ... There’s hope a system of levees – private, agricultural and government-built – will save whatever is still there. But eight of those levees have already been breached ... [Reopening] could take months, and in the meantime the Bureau of Meteorology’s long-range forecast warns that “rivers are high, dams are full, and catchments are wet across much of eastern Australia, meaning any rainfall has the potential to lead to widespread flooding” ... “We do need to have a look at weather patterns,” Bailey says. “And ask whether this is going to happen again next year.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/dec/26/after-a-year-of-rain-towns-at-the-end-of-australias-giant-river-system-await-the-slow-inevitable-delugeTwo-thirds of Antarctica’s native species under threat of extinction from global heating, research shows
The study, an international collaboration between scientists, conservationists and policymakers from 28 institutions in 12 countries, identified emperor penguins as the Antarctic species at greatest risk of extinction, followed by other seabirds and dry soil nematodes. Published in the journal PLOS Biology, the research also found that implementing 10 key threat management strategies in parallel – which would cost an estimated US$23m annually – could benefit up to 84% of Antarctic organisms. Influencing global policy to effectively limit global heating was identified as the conservation strategy with the most benefit ... Dr Aleks Terauds, of the Australian Antarctic Division and a co-author of the study said the research highlighted that “biodiversity is under considerable pressure in Antarctica”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/23/two-thirds-of-antarcticas-native-species-under-threat-of-extinction-from-global-heating-research-shows
reporting on a study at https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3001921Greenland's glaciers are melting 100 times faster than estimated
Greenland's glaciers are melting 100 times faster than previously calculated, according to a new model that takes into account the unique interaction between ice and water at the island’s fjords. "For years, people took the melt rate model for Antarctic floating glaciers and applied it to Greenland's vertical glacier fronts," lead author Kirstin Schulz, a research associate in the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at University of Texas at Austin, said ... Researchers already knew their Antarctica-based understanding of Arctic glaciers was not a perfect match. But it's hard to get close to the edges of Greenland's glaciers, because they're situated at the ends of fjords — long, narrow inlets of seawater flanked by high cliffs — where warm water undercuts the ice. This leads to dramatic calving events where chunks of ice the size of buildings crumble into the water with little warning. [So] researchers led by physical oceanographer Rebecca Jackson of Rutgers University have been using robotic boats to get close to these dangerous ice cliffs and take measurements. Jackon's measurements suggest that the Antarctica-based models massively underestimate Arctic glacial melt. LeConte, for example, is disappearing 100 times faster than models predicted.
https://www.livescience.com/greenland-glacier-melt-model
reporting on a study at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022GL100654Spruce Trees Are Invading the Arctic. Here’s What That Means for Our Planet.
For the last four years, the National Science Foundation has funded a collaborative project among the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), Amherst College, and Alaska Pacific University (APU) to study how spruce forests shift northward ... We see firsthand the direct and indirect effects of the changing climate: permafrost slumps, drained lake beds, drying wetlands, drowning forests, creeks stained orange by iron crusts on stream-bottom rocks. We walk through beautiful landscapes, eerily empty of birds, mammals, and even mosquitoes ... The vegetation change is the most dramatic: tussocks drying up and dying; willow bushes doubling in height in the last five years; and, rarely seen before, “millennial” spruce, those that have germinated in the last 30 years, growing miles from any adult tree ... where—according to a 2002 paper published in Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research—none had grown since before the last glacial maximum, 20,000 years ago ... The millennials looked nothing like the scraggly dwarf trees a hiker finds at tree line in the Sierras, Rockies, or on Mount Washington. No, these trees looked as if they were being cultivated for Christmas duty: symmetrical, full, and with bright young growth at their tips ... As we walked, we saw thousands of spruce, a classic example of a rapidly growing population, a climate-driven invasion of tundra ... When every year brings an extreme event, they are no longer extreme. Never in civilization’s recorded history have changes as fundamental and drastic occurred so rapidly for so long. Trees, whose lives advance at a pace similar to our own, signal that the Earth is changing in a long-term way.
https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/environment/spruce-trees-arctic-alaska-climate-change/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05093-2As the Arctic warms, beavers are moving in
Researchers have observed that the dams beavers build accelerate changes already in play due to a warming climate. Indigenous people are worried the dams could pose a threat to the migrations of fish species they depend on ... “We know that beaver dams create warm areas,” Alaskan ecologist Ken Tape explains, “because the water in the ponds they create is deeper and doesn’t freeze all the way to the bottom in the winter.” The warm pond water melts the surrounding permafrost; the thawed ground, in turn, releases long-stored carbon in the form of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane — contributing to further atmospheric warming.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/12/as-the-arctic-warms-beavers-are-moving-in/In changing climate, Alaska faces risk of extreme precipitation
By Rick Thoman, an Alaska climate specialist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks
Over the past three years heavy precipitation events, in some cases of historic proportions, struck in many parts of the state. It was only two years ago this month that torrential rains caused the fatal landslide in Haines. Last year, multiple storms brought repeated heavy rains to Northwest Alaska and kept the Noatak River running high all summer ... When people think of Alaska’s changing environment, their first thought is likely related to increasing temperature; but, Alaska’s recent experiences [show] an increase of both total precipitation and extreme precipitation in the Arctic. Scientists expect more frequent extreme precipitation events, both rain and snow, in Alaska as temperatures increase and oceans warm. Warming oceans evaporate more water into the atmosphere and a warmer atmosphere can hold more water ... extreme precipitation events and their impacts will affect both rural and urban Alaskans [and] without informed preparation the resulting impacts are sure to be severe. The best time to plan and take action was yesterday.
https://alaskabeacon.com/2022/12/15/in-changing-climate-alaska-risks-extreme-precipitation/DNA from 2m years ago reveals lost Arctic world
Two-million-year-old DNA from northern Greenland has revealed that the region was once home to mastodons, lemmings and geese, offering unprecedented insights into how climate change can shape ecosystems. The breakthrough in ancient DNA analysis pushes back the DNA record by 1m years to a time when the Arctic region was 11-19C warmer than the present day. The analysis reveals that the northern peninsula of Greenland, now a polar desert, once featured boreal forests of poplar and birch trees teeming with wildlife [but] the speed of global heating today means that many species will not have enough time to adapt, meaning that the climate emergency remains a huge threat to biodiversity.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/dec/07/dna-from-2m-years-ago-reveals-lost-arctic-world
also https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/12/oldest-dna-yet-sequenced-shows-mastodons-once-roamed-a-warmer-greenland/The Arctic Is Becoming Wetter and Stormier, Scientists Warn
In their annual assessment of the region and its climate, NSIDC researchers highlighted new signs of a huge transformation underway. As humans warm the planet, the once reliably frigid and frozen Arctic is becoming wetter and stormier, with shifts in its climate and seasons that are forcing local communities, wildlife and ecosystems to adapt, scientists said Tuesday in an annual assessment of the region ... Over the past four decades, the region has warmed at four times the global average rate, not two or three times as had often been reported, scientists in Finland said this year. Some parts of the Arctic are warming at up to seven times the global rate, they said. Nearly 150 experts from 11 nations compiled this year’s assessment of Arctic conditions, the Arctic Report Card, which NOAA has produced since 2006. This year’s report card was issued on Tuesday in Chicago at a conference of the American Geophysical Union, the society of earth, atmospheric and oceanic scientists ... The seasons are blending together across the Arctic, said Matthew L. Druckenmiller, a scientist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder, and an editor of the report card. Just last week, the mercury hit 40 degrees Fahrenheit in the northern Alaskan community of Utqiagvik, smashing winter records. “At this time of year, the sun’s not even rising” in that part of Alaska, Dr. Druckenmiller said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/13/climate/arctic-climate-change.html
reporting on a study at https://www.arctic.noaa.gov/Portals/7/ArcticReportCard/Documents/ArcticReportCard_full_report2022.pdfWe looked at 1,200 possibilities for the planet’s future. These are our best hope.
Conclusion is that no "reasonable" possibility remains at this point
With the world having already warmed by more than 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial temperatures, achieving the goal is in grave doubt ... we see how the paths to meeting 1.5C narrow. Let’s consider “reasonable” expectations for the world’s ability to remove carbon dioxide from the air and store it underground — which in many ways is the biggest variable affecting whether the world can still hold warming below 1.5C without a major overshoot. Then we’ll require scenarios to be “reasonable” on the four other dimensions too. When we change the assumption to reasonable for carbon dioxide removal and storage underground, four paths to 1.5°C remain on the chart. And when we [also] look at only reasonable assumptions [for the other necessary criteria], there is no path left.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2022/global-warming-1-5-celsius-scenarios/Microplastics deposited on the seafloor triple in 20 years
The total amount of microplastics deposited on the bottom of oceans has tripled in the past two decades with a progression that corresponds to the type and volume of consumption of plastic products by society. This is the main conclusion of a new study, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology ... "the amount of plastic particles deposited on the seafloor has tripled and that, far from decreasing, the accumulation has not stopped growing," explains ICTA-UAB researcher Laura Simon-Sánchez. The sediments analysed have remained unaltered on the seafloor since they were deposited decades ago .... "since the 1980s, but especially in the past two decades, the accumulation of polyethylene and polypropylene particles from packaging, bottles and food films has increased, as well as polyester from synthetic fibres in clothing fabrics," explains Michael Grelaud, ICTA-UAB researcher.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/975230
reporting on a study at https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.2c04264Earthworms may have declined by a third in UK, study reveals
Scientists say loss may be as significant as ‘insectaggedon’ in terms of impact on soil, birds and ecosystems Plunging populations of insects have been relatively well recorded. But, despite their importance, there has been no long-term monitoring of soil invertebrates. To fill the gap, researchers collated data from more than 100 different smaller studies ranging from 1928 to 2018. From this they estimated a decline in earthworm abundance of between 33% and 41% in the last quarter of a century, the period for which the best data was available ... “It would have widespread impacts on the species that feed on soil invertebrates, like birds, but also affect soil processing and nutrient cycling, the whole functioning of our ecosystems.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/19/earthworms-may-have-declined-by-a-third-in-uk-study-revealsClimate Change is Driving Up Food Prices
IPCC reports evidence from Africa, Asia and Latin America of declining yields either now or predicted soon for many of the most important food crops — the consequences of drought, rising temperatures, extreme climate events and the altered seasons for harvests and plantings that are often the result ... much of the very same land that is the source of diversity for our food lies in countries that are the most vulnerable to the destructive impacts of climate change ... Food-growing regions in the U.S. food are experiencing similar phenomena. In California’s Central Valley, for example, the ongoing drought has led to drastic drops in the yields of tomatoes and onions, which in turn has led to significant price increases for those and other crops.
https://capitalandmain.com/climate-change-is-driving-up-food-pricesGlobal Climate Change Impact on Crops Expected Within 10 Years, NASA Study Finds
[A]s early as 2030 under a high greenhouse gas emissions scenario, according to a new NASA study published in the journal, Nature Food [corn] crop yields are projected to decline 24% ... the change in yields is due to projected increases in temperature, shifts in rainfall patterns, and elevated surface carbon dioxide concentrations from human-caused greenhouse gas emissions ... “We did not expect to see such a fundamental shift, as compared to crop yield projections from the previous generation of climate and crop models conducted in 2014,” said lead author Jonas Jägermeyr, a crop modeler and climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and The Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York City. The projected maize response was surprisingly large and negative, he said.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3124/global-climate-change-impact-on-crops-expected-within-10-years-nasa-study-finds/Alarming antibody evasion properties of rising SARS-CoV-2 BQ and XBB subvariants
The newest subvariants are far more resistant to vaccines, even as vaccination rates are going down
The BQ and XBB subvariants are now rapidly expanding, possibly due to altered antibody evasion properties deriving from their additional spike mutations ... perhaps to 60% plus of the current cases between them ... the current vaccines don’t prevent getting Covid but the bivalent vaccine helps prevent hospitalization or long Covid ... the combination of [monoclonal antibodies] known as Evusheld were inactive [against the new subvariants] ... we found that the spikes of BQ and XBB subvariants [show] extreme antibody evasion properties ... BQ.1, BQ.1.1, XBB, and XBB.1 subvariants exhibit far greater antibody resistance than earlier variants, and they may fuel yet another surge of COVID-19 infections.
https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(22)01531-8.pdfStudy explains surprise surge in methane during pandemic lockdown
Researchers in China, France, the US and Norway found that efforts to reduce CO2 emissions and air pollution will affect the atmospheric process that scrubs methane from the air. That means the planet-heating gas will linger longer and accumulate faster. [They] found that human sources of methane did indeed fall slightly in 2020 [but] warmer and wetter conditions over parts of the northern hemisphere caused a surge in emissions from wetlands ... Researchers also looked at changes in atmospheric chemistry, because this provides a "sink" for methane, effectively cleaning it out of the air in a relatively short period by converting it to water and CO2 when it reacts with the hydroxyl radical (OH) ... They found that OH concentrations decreased by around 1.6 percent in 2020 from the year before, largely because of a fall in nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions caused by the COVID lockdowns. Nitrogen oxide is emitted into the air primarily from burning fuel ... Euan Nisbet, a professor of Earth Sciences at Royal Holloway University who was not involved in the research, said the jump in methane in 2020 was a "major shock [and] even more worrying is the rise in methane in 2021 ... something very dramatic seems to be going on."
https://phys.org/news/2022-12-surge-methane-pandemic-lockdown.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05447-wRain and Blackouts Strand Third of Ukraine’s Corn Harvest
A third of Ukraine’s corn crop is still standing in fields as winter sets in, adding further strain on its vital farming sector. Growers have been hit by a series of hurdles: Record autumn rainfall muddied fields. The war has depressed how much farmers can fetch for their goods. And strikes on the country’s infrastructure have limited electricity needed to dry soggy grain ... The US Department of Agriculture cut its Ukraine corn crop outlook to 27 million tons on Friday, down 4.5 million tons, citing relentless autumn rains in three key oblasts. That would be a five-year low. The United Nations predicts an even lower forecast of 24 million tons. Harvest is progressing at “record slow” speed, Kyiv-based analyst UkrAgroConsult said.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-14/rain-and-blackouts-strand-third-of-ukraine-s-corn-crop-in-fieldsAirlines are finally admitting contrails are an environmental problem
Airlines and scientists are coming to a consensus that the water vapor trails created by airplanes at high altitudes may play a big role in global warming. That's because those contrails, short for condensation trails, create clouds that trap heat in the atmosphere at the critical altitude where airliners fly. In fact, contrail clouds may be a more significant factor in global warming than carbon dioxide or other fuel emissions, according to a European Union study measuring more than a decade of airline flights ... The airline industry has set ambitious environmental targets in recent years even after admitting that much of the technology to hit those goals doesn't exist yet. American Airlines and Southwest Airlines set a 2050 date to cut their emissions footprint entirely.
https://phys.org/news/2022-12-airlines-contrails-environmental-problem.htmlOne of climate change’s great mysteries [clouds] is finally being solved
[I]n the past few years, scientists have begun to nail down exactly how clouds will change shape and location in the rapidly warming world. The result is ... not good news for humanity. “We’ve found evidence of the amplifying impact of clouds on global warming,” said Paulo Ceppi, a climate scientist at Imperial College London ... the high, wispy cirrus clouds that trap the Earth’s radiation are expected to shift upward in the atmosphere, to lower temperature zones. “When they rise, their greenhouse effect, or warming effect, on the Earth tends to increase” ... researchers have also discovered that the number of low-level stratus or stratocumulus clouds are expected to decrease as the planet continues to warm [so] there are fewer clouds to reflect sunlight and cool the earth ... clouds will be affected [by] the reduction of artificial aerosols in the atmosphere ... low-level clouds would have decreased even more if not for human-induced air pollution. According to another study released last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, sulfate aerosols have spurred cloud formation, thus masking some of the global warming that has already occurred [the aerosol masking effect] ... these new findings have helped scientists zero in on how much the planet will warm if carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere were to double from preindustrial times. Scientists once estimated that if CO2 reached 560 ppm, the temperature would increase between 1.5 and 4 degrees Celsius — a range that spans a “still very livable planet” to “near-apocalypse levels of warming” [but] the new cloud research indicates that the lower estimates for warming are highly unlikely. Instead, the recent papers estimate that CO2 levels of 560 ppm would probably result in at least 3 or 3.5 degrees of warming.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/12/climate-change-clouds-equilibrium-sensitivity/Record low water levels on the Mississippi River in 2022 show how climate change is altering large rivers
In 2022, water levels in some of the world's largest rivers, including the Rhine in Europe and the Yangtze in China, fell to historically low levels. The Mississippi River fell so low in Memphis, Tennessee, in mid-October that barges were unable to float, requiring dredging and special water releases from upstream reservoirs to keep channels navigable. Conditions on the lower Mississippi may be easing somewhat, thanks to early winter rains. But as Earth scientists at the University of Memphis, we see this year's dramatic plunge in water levels as a preview of a climate-altered future.
https://phys.org/news/2022-12-mississippi-river-climate-large-rivers.htmlDrought emergency declared for all Southern California
As California faces the prospect of a fourth consecutive dry year, officials with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California have declared a regional drought emergency ... “Conditions on the Colorado River are growing increasingly dire,” MWD Chairwoman Gloria Gray said in a statement. “We simply cannot continue turning to that source to make up the difference in our limited state supplies. In addition, three years of California drought are drawing down our local storage” ... The Colorado River has fallen to such historic lows that Lake Mead and Lake Powell — the nation’s two largest reservoirs — could reach “dead pool”, or the point at which water no longer passes downstream from a dam.
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-12-14/drought-emergency-declared-for-all-southern-californiaOfficials fear ‘complete doomsday scenario’ for drought-stricken Colorado River
If the surface of Lake Powell, a man-made reservoir along the Colorado River that’s already a quarter of its former size, drops another 38 feet [it] would be approaching the tops of eight underwater openings that allow river water to pass through the hydroelectric dam ... Lake Powell, the nation’s second-largest reservoir, could suddenly transform into something resembling a funnel, with water circling the [drains] ... the massive turbines that generate electricity for 4.5 million people would have to shut down or risk destruction from air bubbles. The only outlet for Colorado River water from the dam would then be a set of smaller, deeper and rarely used bypass tubes with a far more limited ability to pass water downstream ... Such an outcome - known as a “minimum power pool” - was once unfathomable here. Now, the federal government projects that day could come as soon as July. Worse, officials warn, is ... if the water level falls all the way to the lowest holes, so only small amounts could pass through the dam. Such a scenario - called “dead pool” - would transform Glen Canyon Dam [to] a hulking concrete plug corking the Colorado River ... “A complete doomsday scenario,” said Bob Martin, deputy power manager at Glen Canyon Dam ... “It would be a catastrophe for the entire system.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/01/drought-colorado-river-lake-powell/From Floods to Droughts, Every Region of the World Suffered Water Extremes Last Year: UN
The World Meteorological Organization said Tuesday in its first annual State of Global Water Resources report that every region of the world suffered water extremes last year as the climate crisis intensified flooding and droughts, inflicting deadly damage on the most heavily impacted areas ... Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the WMO, attributed last year's global water extremes to "the impacts of climate change," which he noted are "often felt through water—more intense and frequent droughts, more extreme flooding, more erratic seasonal rainfall and accelerated melting of glaciers—with cascading effects on economies, ecosystems, and all aspects of our daily lives" ... The report also focused on dangerous shortages of freshwater access, a growing emergency made worse by increasingly intense and frequent extreme weather. The WMO estimates that 3.6 billion people across the globe lack adequate access to clean water for at least one month each year.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/11/29/floods-droughts-every-region-world-suffered-water-extremes-last-year-unScientists Revive 48,500-Year-Old Virus, Setting World Record
As temperatures rise because of climate change, melting permafrost could cause dormant diseases to re-emerge, researchers warn In a paper posted on the preprint server bioRxiv in November, scientists detail how they revived several of these viruses from the Siberian permafrost. The oldest is a 48,500-year-old pandoravirus, which set a world record for the age of a restored virus, [said] co-author Jean-Michel Claverie, a genomicist at Aix-Marseille University in France. All viruses the team uncovered infect only amoebas ... But they were still alive and able to replicate—an indication that dormant viruses dangerous to humans could also be revived from lurking in the ice ... “The public health risk is coming from the accelerated release of previously frozen viruses combined with increased human exposure, since global warming is also making Arctic areas much more accessible to industrial development,” [said] Claverie ... Permafrost covers about 24 percent of landmass surfaces in the Northern Hemisphere, and it makes up almost half of the organic carbon stored in Earth’s soil ... Exactly which microbes this melting could resurface is unknown. Just a single gram of Arctic permafrost can contain hundreds to thousands of microbe groups.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-revive-48500-year-old-virus-setting-world-record-180981208/Warming in Svalbard, Arctic will continue 'at a fast pace': climate scientist
"It will continue to warm at a fast pace," [said] Rasmus Benestad, a scientist at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute. Benestad said the Arctic is warming faster due to the retreat of sea ice that's exposing warmer sea water underneath, creating a chain reaction referred to as polar amplification. In July 2020, Svalbard recorded its highest temperature on record of 21.7 C. Prior to that, the islands would normally see temperatures between 5 and 8 C for that time of the year.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/climate-and-environment/warming-in-svalbard-arctic-will-continue-at-a-fast-pace-climate-scientist-1.6171280December serving up baked Alaska and warming most of Arctic
Much of the Arctic is in a burst of freak December warming. In Utqiagvik, Alaska’s northernmost community formerly known as Barrow, it hit 40 degrees (4.4 degrees Celsius) Monday morning. That’s not only a record by six degrees (3.3 degrees Celsius) but it’s the warmest that region has seen on record from late October to late April, according to Rick Thoman, a climate specialist at the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks ... On Sunday, the Arctic as a whole averaged 11.5 degrees (6.4 degrees Celsius) warmer than the 1979-2000 average temperature ... In Nuuk, Greenland, on Friday it was shirt-sleeve weather in December, when the temperature peaked at 54 degrees (12.2 degrees Celsius), 26 degrees (14.4 degrees Celsius) above the normal high mark ... “The entire Arctic is hot except for small portions of the central and eastern Canadian Arctic and a very small portion of Siberia,” Thoman said ... Sea ice in the Arctic is about sixth lowest on record [which] matters because in areas of the Arctic there’s no sun in the winter and the atmosphere is cold. But if there’s open water, that’s usually warmer than the atmosphere. “Think of that as a heating pad and it’s just emitting heat into the atmosphere,” Thoman said.
https://apnews.com/article/science-alaska-weather-arctic-fairbanks-7087d796e414f8d0985c942da85d9bd5Scientists Are Uncovering Ominous Waters Under Antarctic Ice
Researchers just found that, at the base of Antarctica’s ice, an area the size of Germany and France combined is feeding meltwater into a super-pressurized, 290-mile-long river running to the sea. “Thirty years ago, we thought the whole of the ice pretty much was frozen to the bed,” says Imperial College London glaciologist Martin Siegert, coauthor of a new paper in Nature Geoscience describing the finding ... It’s not a tremendous amount of melt per square foot. But over an area that’s the size of two large European countries, that scales up. “It's like a millimeter per year,” says Siegert. “But the catchment is enormous, so you don't need much melting. That all funnels together into this river, which is several hundred kilometers long, and it's three times the rate of flow of the river Thames. And because it's under high pressure, it can lift the ice off its bed, which can reduce friction. And if you reduce that basal friction, the ice can flow [to the sea] much quicker than it would otherwise.” Think of that ice like a puck sliding across an air hockey table, only instead of riding on air, the ice is riding on pressurized water ... [Meanwhile the] massive hidden river, says University of Waterloo glaciologist Christine Dow, lead author of the new paper, “can pump a huge volume of fresh water into the ocean.”
https://www.wired.com/story/scientists-are-uncovering-ominous-waters-under-antarctic-ice/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-022-01059-1.epdfRecord number of firs dying in Oregon, Washington in what experts call ‘Firmageddon’
Fir trees in Oregon and Washington died in record-breaking numbers in 2022 ... Called “Firmageddon” by researchers, the “significant and disturbing” mortality event is the largest die-off ever recorded for fir trees in the two states. In total, the Forest Service observed fir die-offs occurring on more than 1.23 million acres (over 1,900 square miles) in Oregon and Washington ... the 2022 Firmageddon appears to be due to a combination of drought coupled with insects and fungal diseases working together to weaken and kill trees. Extreme heat, including last year’s record-breaking “heat dome,” is also being investigated as a possible cause ... In some areas as much as 50% or more of fir trees are estimated to have died ... That drought is very likely weakening fir trees and making them susceptible to infections isn’t surprising. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, Oregon and Washington have been in some form of drought since the early 2000s ... Unsurprisingly, having more than half the fir trees dead in some of these forests poses a major fire risk. A dangerous fire period can occur within the first two years following a major die-off, says DePinte. During these critical first two years, dead trees continue to hold onto their dried-out needles in the canopy of the forest. This makes severe crown fires far more likely should a fire start. When this happens fire can jump from treetop to treetop, leading to large scale destruction.
https://www.oregonlive.com/environment/2022/11/record-number-of-firs-dying-in-oregon-washington-in-what-experts-call-firmageddon.htmlColorado wildfires are making it harder to insure homes. Could a publicly funded plan stave off an insurance crisis?
The increasing risk of wildfires in Colorado is driving insurance carriers to raise premiums on homeowners’ policies - if they decide to insure them at all ... Colorado experienced massive, destructive wildfires in the past few years, including the Marshall fire, which caused an estimated $2 billion in property damage ... nearly two-thirds of Marshall fire homeowners were underinsured and their policies won’t provide enough money to rebuild the homes they once had ... Insurance Commissioner Michael Conway recently said that policy affordability and availability were not problems in Colorado until recent months ... “That fundamentally changed two or three months ago,” Conway said during an October public meeting. “My phone started ringing from consumers saying they were having a huge issue with availability and coverage across the state” ... the clock is ticking faster than they had expected. “The sentiment was we had more time,” said state Rep. Judy Amabile, D-Boulder, who has worked on property insurance bills in recent years. “But it’s starting to happen now [and] I’m hearing more and more that people are not getting their insurance renewed,” she said. “We can’t have a situation in our state where people can’t get homeowners insurance. Nobody would be able to buy a house and nobody would be able to sell a house” ... In the mountain communities such as Aspen, Vail, Telluride and Steamboat Springs, insurance companies are pulling out, said John Wilkinson, an independent insurance agent who has worked in the Aspen/Snowmass Village area for 43 years. “It’s like what’s happening in Florida with the hurricane coverage,” Wilkinson said. “It’s the same thing happening in Colorado, except it’s fires that are driving the exodus” ... The changes are being driven by the reinsurance market, he said. Frontline insurance companies such as State Farm and Farmers Insurance buy insurance from massive global companies to back them up in case they have to pay for catastrophic losses in a disaster. “It’s behind the scenes and consumers don’t know about it,” Wilkinson said. “If a carrier can’t find reinsurance, they pull out of the market.”
https://www.denverpost.com/2022/11/27/colorado-wildfire-property-insurance-not-availble-affordableGrowing storms push shrinking Louisiana insurers into failure
[Ten] insurers have left the state, others are declining to write new policies, and many insurers are refusing to cover at-risk properties ... Louisiana’s crisis could get even worse as insurers start paying tens of billions of dollars in claims for Hurricane Ian in Florida. Although Ian did not hit Louisiana, many Louisiana insurers also write policies in Florida, where they face huge losses. ... recent losses nearly rival the $28 billion in claims in Louisiana from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 ... Eleven property-insurance companies became insolvent between July 2021 and September 2022, according to the insurance department ... Rates will more than double in two parishes and will hit astronomical levels on the coast [yet] astronomical as they are, the rate hikes may be inadequate, according to the insurance department’s recent report.
https://www.eenews.net/articles/growing-storms-push-shrinking-la-insurers-into-failure/The Australian suburbs where more than half of properties will be uninsurable by 2030
Data from Climate Valuation shows there are at least 17 Australian suburbs where more than half its properties will be uninsurable by 2030. The chief executive of Climate Valuation, Karl Mallon, said the prediction that properties would become too expensive to insure due to global heating is unfolding faster than expected ... “We are now hearing about traditional insurance companies saying, well, we don’t want to keep offering coverage in this particular town. We thought we had a bit of time but I think things are unraveling fairly quickly now.” Mallon predicted a severe price shift in insurance is on the cards [for] “frankly any flood zones” around Australia ... “We’re now seeing that the system is not able to cope with climate change.” Mallon predicts 2023 will bring “quite a big insurance shock [with] a very rapid mortgage shock to follow. It’s going get harder to start to sell these properties because they’re going to be harder to buy.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/nov/26/australias-unraveling-climate-risk-leaving-more-homes-uninsurable-against-flooding-expert-warnsClimate change will clearly disrupt El Niño and La Niña this decade – 40 years earlier than we thought
Australians must prepare for more floods and droughts
El Niño alternates with La Niña every few years. El Niño typically brings drier conditions to much of Australia. Together, the two phases are known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation – the strongest and most consequential factor driving Earth’s weather. Our new research sheds light on the question. It found climate change will clearly influence the El Niño-Southern Oscillation by 2030 ... four decades earlier than previously thought. Australians, in particular, must prepare for more floods and droughts as climate change disrupts the natural weather patterns of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation.
https://theconversation.com/climate-change-will-clearly-disrupt-el-nino-and-la-nina-this-decade-40-years-earlier-than-we-thought-194529
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33930-5Drier, hotter, wetter: CSIRO, BoM confirm Australia’s weather to get even worse
Australia’s weather will become even more chaotic in coming years and decades, the State of the Climate report warns ... with more frequent droughts, heatwaves and declining rain over the south-east of the continent. Brown said greenhouse gases had reached record levels in the atmosphere that had raised Australia’s average temperature by 1.47 degrees since 1910. While the past decade was warmer than any in the previous century, it was expected to be the coolest 10 years in the entire 21st century ... The report found the number of extreme heat days, in the top 1 per cent of average daily temperatures for each month, were increasing and fire seasons lengthening. But the flip side of hotter temperatures was downpours, which meant the overall drying trend would be marked by increasingly intense cloudbursts of rain and flash flooding.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/drier-hotter-wetter-csiro-bom-confirm-australia-s-weather-to-get-even-worse-20221122-p5c09x.html
reporting on a study at https://www.csiro.au/en/research/environmental-impacts/climate-change/state-of-the-climateChina and Russia Continue to Block Protections for Antarctica
For the sixth year in a row, members of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR)—part of the Antarctic Treaty System—failed to agree on any new marine protected areas in the fragile Southern Ocean. That’s despite the support of a majority of CCAMLR’s member parties. Just two nations—China and Russia—declined to support new marine protected areas, or MPAs, this year. The same two members have blocked similar proposals in other recent years ... In recent years, these kinds of stalemates have included disagreements over catch limits for certain fisheries around Antarctica and new protections for species such as emperor penguins.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/china-and-russia-continue-to-block-protections-for-antarcticaEight warmest years on record witness upsurge in climate change impacts
The past eight years are on track to be the eight warmest on record, fueled by ever-rising greenhouse gas concentrations and accumulated heat. Extreme heatwaves, drought and devastating flooding have affected millions and cost billions this year, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s provisional State of the Global Climate in 2022 report. The tell-tale signs and impacts of climate change are becoming more dramatic. The rate of sea level rise has doubled since 1993 ... past two and a half years alone account for 10 percent of the overall rise in sea level since satellite measurements started nearly 30 years ago ... Greenland ice sheet lost mass for the 26th consecutive year and it rained (rather than snowed) there for the first time in September.
https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/eight-warmest-years-record-witness-upsurge-climate-change-impactsEquipment that’s designed to cut methane emission is failing
Aerial surveys have documented huge amounts of methane wafting from oil and gas fields in the United States and beyond ... Yet some of the best equipment for reducing emissions is already installed on oil and gas infrastructure ... “I haven’t seen anything from a practical standpoint that makes me believe there’s any reality to reductions on the ground,” said Tim Doty, an environmental scientist and former air quality inspector for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. “Maybe they’re making progress, but are they making enough progress to slow down climate change? I don’t think so.”
https://apnews.com/article/inflation-science-technology-government-and-politics-texas-ed246fb005e484962db30403ecc31dafGlobal heating to drive stronger La Niña and El Niño events by 2030, researchers say
Stronger La Niña and El Niño events due to global heating will be detectable in the eastern Pacific Ocean by 2030, decades earlier than previously expected, new modelling suggests ... In an El Niño, sea surface temperatures in the central or eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean are warmer than average, and the trade winds weaken or reverse. The result is reduced rainfall over India, Indonesia and northern Australia. Previous research had suggested that climate change-driven variability of ENSO events would not be detectable until 2070.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/17/global-heating-to-drive-stronger-la-nina-and-el-nino-events-by-2030-researchers-sayExtreme Heat Will Change Us
Half the world could soon face dangerous heat. We measured the daily toll it is already taking.
By late morning, the air around Abbas reached a heat index of 52°C, a measure of heat and humidity. That created a high risk for heat stroke — especially with his heavy clothing and the direct sun ... At these extreme temperatures, normal life is impossible. Ordinary activities can turn dangerous. Work slows. Tempers flare. Power grids fail. Hospitals fill up. Yet what Abbas was experiencing wasn’t a heatwave. It was just an average August day in Basra, a city on the leading edge of climate change — and a glimpse of the future for much of the planet as human carbon emissions warp the climate. By 2050, nearly half the world may live in areas that have dangerous levels of heat ... some of the far-reaching effects of extreme heat are already inevitable, and they will levy a huge tax on entire societies — their economies, health and way of life.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/18/world/middleeast/extreme-heat.htmlDegrowth: A dangerous idea or the answer to the world’s biggest crisis?
In the debate over how to avoid climate catastrophe, there’s a key point of consensus: If the worst effects of global warming are to be averted, the world needs to slash annual carbon emissions by 45% by 2030. After that, they need to decline steeply, and fast. Most roadmaps laying out a plan to achieve this involve a dramatic reconfiguration of economies around clean energy and other emissions-reducing solutions, while promoting new technologies and market innovations that make them more affordable. This would allow the global economy to keep growing, but in a way that’s “green.” Yet proponents of degrowth are skeptical that the world can reduce emissions in time — and protect delicate, interconnected ecological systems — while pursuing infinite economic expansion, which they argue will inevitably require the use of more energy. “More growth means more energy use, and more energy use makes it more difficult to decarbonize the energy system in the short time we have left,” said Jason Hickel, a degrowth expert who is part of the team that received funding from the European Research Council.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/13/economy/degrowth-climate-cop27/index.htmlArctic vegetation has a major impact on warming
The Arctic is warming three times faster than the global average. In areas where snow and ice used to reflect sunlight back into the atmosphere, melted terrain now absorbs heat into the earth's surface. There has long been speculation about the degree to which vegetation emerging from melting snow has on warming ... Using new analyses of data measured at 64 Arctic sites from 1994-2021, an international research team has become the first to document the great importance of vegetation for Arctic warming. The study has been published in Nature Communications. "Theoretically, it has long been understood that surface vegetation helps heat an area as plants absorb solar radiation. In our new study, we confirm this theory through actual measurements," says Professor Thomas Friborg of the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management ... "In many ways, the Arctic is the canary in the coal mine - it is where we first and most powerfully see global warming. But at the same time, it is incredibly complex to predict. We are currently witnessing warming of 3-4 degrees, which is higher than quite a few of the models predicted 20 years ago. As such, there is a constant need to refine models and include as much data as possible in them," concludes Professor Friborg.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/11/221116133846.htm
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-34049-3Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought
Five years ago, a study describing a precipitous decline in sperm counts sparked extreme concerns ... Now a new study shows that sperm counts have fallen further and the rate of decline is speeding up. The initial study, published in July 2017, revealed that sperm counts—the number of sperm in a single ejaculate—plummeted by more than 50 percent among men in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand between 1973 and 2011 ... In a new meta-analysis, which appears in the journal Human Reproduction Update, researchers analysed studies of semen samples published between 2014 and 2019 and added this to their previous data. The newer studies have a more global perspective and involved semen samples from 14,233 men ... The upshot: Not only has the decline in total sperm counts continued—reaching a drop of 62 percent—but the decline per year has doubled since 2000 ... male and female fertility challenges are each responsible for about one-third of infertility cases; the remaining cases are due to a combination of male and female factors ... environmental and lifestyle factors may be to blame. These include exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (which mimic or interfere with the body’s hormones), smoking, and obesity.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/sperm-counts-worldwide-plummeting-fast-infertility-lifestyle
reporting on a study at https://academic.oup.com/humupd/article/23/6/646/4035689Sperm Counts Are Dropping Across The World, And The Decline Is Accelerating
Sperm count among men worldwide is falling at an accelerated rate after halving over the last 40 years, a large new study said ... The new study includes data from more than 57,000 men collected over 223 studies across 53 countries, making it the largest meta-analysis ever conducted on the subject. With the additional new countries, it confirmed the 2017 finding that sperm counts have halved over the last four decades. Between 1973 to 2018, the concentration of sperm in men not known to be infertile fell by more than 51 percent, from 101.2 million to 49 million sperm per milliliter of semen, the new study found. "Furthermore, data suggest that this worldwide decline is continuing in the 21st century at an accelerated pace," said the study published in the journal Human Reproduction Update.
https://www.sciencealert.com/sperm-counts-are-dropping-across-the-world-and-the-decline-is-accelerating
reporting on a study at https://academic.oup.com/humupd/article/23/6/646/4035689Humans could face reproductive crisis as sperm count declines, global study finds
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/nov/15/humans-could-face-reproductive-crisis-as-sperm-count-declines-study-finds
reporting on a study at https://academic.oup.com/humupd/article/23/6/646/4035689Greenland Is Disappearing Quickly, and Scientists Have Found a New Reason Why
A new study finds that rising air temperatures are working with warm ocean waters to speed the melting of Greenland’s seaside glaciers. The findings, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, shed new light on the forces driving ice loss on the world’s second largest ice sheet ... Warm air temperatures cause melting to occur on the surface of the ice sheet—that process accounts for about half the ice Greenland loses each year. The other half comes from glaciers at the ice sheet’s edge crumbling into the sea. Losses from these seaside glaciers have, until now, been mainly attributed to warm ocean waters licking at the edge of the ice. But the new research finds that rising air temperatures have a big influence as well ... Lead study author Donald Slater, a scientist at the University of Edinburgh, likened the process to ice cubes in a glass of water. They clearly melt faster when the water is warmer. But they also melt faster when the water is stirred. They found that glaciers in south Greenland are melting the fastest. That wasn’t a surprise—these glaciers are closest to the warm Atlantic Ocean. In these areas, the models suggest that warm waters play the dominant part in melting the ice.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/greenland-is-disappearing-quickly-and-scientists-have-found-a-new-reason-why
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-022-01035-9Belching lakes, mystery craters, ‘zombie fires’: How the climate crisis is transforming the Arctic permafrost
Thawing permafrost [is] dramatically transforming the polar landscape, which is now peppered with massive sinkholes, newly formed or drained lakes, collapsing seashores and fire damage ... The vast amount of carbon stored in the northernmost reaches of our planet is an overlooked and underestimated driver of climate crisis ... Warmer summers — the Arctic is warming four times faster than the global average — have weakened and deepened the top or active layer of permafrost ... This thawing is waking up the microbes in the soil that feast on organic matter, allowing methane and carbon dioxide to escape from the soil and into the atmosphere. It can also open pathways for methane to rise up from reservoirs deep in the earth. “We’re just talking about a massive amount of carbon ... even if a small fraction of that does get admitted to the atmosphere, that’s a big deal.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/12/world/permafrost-climate-change-explainer-scn/index.htmlAsia’s ‘water tower’ is in trouble, and Chinese scientists are sounding the alarm
Global warming is slowly turning one of the world’s most important sources of fresh water into toxic mud The Tibetan Plateau and its surrounding mountain regions, known in environmental circles as the “Asian water tower”, is the source of Asia’s 10 major rivers, delivering water to almost 2 billion people – about a quarter of the world’s population. Chinese researchers have called for urgent action to improve the water quality in both the upstream and downstream areas of the region, which they believe will rapidly deteriorate as global temperatures rise ... In an article published in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment on October 11, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences said climate change would accelerate glacier melt, increasing upstream flows of sediments and other contaminants that will compromise water quality downstream ... The Asian water tower is home to most glaciers outside the Arctic and Antarctica and is highly sensitive to climate change.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3199350/asias-water-tower-trouble-and-chinese-scientists-are-sounding-alarmScientists just found a hidden 6th [or 7th, see note] mass extinction in Earth's ancient past
A global drop in oxygen levels about 550 million years ago led to Earth's first known mass extinction, new evidence suggests
80% of life on Earth disappeared, leaving no traces in the fossil record. Now, a new study suggests that these missing fossils point to the earliest known mass extinction event on Earth. These first communities of large, complex animals were killed by a steep global decline in oxygen ... Why oxygen levels plummeted in the waning years of the Ediacaran remains a mystery [but] regardless of how it happened, this mass extinction likely influenced the subsequent evolution of life on Earth and may have implications for scientists studying how animal life got started. "Ediacaran animals are pretty strange — most don't look anything like the animals we know," Evans said. "After this extinction event, we start to see more and more animals that look like ones around today. It may be that this early event paved the way for more modern animals."
https://www.livescience.com/1st-mass-extinction-oxygen-drop
Note: arguably the first known mass extinction was 2.5 billion years ago, see this entry below.Ice loss from Northeastern Greenland significantly underestimated
Ice is continuously streaming off Greenland's melting glaciers at an accelerating rate, dramatically increasing global sea levels. New results published today in Nature indicate that existing models have underestimated how much ice will be lost during the 21st century. Hence, its contribution to sea-level rise will be significantly higher ... "Our previous projections of ice loss in Greenland until 2100 are vastly underestimated," said first author Shfaqat Abbas Khan, Professor at DTU Space ... "Our data show us that what we see happening at the front reaches far back into the heart of the ice sheet. We can see that the entire basin is thinning, and the surface speed is accelerating" ... "It is possible that what we find in northeast Greenland may be happening in other sectors of the ice sheet" ... "We foresee profound changes in global sea levels, more than currently projected by existing models," said coauthor Eric Rignot, professor of Earth system science at the University of California, Irvine.
https://phys.org/news/2022-11-ice-loss-northeastern-greenland-significantly.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05301-zWhy Scientists Got the Fast Pace of Arctic Warming Wrong
Concerns about accusations of hype may have biased them toward conservative underestimates
Climate scientists have a surprising habit: They often underplay the climate threat. In 2007 a team led by Stefan Rahmstorf compared actual observations with projections made by theoretical models for three key climate variables: atmospheric carbon dioxide, global average temperature and sea-level rise. While the projections got CO2 levels right, they were low for real temperature and sea-level rise ... In 2008 Roger Pielke, Jr., found that sea-level rise was greater than forecast in two of three prior Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. In 2009 a review of hundreds of papers on climate change identified several areas where scientists had lowballed event predictions but none in which they had overestimated them ... The articles reporting the underestimates have been widely cited, so one might think that by now scientists would have taken corrective steps. But recent studies of Arctic warming suggest that the problem may not have gone away ... subconscious bias can be caused by many things, including defensiveness. Even now scientists continue to be accused of exaggerating climate risks by prominent figures who get outsized media attention. Scientists who have internalized this concern may be subconsciously biasing their models to be unrealistically conservative. If scientists have underestimated Arctic warming, they have likely minimized amounts of permafrost melting and methane release as well. And that could be truly dire because the permafrost holds about 1.5 billion metric tons of organic carbon, twice as much as is now in the atmosphere. Were that carbon to be rapidly released, it could cause a worst-case scenario: a runaway greenhouse effect ... Whatever the cause, it’s time that scientists looked seriously at whether their models continue to underplay critical aspects of the climate problem.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-scientists-got-the-fast-pace-of-arctic-warming-wrong/
reporting on a study at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1136843Climate models fail to capture strengthening wintertime North Atlantic jet and impacts on Europe
Projections of wintertime surface climate over Europe depend on reliable simulations of the North Atlantic atmospheric circulation from climate models. However, it is unclear whether these models capture the long-term observed trends in the North Atlantic circulation. Here, we show that over the period from 1951 to 2020, the wintertime North Atlantic jet has strengthened, while model trends are, on average, only very weakly positive. The observed strengthening is greater than in any one of the 303 simulations from 44 climate models considered in our study. This divergence between models and observations is now much more apparent because of a very strong jet observed over the past decade. The models similarly have difficulty capturing the observed precipitation trends over Europe. Our results suggest that projections of winter atmospheric circulation and associated precipitation over Europe may be unreliable because they fail to capture the response to human emissions or underestimate the magnitude of multidecadal-to-centennial time scale internal variability.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abn3112Carbon emissions from fossil fuels will hit record high in 2022
The finding represents a brutal contrast with the need to cut emissions by half by 2030 [with] no sign of the decline needed, the researchers said ... other scientists described the news as “bleak” and “deeply depressing” ... The analysis by the Global Carbon Project (GCP) found fossil fuel related CO2 is on course to rise by 1% to 36.6bn tonnes, the highest ever ... The GCP’s 2022 analysis is published in the journal Earth System Science Data and was produced by more than 100 scientists from 80 organisations around the world.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/10/carbon-emissions-from-fossil-fuels-will-hit-record-high-in-2022-climate-crisis
reporting on a study at https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/14/4811/2022/Jordan Is Running Out of Water, a Grim Glimpse of the Future
Population growth, diminished water supplies and climate change have all taken their toll, while damaged and inefficient infrastructure and the considerable challenges posed by Jordan’s geography and topography have only made things worse ... the country’s major water sources are near the borders ... Rainfall has decreased precipitously in recent decades and warmer temperatures mean that what rain does come evaporates rapidly ... The country’s namesake river is nearly running dry. The flow in the Jordan River is less than 10 percent of its historical average ... The vulnerable are hardest hit by the water shortages. The poor cannot afford to buy from private trucks and have less capacity to store water.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/09/world/middleeast/jordan-water-cop-27.htmlIndia at 75: Melting glaciers, heatwaves and climate crisis
Hindu faithful dream of trekking at least once in their lives to Gaumukh, where the waters of India's holiest river, the Ganges, emerge from a Himalayan glacier. But the ice at the end of the arduous journey is receding rapidly and portends an increasingly dry future for a country of 1.4 billion people facing existential challenges from climate change ... The Ganges flows for around 2,500 kilometres (1,550 miles) across India and is central to both Hindu identity and the survival of 500 million people who depend on its water for their daily farming, domestic and industrial needs ... India is one of the world's most water-stressed countries. It has 17% of the world's population but only four per cent of its water resources [and] 600 million people already face "high to extreme water stress".
https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/india-at-75-melting-glaciers-heatwaves-and-climate-crisis/article66119226.eceWhy scientists are using the word scary over the climate crisis
Back in the 1980s, when climate research began to really take off, scientists were desperate to retain their credibility as they unraveled the potentially dire consequences of the “new” phenomenon of global warming. Most journalists tiptoed round this topic because no one wanted to lose their reputation by scaremongering. [But now] more scientists are admitting publicly that they are scared by the recent climate extremes, such as the floods in Pakistan and west Africa, the droughts and heatwaves in Europe and east Africa, and the rampant ice melt at the poles. That is not because an increase in extremes was not predicted. It was always high on the list of concerns. It is the suddenness and ferocity of recent events that is alarming researchers, combined with the ill-defined threat of tipping points, by which aspects of heating would become unstoppable ... one of the Royal Society’s leading members, Prof Sir Brian Hoskins [told me] “Climate models have generally projected very smooth changes, whereas the real world is suffering rapid regional changes. The rise in globally averaged temperature is a useful metric of how far climate change has got, but it doesn’t bring home the message of the likely local and regional impact. So, land warms more than oceans; higher latitudes warm more than low latitudes, especially in winter; the warming is non-uniform which means weather changes; air that is 6C warmer can hold 50% more water and generally does, so rain storms are that much stronger; sea level rise means storm surges are more devastating. I have been surprised and alarmed at the record temperatures and floods we have seen in many places around the world – with only 1.1C warming [globally].” In July this year the UK had its first 40C day. Two years previously, researchers said the chances of that happening this decade were 100 to 1 ... And that is just with 1.1C of warming. Before long we will crash through the 1.5C threshold – and unless much more radical action is taken we are heading for between 2C and 3C warming ... So the scientists are in a bind. They are sure things will get worse. They don’t know exactly when, and by how much. They know that if they appear to be campaigning, that could lose credibility. But increasing numbers of them are so alarmed they are trying to strike different notes to jolt politicians and the public.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/07/why-scientists-are-using-the-word-scary-over-the-climate-crisisGlaciologists Produce Timelapse of Glacier Melt
Glaciologists in Italy’s Lombardy region have produced a timelapse film of the summer melting of the country’s Fellaria glacier, which accelerated dramatically, as did the melt of most other glaciers in the Alps, during the long hot summer of 2022 ... “It is not easy to find the right adjectives to describe what has happened in the last four months on the Lombardy, Italian and Alpine glaciers. It is true that in a climatic regime characterized by rising temperatures, records are beaten more easily, but the hydrological year 2021-2022 was something more, something so anomalous that it forced us to update all the graphical scales,” said glaciologists Riccardo Scotti and Matteo Oreggioni, who added, “Something we hoped could not come so quickly and with this force. All the forecasts made in June, when we recorded a 70% snow deficit, were confirmed and made worse still by the tropical temperatures that raged from May to August.”
https://www.snow-forecast.com/whiteroom/glaciologists-produce-timelapse-of-glacier-melt/Sea levels might rise much faster than thought, data from Greenland suggest
Greenland's largest ice sheet is thawing at a much higher rate than expected, a new study has revealed, suggesting it will add six times more water to the rising sea levels than previously thought. And the trend may not be limited to Greenland ... acceleration started after the Zachariae Isstrøm glacier that protected the coastal part of the ice stream broke off in 2012, allowing warmer sea water to penetrate deeper inland ... "We foresee profound changes in global sea levels, more than currently projected by existing models," Eric Rignot, a professor of Earth system science at the University of California, Irvine, who is also a co-author of the paper, said.
https://www.space.com/greenland-ice-melting-satellite-data-climate-change
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05301-zWorld faces ‘terminal’ loss of Arctic sea ice during summers, report warns
The climate crisis has pushed the planet’s stores of ice to a widespread collapse that was “unthinkable just a decade ago”, with Arctic sea ice certain to vanish in summers and ruinous sea level rise from melting glaciers now already in motion, a major new report has warned ... “There’s nothing we can do about that now, we’ve just screwed up and let the system warm too much already,” said Julie Brigham-Grette, a scientist at University of Massachusetts Amherst and report co-author, about the sea ice. “We can’t stuff the genie back into the bottle.” Disappearance of sea ice will open up the dark Arctic ocean, which will absorb – rather than reflect – heat, causing global heating to escalate further ... “It’s a terminal diagnosis and now we have to live with consequences,” said Robbie Mallett, a sea ice expert at University College London Earth Sciences. “We are driving a whole environment to extinction.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/07/melting-arctic-sea-ice-summer-report
reporting on a study at https://iccinet.org/statecryo22/Wells are running dry in drought-weary Southwest as foreign-owned farms guzzle water to feed cattle overseas
Gary Saiter, a longtime resident and head of the Wenden Water Improvement District, said the water was being pumped rapidly out of the ground by a neighboring well belonging to Al Dahra, a United Arab Emirates-based company farming alfalfa in the Southwest [while] shallower wells run dry amid the Southwest’s worst drought in 1,200 years. Much of the frustration is pointed at the area’s huge, foreign-owned farms growing thirsty crops like alfalfa, which ultimately get shipped to feed cattle and other livestock overseas ... groundwater laws [allow] farms to pump unlimited water as long as they own or lease the property. But rural communities in La Paz County know the water is disappearing beneath their feet. in Wenden the water table has dropped from about 100 feet in the late 1950s to about 540 feet in 2022, already far beyond what an average residential well can reach ... In 2018, Saudi Arabia finalized a ban on growing thirsty crops like alfalfa and hay to feed livestock and cattle. The reason was simple: the arid Middle East – also struggling with climate change-fueled drought – is running out of water, and agriculture is a huge consumer. So, they needed to find water somewhere else ... Valued at $14.3 billion, the Almarai Company – which owns about 10,000 acres of farmland in Arizona under its subsidiary, Fondomonte – is one of the biggest players in the Middle East’s dairy supply ... there is nothing illegal about foreign-owned farming in the US. And many American farmers use the West’s water to grow crops which are eventually exported around the globe. But amid the worst drought in centuries, residents and officials have questioned the merit of allowing countries, which themselves are running out of water, unlimited access to a resource as good as gold in the Southwest ... “We are literally exporting our economy overseas,” Campbell said.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/05/us/arizona-water-foreign-owned-farms-climate/index.htmlHeatwaves will make entire regions uninhabitable within decades, report warns
The Red Cross and the United Nations have published a report warning that within decades heatwaves will become so extreme in some parts of the world that human life there will be unsustainable. Heatwaves are predicted to "exceed human physiological and social limits" in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and south and south-west Asia – with extreme events triggering "large-scale suffering and loss of life", the organisations said on Monday.
https://www.rfi.fr/en/international/20221011-heatwaves-will-make-entire-regions-uninhabitable-within-decades-report-warns
reporting on a study at https://reliefweb.int/report/world/extreme-heat-preparing-heatwaves-future-october-2022UN: Climate Plans Remain Insufficient
Efforts remain insufficient to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius ... the combined climate pledges of 193 Parties under the Paris Agreement could put the world on track for around 2.5 degrees Celsius ... current commitments will increase emissions by 10.6% by 2030 [but] UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2018 report indicated that CO2 emissions needed to be cut 45% by 2030, compared to 2010 levels ... “The fact that only 24 new or updated climate plans were submitted since COP 26 is disappointing. Government decisions and actions must reflect the level of urgency, the gravity of the threats we are facing, and the shortness of the time we have remaining to avoid the devastating consequences of runaway climate change.”
https://unfccc.int/news/climate-plans-remain-insufficient-more-ambitious-action-needed-nowUNESCO says a third of World Heritage glaciers will vanish by 2050
A third of global glaciers located at World Heritage sites will disappear by 2050, UNESCO warned [and] those glaciers will melt regardless of efforts to limit temperature increases ... it is possible to save the remaining two thirds of glaciers [but] to do so, global heating must not exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above pre-industrial levels ... glaciers have been retreating at an accelerated rate since the turn of the century due to carbon dioxide emissions [yet] half of humanity depends either directly or indirectly on glaciers as a source of water for domestic consumption, agriculture and power.
https://thehill.com/policy/equilibrium-sustainability/3717866-unesco-says-a-third-of-world-heritage-glaciers-will-vanish-by-2050/
reporting on a study at https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000383551More bad news for the planet: greenhouse gas levels hit new highs
[A]tmospheric levels of the three main greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide all reached new record highs in 2021, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) ... the biggest year-on-year jump in methane concentrations in 2021 since systematic measurements began ... The increase in carbon dioxide levels from 2020 to 2021 was larger than the average annual growth rate over the last decade [and] continues to rise in 2022 ... Nitrous oxide is the third most important greenhouse gas. [Its] increase from 2020 to 2021 was slightly higher than that observed from 2019 to 2020 and higher than the average annual growth rate over the past 10 years.
https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/more-bad-news-planet-greenhouse-gas-levels-hit-new-highsDon’t Look Down
As permafrost thaws, the ground beneath Alaska is collapsing.
As the climate warms, the ancient ice that used to cover an estimated 85 percent of Alaska is thawing. As it streams away, there are places where the ground is now collapsing. Many of the valley’s spruce trees lean drunkenly. Sometimes, only a thin layer of soil covers yawning craters where the ice has vanished [and] fundamentally changed how — and where — people can live ... “It was thought to be permanent — that any changes happened on a scale of tens of thousands of years,” said Vladimir Romanovsky, a professor emeritus of geophysics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and a leading permafrost researcher ... “Those who live on permafrost have a pretty good understanding of what will happen in 20 years — they don’t need scientists to tell them,” Streletskiy said. “It’s the people who live in D.C. or Moscow who need to pay attention.”
https://grist.org/science/alaska-permafrost-thawing-ice-climate-change/California tree carnage: A decade of drought and fire killed a third of Sierra Nevada forests
A new UC Berkeley study [finds that] nearly a third of southern Sierra conifer forests have died in the last decade. California has seen devastating bouts of drought and record-breaking wildfire events in the last several years. From 2011-2020, a combination of fire, drought and drought-related bark beetle infestations killed 30% of forests in the Sierra Nevada mountain range between Lake Tahoe and Kern County, according to the analysis. On top of the overall decline in total conifer forest in the region, half of mature forest habitat and 85% of high-density mature forests were either wiped out entirely or became low-density forests. The Sierra Nevada region of California covers almost 27 million acres that provide habitat for thousands of wildife species and is home to dozens of conifer species.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article267885597.html
reporting on a study at https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/eap.2763World close to ‘irreversible’ climate breakdown, warn major studies
All three of the key UN agencies have produced damning reports in the last two days. The UN environment agency’s report found there was “no credible pathway to 1.5C in place” and that “woefully inadequate” progress on cutting carbon emissions means the only way to limit the worst impacts of the climate crisis is a “rapid transformation of societies”. Current pledges for action by 2030, even if delivered in full, would mean a rise in global heating of about 2.5C, a level that would condemn the world to catastrophic climate breakdown, according to the UN’s climate agency. Only a handful of countries have ramped up their plans in the last year, despite having promised to do so at the Cop26 UN climate summit in Glasgow last November. The UN’s meteorological agency reported that all the main heating gases hit record highs in 2021, with an alarming surge in emissions of methane ... [A study] published in September found five dangerous climate tipping points may already have been passed.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/27/world-close-to-irreversible-climate-breakdown-warn-major-studiesThe World’s Biggest Source of Clean Energy Is Evaporating Fast
Climate change-fueled heatwaves and droughts have shrunk rivers that feed giant hydropower plants
Dams are the world’s largest source of clean energy, yet extreme weather is making them less effective in the battle against climate change ... hydropower generates more electricity than nuclear and more power than wind and solar combined ... Except when there’s no water. The worst drought in 1,200 years this year in the US West means parched reservoirs can only churn out half of the power they normally supply ... In Brazil, which typically relies on hydro for more than 60% of its electricity, a drought last year brought the country to the verge of power rationing ... No country has built more dams though than China, where the worst drought in at least 60 years in Sichuan, a province the size of Germany, cut generation by 50% in August just as air-conditioning demand soared to counter a heat wave. Officials had to shut off power to many local factories for nearly two weeks ... Hydro's struggles underline the difficulty of building a robust renewable energy network to replace fossil fuels.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-10-26/drought-from-china-to-us-hits-hydro-dams-slashing-the-top-clean-energy-sourceAntarctica’s Collapse Could Begin Even Sooner Than Anticipated
Two expeditions to the Thwaites Ice Shelf have revealed that it could splinter apart in less than a decade
For the past 20 years, as the planet has warmed, scientists using satellites and aerial surveys have been watching the Thwaites Ice Shelf deteriorate. The decline has caused widespread alarm because experts have long viewed the Thwaites Glacier as the most vulnerable part of the larger West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The ice shelf acts as a dam, slowing its parent glacier’s flow into the ocean. If the shelf were to fall apart, the glacier’s slide into the sea would greatly accelerate. The Thwaites Glacier itself holds enough ice to raise the global sea level by 65 centimeters (about two feet). The loss of the Thwaites Glacier would in turn destabilize much of the rest of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, with enough ice to raise sea levels by 3.2 meters ... In every scenario, the eastern ice shelf will meet a fate similar to the western ice tongue: its constituent shards will disconnect and drift away ... The team was so alarmed that Pettit and Wild decided they will return this December to install a new instrument station: “BOB,” short for Breakup Observer. They hope BOB will survive long enough to record the final throes of the ice shelf as it fractures into shards. It might not take long.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/antarcticas-collapse-could-begin-even-sooner-than-anticipatedRising temperatures see beetles and fire ravage European forests
Since 2018 Germany has lost half a million hectares of forest. In particular, spruce species have been heavily impacted. "Here, in the Frankenwald (Franconian Forest) we have large-scale forest dieback. It is a catastrophe. What was built up through generations, was destroyed in just three years,” explains Matthias Lindig, Forester, and Bavarian State Forest Office Agent. Matthias's team fights the bark beetle, but already one-quarter of the spruce forest in north-eastern Bavaria is dead. Overlooking just one beetle spruce can lead to widespread infestation and in a few weeks, 400 further trees can become infected and die.
https://www.euronews.com/2022/10/20/climate-crisis-how-beetles-and-fire-are-devouring-european-forestsA single, devastating California fire season wiped out years of efforts to cut emissions
The state’s record-breaking 2020 fire season, which saw more than 4 million acres burn, spewed almost twice the tonnage of greenhouse gases as the total amount of carbon dioxide reductions made since 2003, according to a study published recently in the journal Environmental Pollution ... The findings challenge the notion that wildfire emissions should be considered differently than the emissions of tailpipes, industry and other sources ... California’s 2020 greenhouse gas targets, set in 2006, were “focused on the root cause of climate change, which is energy and combustion of fossil fuels in the state. [But what] we didn’t know then, and what we’ve learned now, is that the climate impacts have accelerated.”
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-10-20/california-wildfires-offset-greenhouse-gas-reductions
reporting on a study at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749122011022#bib1Only 5% of plastic waste generated by US last year was recycled, report says
The plastics problem is not just down to wanton consumerism or laziness – in fact the situation would still be bad even if every household separated every piece of plastic and disposed of it in a dedicated recycling plant, according to Greenpeace. Not a single type of plastic packaging in the US meets the definition of recyclable used by either the Federal Trade Commission or the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s new plastic economy initiative, the report found.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/23/us-plastic-waste-recycled-2021-greenpeaceThe U.S. could see a new 'extreme heat belt' by 2053
An "extreme heat belt" reaching as far north as Chicago is taking shape, a corridor that cuts through the middle of the country and would affect more than 107 million people over the next 30 years, according to new data on the country's heat risks. The report, released Monday by the nonprofit research group First Street Foundation, found that within a column of America's heartland stretching from Texas and Louisiana north to the Great Lakes, residents could experience heat index temperatures above 125 degrees Fahrenheit by 2053 — conditions that are more commonly found in California's Death Valley or in parts of the Middle East. The projections are part of First Street Foundation's new, peer-reviewed extreme heat model [which] uses high-resolution measurements of land surface temperatures and incorporates the effects of canopy cover, proximity to water and other factors that determine local temperature variability.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/us-see-new-extreme-heat-belt-2053-rcna42486U.S. Winter Outlook: Warmer, drier South with ongoing La Nina
Drought to persist in Great Plains, parts of West and expand
This year La Niña returns for the third consecutive winter, driving warmer-than-average temperatures for the Southwest and along the Gulf Coast and eastern seaboard, according to NOAA’s U.S. Winter Outlook ... [from] December 2022 through February 2023, NOAA predicts drier-than-average conditions across the South with wetter-than-average conditions for areas of the Ohio Valley, Great Lakes, northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest.
https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/us-winter-outlook-warmer-drier-south-with-ongoing-la-ninaBodies of water all over North America are drying up due to drought, climate change
Earlier this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that the 22-year megadrought affecting the West would not only intensify but also move eastward. That prediction appears to be coming into fruition, with about 82% of the continental U.S. currently showing conditions between abnormally dry and exceptional drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. And while the U.S. and North America continue to witness water levels dropping in crucial rivers, lakes and reservoirs, a mixture of climate change and poor water management policies are causing similar events all over the world ... so much damage has already been done, that even drastic improvements or reductions in emissions will not immediately impact reducing the stress on water levels.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/bodies-water-north-america-drying-due-drought-climate/story?id=91737496'It's life or death': Why one Hawaii island’s severe drought problem should scare everyone
Mauna Kahalawai [the West Maui Mountains] provides water to most of Maui, and the forest is essential to the watershed [but] the loss of native trees, due to past pineapple farming within the encompassing 8,304 acres of the watershed, has resulted in decreased rain capture. “It’s life or death,” [said] Kainoa Pestana, a field tech for Puu Kukui Watershed Preserve. “If we don’t have a forest, then we basically don’t have life for the west side.” Maui County currently has the worst drought conditions in the state. In August, Maui hit seven record-high temperatures, and in September, the National Weather Service moved Maui’s central valley to “exceptional drought,” the highest category in the drought monitoring system ... conditions are predicted to continue to worsen.
https://www.sfgate.com/hawaii/article/maui-faces-severe-drought-problem-17522662.php'Iraq is turning into a desert, but our politicians don't care'
Three quarters of the agricultural land has already been lost.
In Iraq's Diyala province, a three-hour drive north of Baghdad it is early September and almost 45 degrees. The air above the asphalt quivers with heat. On both sides the road offers a view over a parched plain. Two years ago, that plain was still covered by the Hamrin reservoir, says Zarkoushi, the governor of the area. “The water was so high in winter that this road flooded,” he says. “On the edges of the lake we grew vegetables and pistachios. We even organized boat trips for tourists. That is all a thing of the past.” Zarkoushi overlooks the desert. The earth is bursting with drought. It hurts to see this, says the governor, who grew up here ... Climate change is taking apocalyptic proportions in Iraq. Temperatures in the country are rising seven times faster than the global average. Summer temperatures of 50 degrees are no longer an exception. In the past three years, three quarters of Iraq 's irrigated farmland has been lost. The Euphrates and Tigris are expected to completely dry up by 2040.
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2022/10/23/irak-verandert-in-een-dorre-woestijn-a4146044Global warming could collapse the Atlantic circulation system
The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is a vast system of ocean currents which carry warm water from the tropics into the North Atlantic ocean and transport cold water from the northern to the southern hemisphere, thus playing a major role in the regulation of the Earth’s climate. This system has collapsed in the past ... “The process begins with an apparently insignificant weakening of AMOC, which causes subsurface warming at high latitudes of the North Atlantic. This warming melts the glaciers’ sea snouts, moving the glaciers rapidly seaward and releasing colossal armadas of icebergs. As the icebergs melt, surface water salinity decreases in the region. The surface water isn’t dense enough to sink, and AMOC collapses,” Chiessi explained. In recent decades, monitoring of AMOC has shown evidence that it is once more weakening due to three main reasons: the intensification of rainfall at high latitudes; the melting of the ice cap over Greenland; and the warming of the Earth’s surface. According to the experts, all three causes are associated with greenhouse gas emissions due to human activities. The new findings regarding AMOC’s collapse in the past suggest that the current weaker AMOC could melt glaciers in Greenland, ultimately leading to another AMOC collapse and thus exacerbating the current climate crisis. The study is published in the journal Nature Communications.
https://www.earth.com/news/global-warming-could-collapse-the-atlantic-circulation-systemGlaciers in the Alps are melting faster than ever – and 2022 was their worst summer yet
Over the 19 years that I have visited and studied the glaciers in Switzerland, I have not seen a summer like 2022. The scale of change is staggering. Glaciologists like me used to use the word “extreme” to describe annual ice loss of around 2% of a glacier’s overall volume [but] this year Switzerland’s glaciers have lost an average of 6.2% of their ice ... The protective layers of snow have not been thick enough to offset the warming summer temperatures and on average glaciers around the world have been wasting away ... research just published has shown that Austrian glaciers have also lost more glacial ice in 2022 than they have in 70 years of observations and therefore it is quite clear that severe melt has been the norm in 2022.
https://theconversation.com/glaciers-in-the-alps-are-melting-faster-than-ever-and-2022-was-their-worst-summer-yet-189197How the Great Plains Dust Bowl drought spread heat extremes around the Northern Hemisphere
It has only been in the twenty-first century that human populations in these regions of the Northern Hemisphere have experienced heat extremes comparable to the 1930s. This demonstrates that humans influenced Northern Hemisphere temperature and heat extremes through disastrous and unprecedented regional land use practices over the Great Plains, and points to the possibility that future intense regional droughts could affect heat extremes on hemispheric scales.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-22262-5U.S. winter wheat farmers plant into dust as Plains drought persists
2023 U.S. hard red winter wheat crop is already being hobbled by drought in the heart of the southern Plains ... drought threatens Kansas, the top winter wheat growing state, and Oklahoma in two ways: discouraging farmers who have not yet planted from trying, while threatening crops already in the ground from developing properly ... Without moisture, wheat shoots may fail to emerge from the ground. Even a delayed emergence would threaten yield potential by narrowing the window for plants to develop a hardy root system and push out more stems, known as tillers, before winter. "That puts a nail in the coffin," said Mark Hodges, an agronomist for Plains Grains Inc, an Oklahoma-based group that tests wheat for quality. Hodges said, "If you don't have the tillers in the fall, it's really hard to make up that number in the spring" ... About two-thirds of wheat in the United States, among the top five global exporters, is grown as a winter crop rather than spring ... Poor emergence could have a longer-term cost as well. Wheat helps anchor topsoil in the Plains, protecting it from wind erosion.
https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2022-10-17/u-s-winter-wheat-farmers-plant-into-dust-as-plains-drought-persistsLos Angeles is running out of water, and time. Are leaders willing to act?
“It’s as low as I can ever remember it being,” [Mayor Eric] Garcetti said of the reservoir from the back seat of a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power helicopter. “You can see the bathtub ring.” The aerial survey of L.A.'s water infrastructure came at a critical moment [with] the city facing what is sure to be one of the hottest, driest and most challenging climate eras on record ... supplies from the State Water Project are heavily dependent on annual snowpack and rainfall in the Sierra, which are no longer a guarantee under the state’s shifting climate regime. What’s more, long-reliable federal supplies from the Colorado River are rapidly drying up, with the river’s largest reservoir, Lake Mead, nearing dangerously low levels.
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-10-13/as-election-nears-future-l-a-water-supply-gains-focusNext pandemic may come from melting glaciers, new data shows
The findings imply that as global temperatures rise owing to climate change, it becomes more likely that viruses and bacteria locked up in glaciers and permafrost could reawaken and infect local wildlife, particularly as their range also shifts closer to the poles ... The research, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggested that the risk of viruses spilling over to new hosts was higher at locations close to where large amounts of glacial meltwater flowed in – a situation that becomes more likely as the climate warms ... other recent research has suggested that unknown viruses can, and do, loiter in glacier ice. For instance, last year, researchers at Ohio State University in the US announced they had found genetic material from 33 viruses – 28 of them novel – in ice samples taken from the Tibetan plateau in China. Based on their location, the viruses were estimated to be approximately 15,000 years old. In 2014, scientists at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research in Aix-Marseille managed to revive a giant virus they isolated from Siberian permafrost, making it infectious again for the first time in 30,000 years.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/oct/19/next-pandemic-may-come-from-melting-glaciers-new-data-shows
reporting on a study at https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2022.1073Impending economic crisis will dwarf coronavirus crisis, says credit insurer Allianz
The looming economic crisis will make the coronavirus crisis look like nothing, according to credit insurer Allianz Trade. “It is an atypical, multiple crisis. Everything points downwards. Rarely have so many negative facts come together simultaneously,” Johan Geeroms, director of risk underwriting in the Benelux for Allianz, said in a press statement. “One figure is more serious than the other,” Geeroms said. Bankruptcies are expected to skyrocket this and next year, inflation is at historically high rates, interest rates are rising, and raw material costs are getting more and more expensive. “What we are going to see is that the available fiscal space of countries is completely exhausted. Budgets derail. Especially at a time when a lot of money is also needed for the energy translation and climate measures. It is almost inevitable that sustainability will fade into the background in the near future,” Geeroms said. The Allianz director doesn’t expect the situation to change any time soon.
https://nltimes.nl/2022/10/17/impending-economic-crisis-will-dwarf-coronavirus-crisis-says-credit-insurer-allianzPesticide use around world almost doubles since 1990, report finds
Global pesticide use has soared by 80% since 1990, with the world market set to hit $130bn next year, according to a new Pesticide Atlas. But pesticides are also responsible for an estimated 11,000 human fatalities and the poisoning of 385 million people every year, the report finds. Their use has hit biodiversity, driving falls of around 30% in populations of field birds and grassland butterflies since 1990 ... “The evidence is staggering; the current food system based on the heavy use of poisonous chemicals is gravely failing farmers and consumers and feeding biodiversity collapse” ... A quarter of all pesticides are sold in the EU, which is also the world’s top exporter of crop protection products ... In 2018, European agrochemical companies planned to export 81,000 tonnes of pesticides prohibited on their own fields, the atlas says. In the same year, more than 40% of all pesticides used in Mali and Kenya were found to be highly hazardous, as were 65% of all pesticides used in four states of Nigeria.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/18/pesticide-use-around-world-almost-doubles-since-1990-report-findsIf you think Bitcoin Spews Carbon, Wait Till You Hear About...Banking
Crypto's bad, and Citi, Chase et al are 79 times worse
Because Bitcoin and many of its peers require “miners” to perform strenuous mathematical exercises with vast banks of computers in order to mint the currency, the energy use for running and cooling servers can be prodigious. But if you’re worried about finance and its state of the climate, it turns out you should concentrate instead on the regular old banking system [because it uses] seventy nine times more than crypto mining. If these banks were a country, they would be the world’s fifth largest emitter, right behind Russia ... "The Carbon Bankroll” report, which looked at the carbon emissions from bank deposits and investments held by some of the biggest companies in the country [found that] Microsoft generates three times more carbon from its cash and investments than from everyone using all of its products, and Amazon more carbon from its treasury than its delivery vans ... It’s somehow easier to see a brand-new problem: crypto is brash and noisy, so we pay attention. But it’s the stately old brick-and-mortar banks that are eating the planet.
https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/if-you-think-bitcoin-spews-carbonMore than 80 percent of the U.S. is facing troubling dry conditions
Severe to exceptional drought conditions remain common in the West, which has been battling its driest period in the past 1,200 years. But the drought is now far more widespread, with unusual dryness continuing in parts of the Northeast and expanding extreme drought conditions in the Midwest.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/14/drought-conditions-record-westernus-climate/Mississippi River levels are dropping too low for barges to float
Areas of persistent and developing drought stretch across much of the Mississippi basin, which itself covers 41 percent of the contiguous United States ... long-term forecasts suggest that unusually dry weather is likely to continue ... Repeatedly over the past week, water levels have become too low for barges to float, requiring the corps to halt maritime traffic on the river and dredge channels deep enough even for barges carrying lighter-than-normal loads. Days after a queue of stalled river traffic grew to more than 1,700 barges during emergency dredging near Vicksburg, Miss., a separate 24-hour dredging closure began Tuesday near Memphis ... Drought is pronounced across much of the country west of the Mississippi, including some two-thirds of the northern Plains states that drain to the Missouri River and then the Mississippi [and] dry conditions are predicted to resume for the latter part of October and into early November.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/12/mississippi-river-drought-low-levels-agricultureAustralian wheat yields plummet after decades of global heating, study finds
Global heating in the Indian Ocean has shifted a climate pattern towards drier conditions across Australia’s globally important wheat belt causing a severe drop in yields over the past three decades, according to a new study. Scientists from Australia and China warned as global heating continues, wheat-growing conditions would become more challenging. The study, published in Nature Food, analysed different climate phenomena that influenced Australia’s rainfall since the late 1800s and used models to see how this affected wheat yields.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/14/australian-wheat-yields-plummet-after-decades-of-global-heating-study-findsNorthern Hemisphere’s extreme summer drought ‘virtually impossible’ without human-made climate change
Drought across the Northern Hemisphere this summer — which scorched soil, dried up rivers and triggered mass crop failure — was made at least 20 times more likely by the climate crisis, a new analysis has found. The research, published Wednesday by the World Weather Attribution initiative, found that without the climate crisis, the drought that hit swaths of North America, Asia and Europe this summer would historically be a 1-in-400-year event. But global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels has made a drought of this magnitude a 1-in-20-year occurrence, the scientists found. The soaring temperatures experienced this summer, which contributed to the drought and killed tens of thousands of people across Europe and China, would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change ... “In Europe, drought conditions led to reduced harvests. This was particularly worrying, as it followed a climate change-fueled heatwave in South Asia that also destroyed crops” ... The Northern Hemisphere can expect extreme temperatures — like those experienced this summer — much more frequently, the analysis found.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/05/world/northern-hemisphere-drought-climate-intl/index.htmlThe uninsurables: how storms and rising seas are making coastlines unliveable
Most of Canada’s major cities are built on the frontlines of a changing climate – along rivers and coastlines or on flood plains. This has long troubled the risk-averse insurance industry across the globe ... Canada is far from alone in the crisis. Indonesia, which has the second-longest coast, has lost much of its natural protection against the encroaching sea ... thawing permafrost has shed thousands of hectares of Russian coastline into the ocean ... stretches of Australia’s Gold Coast are at severe risk from erosion and storm-surge damage ... Over the past 15 years, insurance claims from severe weather events in Canada have more than quadrupled ... a federally run fund, meant to help communities build disaster-resilient infrastructure, is quickly running out of money ... the costs could be too high for insurance companies to operate in certain markets around the world where extreme weather disasters are increasingly common.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/13/the-uninsurables-how-storms-and-rising-seas-are-making-coastlines-unlivableLake Mead water crisis is exposing volcanic rock from eruptions 12 million years ago
Lake Mead's falling water level has exposed several shocking things in recent months. Now scientists are reporting a new discovery on Lake Mead's dry bed: rocks laced with volcanic ash that rained down on southern Nevada during explosive eruptions roughly 12 million years ago ... The West's climate change-fueled drought and overuse of the Colorado River's water has pushed Lake Mead levels to unprecedented lows. As of September, the lake's water level was just 1,045 feet above sea level, or around 27% of full capacity.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/12/us/lake-mead-volcanic-ash-exposed-climate/index.htmlAs winters warm, nutrient pollution threatens 40% of US
Winters are the fastest warming U.S. season, and the seasonal snowpack in much of the U.S. has become less stable. Increased rain-on-snow, snowmelt, and rainfall events now carry nutrients and soil into streams and rivers during winter when dormant vegetation cannot absorb them. As a result, winter runoff impacts on nutrient pollution has quickly progressed from rare or nonexistent to far worse than during other times of the year. The study was published in Environmental Research Letters by a team of scientists from the University of Vermont, University of Colorado, University of Kansas, and University of Michigan ... Of particular concern are so-called “rain-on-snow” events, researchers say, which can cause large, economically and environmentally devastating floods.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/966321
reporting on a study at https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac8be5Billions of snow crabs have disappeared from the waters around Alaska. Scientists say overfishing is not the cause
The Alaska snow crab harvest has been canceled for the first time ever [because] the snow crab population shrank from around 8 billion in 2018 to 1 billion in 2021 ... Officials cited overfishing [but] “it wasn’t overfishing that caused the collapse, that much is clear.” Litzow says human-caused climate change is a significant factor in the crabs’ alarming disappearance. Snow crabs are cold-water species and found overwhelmingly in areas where water temperatures are below 2 degrees Celsius, Litzow says. As oceans warm and sea ice disappears, the ocean around Alaska is becoming inhospitable for the species. Climate change has triggered a rapid loss in sea ice in the Arctic region, particularly in Alaska’s Bering Sea, which in turn has amplified global warming.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/16/us/alaska-snow-crab-harvest-canceled-climate/index.htmlExtreme drought across Midwest impacting crop conditions
Dry soil conditions continue to plague many Midwestern states [and] agricultural professionals are asking themselves what this year's crops might look like. The area produces over 33% of the world's corn and 34% of the world's soybeans, but drought conditions in some locations could limit this year's yield ... stress is being felt the most across the Central Plains, where extreme and even exceptional drought is taking place. In Nebraska, only about 40% of the corn crop is in good or excellent shape with 35% of the crop labeled as poor or very poor.
https://khqa.com/news/local/extreme-drought-across-midwest-impacting-crop-conditionsMississippi River Barge Backlog Swells as Water Levels Shrink
Commercial barge traffic on southern stretches of the Mississippi River was at a standstill on Tuesday as low water levels halted shipments of grain, fertilizer and other commodities on the critical waterway,shipping sources said. The supply chain snarl comes just as harvesting of corn and soybeans, the largest U.S. cash crops, is ramping up and as tight global supplies and strong demand for food and fuel have sent inflation soaring. Around 100 tow boats hauling some 1,600 barges were lined up for miles waiting to pass through one trouble spot near Lake Providence, Louisiana, that has been largely closed since late last week, shipping sources said. At least two other sections of the lower Mississippi have also been closed at times, disrupting the flow of grain to U.S. Gulf Coast export terminals, where some 60% of U.S. corn, soybean and wheat exports exit the country, they said ... “There’s not a lot of relief in sight in the weather forecast,” said Merritt Lane, president and chief executive of barge operator Canal Barge Company.
https://gcaptain.com/mississippi-river-barge-backlog-swells-as-water-levels-shrink/The Monsoon Is Becoming More Extreme
Across South Asia, climate change is making the monsoon more erratic, less dependable and even dangerous, with more violent rainfall as well as worsening dry spells. For a region home to nearly one-quarter of the world’s population, the consequences are dire. At Mr. Gagre’s farm in late August, dryness was the problem — the monsoon had begun to feel all but absent ... In other parts of South Asia, the problem was too much rain, too quickly. Pakistan, to India’s northwest, was struck by relentless downpours, leaving much of the nation underwater ... Scientists blame global warming from the burning of fossil fuels for the changes in the monsoon ... the scientists also see what farmers like Mr. Gagre are experiencing: greater uncertainty ... The monsoon is becoming more erratic because of a basic bit of science: Warmer air holds more moisture. The moisture accumulates in the atmosphere and can stay there longer, increasing the length of dry spells. But then, when it does rain, “it dumps all that moisture in a very short time,” Dr. Koll said. “It can be a month’s rainfall or a week’s rainfall in a few hours to a few days.”
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/10/04/climate/south-asia-monsoon-climate-change.htmlThe Mediterranean Sea Is So Hot, It’s Forming Carbonate Crystals [and releasing CO2]
As the eastern Mediterranean Sea heats up in the summer, it can no longer absorb [CO2] and instead starts releasing it ... the sea begins burping up great quantities of CO2 that the water can no longer hold. And Bialik and his colleagues have discovered that ... aragonite is forming abiotically. That’s another sign that the water is getting so warm that it’s releasing its carbon load ... as these crystals form, they release CO2. So much so, Bialik calculates, that they account for perhaps 15 percent of the gas that the Mediterranean Sea emits to the atmosphere.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-mediterranean-sea-is-so-hot-its-forming-carbonate-crystals/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-20446-7Thousands of salmon found dead as Canada drought dries out river
Tens of thousands of dead wild salmon scattered along a creek bed are the latest casualty of a drought that has gripped the province of British Columbia for more than a month and left communities bracing for more devastation ... Wild salmon typically wait for rains as their signal to journey up creeks and rivers – an indicator that water levels will rise and provide easier passage to natal streams. Housty says a brief afternoon rain 10 days ago, coupled with a high tide, gave the salmon a false signal to start. No more rain came and the creek dried up, leaving the fish stranded. A biologist estimated 65,000 dead salmon were in the creek bed, more than 70% of which failed to spawn.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/05/canada-dead-salmon-drought-british-columbiaMethane Emissions from Natural Gas Gathering Pipelines in the Permian Basin
The rapid reduction of methane emissions, especially from oil and gas (O&G) operations, is a critical part of slowing global warming ... we use methane emission measurements collected from four recent aerial campaigns in the Permian Basin, the most prolific O&G basin in the United States, to estimate a methane emission factor for gathering lines [pipes that transport natural gas from well sites to processing plants, or directly to the transmission system] ... Each of [our] four aerial surveys covered at least 16000 km in linear distance of gathering pipelines, while the largest ground survey of gathering pipelines (in a published study) covered 187 km. We argue that the limited scope of ground surveys is often insufficient to locate high-emitting pipeline sources ... Our results suggest that pipeline emissions are underestimated [by] an emission factor 14–52 times higher than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s national estimate for gathering lines and 4–13 times higher than the highest estimate derived from a published ground-based survey of gathering lines ... a small percentage of the highest-emitting sources account for >50% of total emissions.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.estlett.2c00380California wells run dry as drought depletes groundwater
More than 1,200 wells have run dry this year statewide, a nearly 50% increase over the same period last year ... Shrinking groundwater supplies reflect the severity of California’s drought, which is now entering its fourth year ... more than 94% of the state is in severe, extreme or exceptional drought. California just experienced its three driest years on record, and state water officials said Monday they’re preparing for another dry year ... Farmers are getting little surface water from the state’s depleted reservoirs, so they’re pumping more groundwater to irrigate their crops. That’s causing water tables to drop across California. State data shows that 64% of wells are at below-normal water levels [and well drillers] must now drill down a couple hundred feet deeper than older wells.
https://apnews.com/article/california-droughts-climate-and-environment-e49c8c5c34ead7ef7f83b770082f20bcClimate change drives rapid decadal acidification in the Arctic Ocean from 1994 to 2020
The Arctic is warming at a rate faster than any comparable region on Earth, with a consequently rapid loss of sea ice there [causing] more uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide by surface water ... Here, we report rapid acidification there, with rates three to four times higher than in other ocean basins, and attribute it to changing sea ice coverage ... sea ice melt exposes seawater to the atmosphere and promotes rapid uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide, lowering its alkalinity and buffer capacity and thus leading to sharp declines in pH ... We predict a further decrease in pH, particularly at higher latitudes where sea ice retreat is active.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo0383World Bank criticised over climate crisis spending
The World Bank has come under fire for failing to show that its claimed spending on the climate crisis is real, in a report suggesting up to 40% of its reported climate-related spending is impossible to account for. The findings are the latest blow to the World Bank over its climate finance activities [and the] future of Malpass as president is in doubt: the Guardian understands that some countries behind the scenes are looking at ways to oust the Trump appointee.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/03/world-bank-criticised-over-climate-crisis-spendingT. Rowe Slams Goal-Linked ESG Bonds Doing Little Good
Companies globally have been rushing to issue SLBs to get cheaper borrowing costs by tapping into the tide of cash that’s flowing into environmental, social and good-governance [ESG] investment funds. Sales of the bonds reached a record $110 billion in 2021 and Moody’s ESG Solutions is expecting $150 billion by the end of this year. T. Rowe, which oversees some $1.4 trillion of investments, is the latest bond-buying titan to raise doubts about how well the bonds advance the stated goals. Last year Nuveen, another big investor, said it saw little impact from the securities and has continued to focus its efforts on structures that clearly identify their use of proceeds and impact outcomes ... [for example] Tesco Plc’s inaugural sustainability-linked bond ... tied the 750 million-euro, 8.5-year bond to a pledge to cut 60% of its direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions through 2025-26, with 2015-16 as the baseline. But the company had already achieved a 50% cut in those emissions by the time the deal was sold.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-14/t-rowe-slams-goal-linked-esg-bonds-that-are-doing-little-goodStudy links in utero ‘forever chemical’ exposure to low sperm count and mobility
PFAS, now found in nearly all umbilical cord blood around the world, interfere with hormones crucial to testicle development
The study, published on Wednesday in Environmental Health Perspectives, examined semen characteristics and reproductive hormones in 864 young Danish men born to women who provided blood samples during their pregnancies’ first trimesters between 1996 and 2002. The study builds on others that found similar issues, but it is the first to look for exposure to more than two PFAS [suspected endocrine disruptors] and to assess exposure during early pregnancy, which is the male reproductive organ’s “primary developmental period” ... The ubiquitous chemicals are estimated to be in 98% of Americans’ blood, and they can cross the placental barrier and accumulate in the growing fetus.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/oct/05/pfas-sperm-count-mobility-testicle-developmentTemporal decline of sperm concentration: role of endocrine disruptors
A number of studies have reported a decrease in sperm production in the last forty years. Although the reasons are still undefined, the change in environmental conditions and the higher exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), namely bisphenol A, phthalates, polychlorinated biphenyls, polybrominated diphenyl esters, dichlorodiphenyl-dichloroethylene, pesticides, and herbicides, organophosphates, and heavy metals, starting from prenatal life may represent a possible factor justifying the temporal decline in sperm count.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12020-022-03136-2As Himalayan Glaciers Melt, a Water Crisis Looms in South Asia
New research suggests that the area of Himalayan glaciers has shrunk by 40 percent since the Little Ice Age maximum between 400-700 years ago, and that in the past few decades ice melt has accelerated ... More than a billion people depend on the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra river systems, which are fed by snow and glacial melt from the Hindu Kush Himalaya region ... meltwater can be a lifesaver at a time when other water sources are much diminished. But increased melt may also trigger landslides or glacial lake outburst floods, known as GLOFs, scientists warn. Or it could aggravate the impact of extreme rainfall, like the deluge that caused recent massive flooding in Pakistan ... glacial lakes have increased in number and size since the 1990s. Lake formation is an outcome of glacier melt [and] more glacial lakes means greater risk of glacial lake outburst floods, when land or ice holding back a lake can suddenly give way, releasing a huge volume of water. One study projects almost a threefold rise in the risk of lake outbursts in the region.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/himalayas-glaciers-climate-changeMore frequent, intense and extensive rainfall events in a strongly warming Arctic
Here, we use state-of-the-art models ... to project the number of days with rainfall, the intensities and onset dates of rainfall events in the Arctic under the strong emission scenario (RCP8.5) ... larger increase in the rainy days over the Pacific and Atlantic sectors (up to 12 days/month) during the cold seasons (October-May) and over the Arctic Ocean (up to 14 days/month) during the warm seasons (June-September) as compared with the present day (2006-2015) ... 67%-93% of the increases in rainy days is contributed by the local warming and the remainder by the increase in total precipitation ... rainfall in spring will occur much earlier than the present day by more than one month, and the extent of rainfall will further expand towards the center of the Arctic Ocean and the inland Greenland in the future ... the timing of rainfall in spring will be significantly advanced, taking the Chukchi Sea and the Northern Barents Sea as an example; the first spring rainfall in these areas at the end of this century will occur three months earlier than the present-day. All these trends will make rainfall a new force, accelerating the melting of snow and ice in the Arctic in the future.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021EF002378Insects will struggle to keep pace with global temperature rise
A new study assessed how well 102 species of insect can adjust their critical thermal limits to survive temperature extremes [and] found that insects have a weak capacity to do so, making them particularly vulnerable to climate change ... A weak ability to adjust to higher temperatures will mean many insects will need to migrate to cooler climates in order to survive [which] could upset the delicate balance of ecosystems [and] increases the possibility of introducing infectious diseases to higher latitudes ... Insect species incapable of migrating may also become extinct. This is of concern because many insects perform important ecological functions. Three quarters of the crops produced globally are fertilised by pollinators. Their loss could cause a sharp reduction in global food production. The vulnerability of insects to temperature extremes means that we face an uncertain and worrying future if we cannot curb the pace of climate change.
https://theconversation.com/insects-will-struggle-to-keep-pace-with-global-temperature-rise-which-could-be-bad-news-for-humans-190791
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-32953-2Iraq’s mighty Tigris river is drying up
The Tigris is dying. Human activity and climate change have choked its once mighty flow through Iraq, where, with its twin river the Euphrates, it made Mesopotamia a cradle of civilisation thousands of years ago. Iraq may be oil rich but the country is plagued by poverty after decades of war and by droughts and desertification ... Hellish summers see the mercury top a blistering 50 degrees Celsius, near the limit of human endurance, with frequent power cuts ... the level of the Tigris entering Iraq has dropped to just 35 percent of its average over the past century [and] authorities have been forced to reduce Iraq’s cultivated areas by half ... salt water from the Gulf is pushing ever further upstream as the river flow declines ... rising salination is already hitting farm yields, in a trend set to worsen as global warming raises sea levels.
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2022/9/21/photos-iraq-mighty-tigris-river-is-drying-upHalf world's birds in decline, species moving 'ever faster' to extinction
Almost half of all bird species are in decline globally and one in eight are threatened with extinction, according to a major new report warning that human actions are driving more species to the brink and nature is "in trouble" ... Using data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the report said 49 percent of bird species worldwide have declining populations, with populations falling even in species not normally rare or at risk. Roughly 13 percent are considered threatened. "The natural world is in trouble. Human actions are driving species rapidly towards extinction, undermining ecosystem functions and services vital to our own survival," the report said.
https://phys.org/news/2022-09-world-birds-decline-species-faster.html
reporting on a study at http://datazone.birdlife.org/2022-annual-updateWildfires in All Seasons?
Wildfire [has become] year-round for much of the United States and the Forest Service is shifting to the concept of a fire year. Wildfire season has become longer based on conditions that allow fires to start and to burn—winter snows are melting earlier and rain is coming later in the fall ... Other factors contributing to longer fire seasons include extended drought, tree mortality from pine beetles and invasive species such as cheat grass that allow fire to ignite easily and spread rapidly ... All these conditions are making wildfires harder to control and allowing forests to hold fire longer [so] Forest Service crews plan for wildfire year-round. They know that it isn’t a matter of if there will be a fire, but when.
https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2019/06/27/wildfires-all-seasonsWhere Thick Ice Sheets in Antarctica Meet the Ground, Small Changes Could Have Big Consequences
The international team of researchers modeled how the giant slabs of ice behave where they meet the ground, sometimes thousands of feet below the surface, and the results suggested that just a little bit of thawing could make [East Antarctica] a big new source of sea level rise, said Eliza Dawson, a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford’s radio glaciology lab who led the study published today in Nature Communications ... The new paper focuses on one of the big uncertainties—what happens at the base of the ice sheet. “Suppose you started an ice sheet in a really cold place. The bed initially would be frozen, with the ice sticking to it strongly.” But like a partially defrosted refrigerator, the ice slides out pretty easily when there is a bit of water in the mix. One factor that could create more heat is “a positive feedback in ice dynamics, whereby enhanced ice deformation releases more deformational heat, which makes the ice softer, which further enhances ice deformation,” said William Colgan, a glaciologist with the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. “I can say, yup, the specter of widespread basal thaw looms large over ice-sheet stability,” he said.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14092022/antarctica-ice-sheet/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-32632-2A lost world returns with a warning
America’s mega-drought is revealing natural wonders unseen in decades. But their return from the watery depths heralds a deepening crisis.
“Lake” can be a misleading way to think of Lake Powell, the water backed up behind the 200-metre-high Glen Canyon dam wall. Powell is a huge tentacle-like body of water stretching 300km across southern Utah and northern Arizona, covering what was Glen Canyon and extending into almost 100 side canyons. Its 3,000km of shoreline tells the story of a region gripped by a 20-year drought, of the impact of climate change and a river running dry. The high-water marks of previous years are clearly visible from the water. Eerie white bathtub rings, created by mineral build-up in the red rock once submerged below the waterline, serve as a bleak barometer of the unfolding crisis ... the reservoir is now only a third full, its lowest level since the canyon was first dammed ... The sheer magnitude of the water loss is staggering. Jack, on his first visit, is awe-struck by the re-emergence of these ancient landscapes inundated decades ago in the name of water development. “I’m not sure I’m smart enough to know what words to use, but it is amazing,” he says. For Jack, it’s also alarming. As director of the Centre for Colorado River Studies at the University of Utah, he’s an expert on the health of the river system. The plummeting water level in Lake Powell represents “a critical moment for Western society,” he says, challenging the idea we can sustain “abundant metropolises and ever-growing agriculture in a land with a very limited water source.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-08/cathedral-in-the-desert-colorado-river-crisis/101407422Florida insurance crisis deepens as rates soar, companies fall
Long known as the nation’s most hurricane-prone state, Florida has achieved a new status that is aggravating hurricane anxieties and threatening real-estate values ... Four Florida insurance companies have declared bankruptcy since April, and others are canceling or not renewing policies. Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to buy property coverage through the state-created insurer of last resort, Citizens Property Insurance Corp. “Every day, there’s another company that seems to be going insolvent,” Citizens CEO Barry Gilway said at a recent public meeting. Floridians now have the highest property-insurance rates in the nation, according to the industry-funded Insurance Information Institute. The average premium is $4,231 — nearly triple the U.S. average ... since [May], three Florida insurers have gone bankrupt, affecting 170,000 policies, and others have announced they are withdrawing from Florida — a process that involves not renewing policies as they expire. A fourth insurer, Avatar Property & Casualty Insurance Co., went bankrupt in April ... the number of Citizens-insured properties has doubled since September 2020, the value of the insured properties has nearly tripled to $360 billion, growth has been concentrated in hurricane-prone southeastern Florida [and] Gilway, the Citizens CEO, said at a July meeting that Citizens has $13.6 billion in reserves to pay insurance claims ... “One major hurricane event or a series of hurricane events like Louisiana had in the past few years could easily wipe out Citizens’ reserves to pay claims,” Friedlander said.
https://www.eenews.net/articles/fla-insurance-crisis-deepens-as-rates-soar-companies-fall/Nigeria battling floods ‘beyond control’ as warning given of dams overflowing
The floods in 27 of Nigeria’s 36 states and capital city have affected half a million people, including 100,000 displaced and more than 500 injured, Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency said. The disaster has also destroyed thousands of hectares of farmland, worsening fears of a disruption of food supply in Africa’s most populous country ... Nigeria’s disaster management agency alerted more than a dozen states of “serious consequences” in the coming weeks as two of the country’s dams started to overflow ... floods have also destroyed crops, mostly in Nigeria’s northern region, which produces much of what the country eats.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/19/nigeria-battling-worst-floods-in-a-decade-with-more-than-300-people-killed-in-2022Wildfires ‘no longer seasonal’: New federal task force meets in Utah, aims to combat changing fire risk.
A new federal wildfire commission formed last year met for the first time in Salt Lake City last week with an eye for fighting blazes that are starting to spark 365 days a year, regardless of traditional wildfire seasons. “Wildfire is an entity that is now no longer seasonal,” U.S. Fire Administrator Lori Moore-Merrell, who advises the new commission, said last week ... One of the biggest challenges the commission faces: climate change. Moore-Merrell said the states often at highest risk for wildfires are those experiencing severe drought — which leads to more dry fuels for possible fire starts.
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2022/09/21/wildfires-no-longer-seasonal-newUCSB Scientists See the End of ‘Normal’ Climate
Researcher Asks: ‘What Happens If You Know the Drought Is Never Going to End?’
“We are experiencing extreme, sustained drought conditions in California and across the American West. Our warming climate means that a greater share of the rain and snowfall we receive will be absorbed by dry soils, consumed by thirsty plants, and evaporated into the air” ... “Drought is already normal in much of the western United States and other parts of the world, such as western Europe,” Stevenson said. “Part of the reason I wrote the paper was to try to say that we need to think about what we mean when we say ‘drought,’ because we’ve been using these definitions based on expectations from 40 years ago. What happens if you know the drought is never going to end?” Stevenson’s work finds that “the soil moisture changes are so large that conditions that would be considered a megadrought” in western Europe and North America will become average. Stevenson said that the team’s modeling shows that the drying trend has in fact already emerged from the data in our region. What scientists call “megadrought” has become our norm. Peter Gleick, a prominent researcher in water and climate in California at the Pacific Institute since the 1980s, seconded Stevenson’s finding ... “In general, the science about increasing drought severity and “aridification” is strong and worrisome, and builds on concerns about climate and water that scientists have been raising for literally decades,” Gleick said.
https://www.independent.com/2022/09/19/ucsb-scientists-see-the-end-of-normal-climate/Climate change & doomsday: Irreversible tipping points may mean end of human civilization
Here is the simplest possible example - the Thwaites glacier in Antarctica. “Thwaites is really holding on today by its fingernails,’ said Robert Larter, a marine geophysicist who co-authored the study, [and] “could potentially fall into the sea within three years.” If it collapses, it will raise sea levels by many feet, inundating and destroying coastal cities and beaches [with] no possible way to undo it. And this is just one of the tipping points that humanity now faces ... Once the irreversible tipping points kick in, things will become far worse. Any one of these events is terrible. All of them together is how we get to the point of discussing the collapse of human civilization and the destruction of the planetary ecosystem.
https://wraltechwire.com/2022/09/16/climate-change-doomsday-irreversible-tipping-points-may-mean-end-of-human-civilization/‘Forever chemicals’ detected in all umbilical cord blood in 40 studies
Studies collectively examined nearly 30,000 samples over the past five years in ‘disturbing’ findings PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of about 12,000 chemicals commonly used to make products resist water, stains and heat. They are called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down, and accumulate in human bodies and the environment. The federal government estimates that they are found in 98% of Americans’ blood. The chemicals are linked to birth defects, cancer, kidney disease, liver problems and other health issues, and the EPA recently found effectively no level of exposure to some kinds of PFAS in water is safe. Humans are exposed to the ubiquitous chemicals via multiple routes. PFAS are estimated to be contaminating drinking water for over 200 million people in the US, and have been found at alarming levels in meat, fish, dairy, crops and processed foods. They are also in a range of everyday consumer products, like nonstick cookware, food packaging, waterproof clothing, stainguards like Scotchgard and some dental floss. PFAS in products can be absorbed through the skin, swallowed or breathed in as they break off from products and move through the air. “The presence of these chemicals is also a threat to pregnant people, serving as first contacts with PFAS before they can pass from the uterus to the developing fetus by way of the umbilical cord,” Uche said. Scientists focused on umbilical cord blood because the cord is the lifeline between mother and baby. The findings are especially troubling because fetuses are “more vulnerable to these exposures because their developing bodies don’t have the mechanisms to deal with the [endocrine disruptor] chemicals”, Uche added. PFAS can remain in the body for years or even decades, and some studies link fetal exposure to effects throughout childhood and adulthood, including on cognitive function, reproductive function, changes in weight, eczema and altered glucose balance.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/23/forever-chemicals-found-umbilical-cord-blood-samples-studiesAlaska's newest lakes are belching methane
Big Trail Lake is a thermokarst lake, which means it formed due to permafrost thaw. Permafrost is ground that stays frozen year round; the permafrost in interior Alaska also has massive wedges of actual ice locked within the frozen ground. When that ice melts, the ground surface collapses and forms a sinkhole that can fill with water. Thus, a thermokarst lake is born. “Lakes like Big Trail are new, they’re young, and they are important because these lakes are what’s going to happen in the future,” she explained. They’re also belching methane – a potent greenhouse gas – into the atmosphere ... At Big Trail Lake and other thermokarst lakes in the Arctic, microbes digest dead plants and other organic matter in the previously frozen soil in a process that produces carbon dioxide and methane. ... Walter Anthony says she has something to show us and paddles over to what looks like a piece of trash: an upside down plastic bottle sticking out of the water. It’s a methane collection device, she says, explaining that the bottle traps methane as it bubbles up through the water. Walter Anthony turns a valve and collects a sample of the gas in a smaller bottle, which her team will chemically analyze to determine the age and concentrations of the various gases within. But there’s a faster way to know if the lake is releasing methane. Walter Anthony opens the valve, lights a match, and holds it to the opening. A burst of flame ignites. She lets the flame burn for a few seconds and then turns off the valve. It’s like a more extreme version of lighting a gas stove.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/earthexpeditions/2022/09/22/alaskas-newest-lakes-are-belching-methane/Thermokarst acceleration in Arctic tundra driven by climate change and fire disturbance
We used a remote sensing dataset unprecedented in spatiotemporal scales and resolutions to characterize regional patterns of thermokarst formation in the ice-rich Arctic tundra ecosystem. Our results show complex thermokarst patterns, intimately regulated by climate change, fire disturbance, and landscape attributes. Though sporadic and short lived, tundra fires have enduring legacy (up to 8 decades) on initiating thermokarst, even with low fire severity. On a regional scale, however, climate warming is the principle factor driving widespread thermokarst acceleration over past decades.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S259033222100659X‘The climate crisis is now’: haunting video spotlights California wildfires
The short video, titled “I love you, California” [the California state song], sees the camera pan slowly over the aftermath of megafires: apocalyptic scenes of smoldering canyons, communities reduced to rubble and once lush hillsides turned to blackened moonscapes ... Fires have always been part of the landscapes across the US west, and are an essential part of many ecosystems that evolved alongside them. But the climate crisis has turned up the dial, fueling a brutal new kind of wildfire more likely to leave devastation in its wake. In the last six years, the state has seen its eight largest fires on record, 13 of the top 20 most destructive blazes, and three of the top five deadliest fires ... “The climate crisis is no longer an abstract future or a news article about a far-off country. It’s here – it’s now,” said Katharina Maier, national coordinator of Fridays for Future US ... Rising temperatures have escalated drought conditions across the American west, leaving parched plants primed to burn. Drying and dying vegetation has turned to tinder that spurs flames faster and higher, creating conflagrations that can’t be controlled. These types of fires are increasingly harmful to the environments they once helped, and far more dangerous to communities that lay in their paths.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/23/greta-thunberg-fridays-for-future-california-wildfires-videoChina lost its Yangtze River dolphin. Climate change is coming for other species next
Experts have expressed grave concern that other rare native Yangtze animal and plant species are likely to suffer a similar fate to the baiji river dolphin as worsening climate change and extreme weather conditions take their toll on Asia’s longest river. China has been grappling with its worst heat wave on record and the Yangtze, the third longest river in the world, is drying up. With rainfall below average since July, its water levels have plunged to record lows of 50% of their normal levels for this time of year, exposing cracked river beds and even revealing submerged islands. The drought has already had a devastating effect on China’s most important river, which stretches an estimated 6,300 kilometers (3,900 miles) from the Tibetan plateau to the East China Sea near Shanghai and provides water, food, transport and hydroelectric power to more than 400 million people ... “Rivers around the world, from Europe to the United States, have declined to historically low flow levels that are negatively impacting ecosystems,” said [World Wildlife Fund] lead scientist Jeff Opperman.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/17/china/china-yangtze-river-climate-change-endangered-species-scn-intl-hnk-dst/index.html‘Very Dire’: Devastated by Floods, Pakistan Faces Looming Food Crisis
Nearly all of the country’s crops along with thousands of livestock and stores of wheat and fertilizer have been damaged — prompting warnings of a looming food crisis. Since a deluge of monsoon rains lashed Pakistan last week, piling more water on top of more than two months of record flooding that has killed hundreds of people and displaced tens of millions, the Pakistani government and international relief organizations have scrambled to save people and vital infrastructure in what officials have called a climate disaster of epic proportions. Floodwater now covers around a third of the country, including its agricultural belt, with more rain predicted in the coming weeks. The damage from the flood will likely be “far greater” than initial estimates ... Pakistan is one of the world’s top producers and exporters of cotton and rice — crops that have been devastated by the flood ... floodwaters also threaten to derail Pakistan’s wheat planting season this fall, raising the possibility of continued food shortfalls and price spikes through next year. It is an alarming prospect in a country that depends on its wheat production to feed itself ... “We’re in a very dire situation,” said Rathi Palakrishnan, deputy country director of the World Food Program in Pakistan. “There’s no buffer stocks of wheat, there’s no seeds because farmers have lost them. If the flood levels don’t recede before the planting season in October, we’re in big trouble.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/11/world/asia/pakistan-floods-food-crisis.htmlThe upstream water used to keep Lake Powell afloat is running out
[O]fficials took emergency steps in May to use water from upstream reservoirs to boost Lake Powell's level and buy the surrounding communities more time to plan for the likelihood the reservoir will soon fall too low for the Glen Canyon Dam to generate hydropower. The dam is ... at high risk of being forced offline should the lake's level drop below 3,490 feet above sea level. Lake Powell's water level was at around 3,529 feet as of Thursday, or 24% full ... "What this is doing is just buffering us for a year, and we probably have an opportunity to do that maybe two more times, and then there will be no more capacity." [But] this is not a surprise at all. "There's really only one upstream reservoir — Flaming Gorge — that has any significant capacity," Kuhn said. "And they've used it two years in a row" ... The total capacity of all federal reservoirs in the Colorado River Basin is about 58 million acre feet, 50 million of which is Lake Powell and Lake Mead combined. "If one adds all of the water in all of the reservoirs, then the system is now at 34% of capacity," Schmidt said ...The Colorado River Basin provides water and electricity for more than 40 million people living across seven Western states and Mexico.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/16/us/colorado-river-water-lake-powell-flaming-gorge-climate/index.htmlThe Colorado River is drying up — but basin states have ‘no plan’ on how to cut water use
One month after states missed a federal deadline to propose ways to drastically cut their use of water supplied by the Colorado River, water managers who met for a seminar in Grand Junction said they still didn’t have comprehensive solutions ready to help bolster the imperiled river system ... While the problems the basin faces were apparent in the day-long discussions about the state of the river, solutions were not ... While the representatives for the governments agreed that solutions need to be collaborative, no one offered to be the first to make big cuts ... “I think the honest answer is right now there is no plan,” J.B. Hamby of the Imperial Irrigation District in California said in response to a question from the audience about how significant cutbacks would be achieved.
https://www.cpr.org/2022/09/17/colorado-river-drought-basin-states-water-restrictions/Oceans rise, houses fall: The California beach dream home is turning into a nightmare
Tyree Johnson loved his apartment that overlooked the Pacific Ocean – until it started to crumble down a cliff into the sea ... A decade later, a UCLA report warned that Johnson’s story will not be unique: Tens of thousands of people who live along California’s coast may be forced to flee in coming decades as climate change leads to rising seas and makes swaths of the state’s iconic coast uninhabitable ... as sea level rise projections grow more dire, experts now say permanently living on the ocean edge isn't sustainable. Authorities are already making moves to retreat.
https://usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/09/15/climate-change-and-sea-level-rise-threaten-california-beach-living/7837590001/Fossil fuel reserves contain 3.5 trillion tonnes of CO2
Burning the world's remaining fossil fuel reserves would unleash 3.5 trillion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions -- seven times the remaining carbon budget ... United Nations estimates that Earth's remaining carbon budget -- how much more pollution we can add to the atmosphere before the 1.5C temperature goal of the Paris Agreement is missed -- to be around 360 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent, or nine years at current emission levels. The UN's annual Production Gap assessment last year found that governments plan to burn more than twice the fossil fuels by 2030 than would be consistent with a 1.5C world [but] remaining fossil fuel reserves contain seven times the emissions of the carbon budget for 1.5C.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220918-fossil-fuel-reserves-contain-3-5-tn-tonnes-of-co2-databaseGlobal insect decline may see 'plague of pests'
A scientific review of insect numbers suggests that 40% of species are undergoing "dramatic rates of decline" around the world. The study says that bees, ants and beetles are disappearing eight times faster than mammals, birds or reptiles. But researchers say that some species, such as houseflies and cockroaches, are likely to boom. The general insect decline is being caused by intensive agriculture, pesticides and climate change. Insects make up the majority of creatures that live on land. Many other studies in recent years have shown that individual species of insects, such as bees, have suffered huge declines, particularly in developed economies. But this new paper takes a broader look. Published in the journal Biological Conservation, it reviews 73 existing studies from around the world published over the past 13 years. The researchers found that declines in almost all regions may lead to the extinction of 40% of insects over the next few decades. With many species of birds, reptiles and fish depending on insects as their main food source, it's likely that these species may also be wiped out as a result. [However] "Fast-breeding pest insects will probably thrive because of the warmer conditions, because many of their natural enemies, which breed more slowly, will disappear, " said Prof Dave Goulson from the University of Sussex who was not involved in the review.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47198576
reporting on a study at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320718313636The great nutrient collapse
Rising CO2 revs up photosynthesis, the process that helps plants transform sunlight to food. This makes plants grow, but it also leads them to pack in more carbohydrates like glucose at the expense of other nutrients that we depend on [so] key crops are getting less nutritious ... elevated CO2 has been shown to drive down important minerals like calcium, potassium, zinc and iron ... the same conditions have been shown to drive down the protein content ... 150 million people could be put at risk of protein deficiency, particularly in countries like India and Bangladesh. Researchers found a loss of zinc, which is particularly essential for maternal and infant health, could put 138 million people at risk. They also estimated that more than 1 billion mothers and 354 million children live in countries where dietary iron is projected to drop significantly, which could exacerbate the already widespread public health problem of anemia ... some researchers look at the growing proportion of sugars in plants and hypothesize that a systemic shift in plants could further contribute to our already alarming rates of obesity and cardiovascular disease.
https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrients-carbon-dioxide-000511/
see also https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/09/220912152903.htmWorld Meteorological Organisation’s climate report: Key messages
The World Meteorological Organisation has said that without much more ambitious action, the physical and socioeconomic impacts of climate change “will be increasingly devastating” across the planet ... atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide continue to rise ... Annual mean global near-surface temperature for each year from 2022-2026 is predicted to be between 1.1 and 1.7 degrees higher than pre-industrial levels ... national mitigation pledges for 2030 show some progress, but are insufficient. These pledges would need to be four times higher to get on track to limit warming to 2 degrees - and seven times higher to get on track to 1.5 degrees. Global warming during the 21st century is estimated (with 66 per cent probability) at 2.8 degrees (range 2.3-3.3 degrees), assuming a continuation of current policies.
https://www.irishtimes.com/world/2022/09/13/world-meteorological-organisations-climate-report-key-messages/
reporting on a study at https://library.wmo.int/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=22128Europe just had its hottest summer on record
Europe just notched its hottest summer in recorded history, new data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service shows. It was the second historic summer in a row for the continent, higher than the previous record set just last year ... Officials have attributed thousands of deaths to the long stretches of oppressively hot weather. Crops withered and forests turned brown and barren, as Western Europe was gripped by the worst drought in centuries. Wildfires raged from the Caucasus Mountains to the Atlantic coast ... sea ice around Antarctica hit a record low for July. Human greenhouse gas pollution is heating the planet at a pace unparalleled since before the fall of the Roman Empire, according to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/08/europe-record-hot-summer-extreme-heat/World on brink of five ‘disastrous’ climate tipping points, study finds
The climate crisis has driven the world to the brink of multiple “disastrous” tipping points, according to a major study. It shows five dangerous tipping points may already have been passed ... At 1.5C of heating, the minimum rise now expected, four of the five tipping points move from being possible to likely, the analysis said. Also at 1.5C, an additional five tipping points become possible, including changes to vast northern forests and the loss of almost all mountain glaciers. In total, the researchers found evidence for 16 tipping points, with the final six requiring global heating of at least 2C to be triggered ... Prof Johan Rockström, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who was part of the study team, said: “The world is heading towards 2-3C of global warming. This sets Earth on course to cross multiple dangerous tipping points that will be disastrous for people across the world” ... The analysis, published in the journal Science, assessed more than 200 previous studies on past tipping points, climate observations and modelling studies.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/08/world-on-brink-five-climate-tipping-points-study-finds
reporting on a study at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn7950The energy historian who says rapid decarbonization is a fantasy
Vaclav Smil rarely agrees to interviews. Too many in the media have portrayed him as a tool of Big Oil, he says — because he insists on pointing out how deeply dependent humanity is on fossil fuels and how difficult it will be to give them up. The economist and professor emeritus at Canada’s University of Manitoba [is] no global warming denier. He recognizes the need to move away from plastics, but asks readers to note how often they touch plastic every day and ask themselves how rapid they think the switch can be. His mission: lay out facts. “I’m not an optimist or a pessimist,” he likes to say. “I’m a scientist.” He’s highly regarded and frequently cited in academic circles and counts Bill Gates among his most famous fans ... [We asked him,] people and policymakers seem to think with enough money and willpower, we can rapidly switch to renewable energy. You believe this is a delusion ... "It’s not a matter of belief. What is decisive is the size of the global energy system, its economic and infrastructural inertia. Fossil fuels now supply about 83% of the world’s commercial energy, compared to 86% in the year 2000. The new renewables (wind and solar) now provide (after some two decades of development) still less than 6% of the world’s primary energy, still less than hydroelectricity. What are the chances that after going from 86% to 83% during the first two decades of the 21st century the world will go from 83% to zero during the next two decades? Especially as a few weeks ago China announced additional 300 million tons of new coal production for 2022, and India additional 400 million tons by the end of 2023. We are still running into fossil fuels, not away from them ... most people think of decarbonization as just an electricity problem. They do not realize the amount of energy used directly, as fuels and electricity, and indirectly as feedstocks to make materials that define modern civilization. Without modern nitrogen fertilizers we could feed only about half of today’s humanity. They start with ammonia, and ammonia synthesis is based mostly on natural gas. No material is made in larger quantity than cement, the key ingredient of concrete, the ubiquitous construction material. Steel comes second and iron smelting needs coke made from coal. Synthesis of plastics needs natural gas and oil as feedstocks and fuel. Making just these four materials requires nearly 20% of the world’s total energy supply generating about 25% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Alternative, non-carbon, ways of making these materials are known — but none is available for immediate large-scale commercial deployment. Decarbonizing this massive demand cannot be done in a matter of years [and] so far, we are not even seriously trying."
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-09-05/the-energy-historian-who-says-rapid-decarbonization-is-a-fantasyChina's unrivaled 70-day heat wave
The extreme heat and drought that has been roasting a vast swath of southern China for at least 70 straight days has no parallel in modern record-keeping in China, or elsewhere around the world for that matter. More than 260 weather stations saw their highest-ever temperatures during the long-running heat wave, according to state media reports. It has coincided with a severe drought that has shriveled rivers and lakes and throttled back some of China's hydropower production.
https://www.axios.com/2022/08/22/china-heat-wave-drought-unprecedentedCopernicus tracks effects of Arctic Circle wildfires
CAMS, implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) on behalf of the European Union, has been tracking the emissions and activity of more than 100 wildfires occurring across the Arctic Circle in the Sakha Republic of Siberia and Alaska for a prolonged period, from early June onwards. Based on 17 years of observations, the wildfires are unprecedented ... High-intensity wildfires have been increasing in frequency, partly as a result of extreme weather driven by climate change, with hot and dry conditions being one of the biggest risk factors. In addition, wildfires are responsible for far greater air pollution than industrial emissions.
https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/copernicus-tracks-effects-arctic-circle-wildfiresArctic Lakes Are Vanishing a Century Earlier Than Predicted
Models had predicted that as warmer weather thaws the Arctic, melting ice would feed into lakes, [then] those lakes would drain and dry out sometime later this century according to earlier projections. But satellite imagery reveals that lakes across the Arctic are shrinking rapidly today. Researchers tracked a distinct downward trend in Arctic lake cover from 2000 to 2021, observing declines across 82 percent of the study area, which included large swaths of Canada, Russia, Greenland, Scandinavia, and Alaska. As warmer air and more abundant autumn rainfall melt permafrost around and beneath Arctic lakes, water is draining away, scientists say. The effect of rainfall was unaccounted for in prior models, which showed the lakes draining much later. The study was published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/arctic-lakes-drying-climate-change
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01455-wFor first time on record, Greenland saw extensive melting in September
In Greenland, an unusually late heat wave last weekend caused extensive melting across the ice sheet — the kind of melt typically seen in the middle of summer. The first day of September typically marks the end of the Greenland melt season, as the sun moves lower in the sky and temperatures usually cool. Yet over the weekend, temperatures began rising when a warm jet of air pushed northward across Baffin Bay and the western coast of Greenland. As a result, tens of billions of tons of ice were lost ... “It’s truly amazing to see a heat wave like this cover Greenland in September,” Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist at the University of Colorado, said. “For the first time on record, temperatures at summit exceeded the melting point in September.” The heat spurred melting across about 35 percent of the ice sheet last weekend.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/06/greenland-ice-melt-heat-wave-summer/Over-consumption and drought reduce lake in vital Spanish wetland to puddle
The largest permanent lake in Spain’s Doñana national park, one of Europe’s biggest and most important wetlands, has shrivelled to a small puddle as years of drought and overexploitation take their toll on the aquifer that feeds the area ... “The Santa Olalla lake, the largest permanent lake in Doñana and the last one that still had water in August, has dried up,” the CSIC said in a statement. “In recent days, it has been reduced to a small puddle” ... Water supplies [in this area] have declined drastically over the past 30 years because of climate breakdown, farming, mining pollution and marsh drainage.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/05/santa-olalla-lake-dries-up-in-vital-spanish-wetland-blamed-on-overexploitationNorthern California wildfire wipes out neighborhood with frightening speed
[The fire] spread to nearby homes in the historically Black community of Lincoln Heights within minutes, said Weed Mayor Kim Greene. It quickly became an urban conflagration as flames raced from house to house, the majority of them older wooden structures. “Wildfire is no longer in the wilderness,” she said. “It’s right inside the city limits” ... the latest fire to bring major property losses inside established communities ... “Most of the community of Lincoln Heights is gone,” Greene said ... fires were fueled by gusty winds, high temperatures, low relative humidity and vegetation desiccated by the ongoing drought. Scientists have found this to be the driest 22-year period in at least 1,200 years and concluded that climate change has intensified the megadrought’s severity.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-09-03/mill-fire-destroys-neighborhood-displaces-thousandsWe’ve Lost 35 Percent of Forests in the Past 300 Years
Since 1990, an estimated 178 million hectares of forest have been lost worldwide ... equivalent to an area the size of Libya. From 2015-2020, an estimated 10 million hectares worldwide were deforested each year ... Globally, 35 percent of forests have been lost in the past 300 years. Of those that have survived, 82 percent have been compromised by human activity. More than half the world’s forests are now found in just five countries — Brazil, Canada, China, Russia and the US ... Tropical rainforests are currently the target of deforestation, and environmental scientists warn that if this vital area is destroyed, the entire planet will suffer ... reports [are not] optimistic. The United Nations Strategic Plan for Forests 2017-2030 wants to increase global forest area by 3 percent [but the] plan is not on track, and while some regions like Europe, Asia and Oceania are keeping pace, South America continues to lose more hectares each year than are rebuilt.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/weve-lost-35-percent-of-forests-in-the-past-300-yearsLarge parts of Amazon may never recover, major study says
Environmental destruction in parts of the Amazon is so complete that swathes of the rainforest have reached tipping point and might never be able to recover, a major study carried out by scientists and Indigenous organisations has found. “The tipping point is not a future scenario but rather a stage already present in some areas of the region,” the report concludes. “Brazil and Bolivia concentrate 90% of all combined deforestation and degradation. As a result, savannization is already taking place in both countries” ... [the report covers] all nine of the nations that contain parts of the Amazon. It found that only two of the nine, tiny Suriname and French Guiana, have at least half their forests still intact.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/05/large-parts-of-amazon-may-never-recover-major-study-saysUS farmers face plague of pests as global heating raises soil temperatures
Agricultural pests that devour key food crops are advancing northwards in the US and becoming more widespread as the climate hots up, new research warns ... heat stress is already affecting yields, with harvests of staple crops in Europe down this year as a result of heatwaves and drought. Pest invasions have serious implications for food security ... [range] is predicted to double in size by the end of the century, as the other zones get smaller, according to the paper, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/06/us-farmers-face-plague-of-pests-as-global-heating-raises-soil-temperatures‘Greenwashing’: Tree-Planting Schemes Are Just Creating Tree Cemeteries
[O]pen space at the edge of King’s Lynn, a quiet market town in the east of England, was supposed to be a new carbon sink for Norfolk, offering 6,000 trees to tackle the climate crisis. The problem is that almost all of the trees that the guards were supposed to protect have died. Not only were they planted at the wrong time of year, but they were planted on species-rich grassland that was already carbon negative, which has now been mostly destroyed by tree planting. Environmentalists also point out that the trees were planted so shallowly into the ground that most were unlikely to ever take root ... Tree-planting initiatives have become an increasingly popular way to offset carbon, with companies and governments around the world committing to reforestation schemes as they deal with the climate crisis. But critics say that tree planting takes decades to benefit the environment, and can be used as ‘greenwashing’ – a way of companies looking good while failing to fully commit to decarbonisation and divesting from the fossil-fuel industry.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7v75a/tree-planting-schemes-englandNew technique shows old temperatures were much hotter than thought
Results imply Earth may be more sensitive to carbon dioxide than previously known In a paper recently published in Science, Professor Nele Meckler of the University of Bergen and colleagues argue that the climate between around 35 and 60 million years ago may have been considerably warmer than we thought. Their finding suggests that a given level of CO2 might produce more warming than prior work indicated ... indicates that between 57 and 52 million years ago, the North Atlantic abyss was about 20°C. That’s a big difference from the oxygen isotope data, which yielded temperatures of 12–14°C. “That's a whole lot warmer,” said Meckler. For comparison, today’s equivalent is around 1–2°C.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/08/ancient-deep-ocean-may-have-been-hotter-than-we-thought/
reporting on a study at https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abk0604Carbon capture and storage (CCS): Carbon capture is not a solution to net zero emissions plans, report says
Carbon capture and storage schemes, a key plank of many governments’ net zero plans, “is not a climate solution”, the author of a major new report on the technology has said. Researchers for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) found underperforming carbon capture projects considerably outnumbered successful ones by large margins. Of the 13 projects examined for the study – accounting for about 55% of the world’s current operational capacity – seven underperformed, two failed and one was mothballed, the report found. “Many international bodies and national government are relying on carbon capture in the fossil fuel sector to get to net zero, and it simply won’t work,” Bruce Robertson, the author of the IEEFA report, said.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/01/carbon-capture-is-not-a-solution-to-net-zero-emissions-plans-report-says
reporting on a study at https://ieefa.org/resources/carbon-capture-crux-lessons-learnedHistoric monuments resurface as severe drought shrinks Spain’s reservoirs
After a prolonged dry spell, Spain’s reservoirs – which supply water for cities and farms – are at just under 36% capacity ... climate crisis has left parts of Spain at their driest in more than 1,000 years and winter rains are expected to diminish further, a study published in July by the Nature Geoscience journal showed.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/30/historic-monuments-resurface-as-severe-drought-shrinks-spains-reservoirs'Doomsday glacier,' which could raise sea level by several feet, is holding on 'by its fingernails,' scientists say
Antarctica's so-called "doomsday glacier" -- nicknamed because of its high risk of collapse and threat to global sea level -- has the potential to rapidly retreat in the coming years, scientists say, amplifying concerns over the extreme sea level rise that would accompany its potential demise ... In a study published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists mapped the glacier's historical retreat ... "Thwaites is really holding on today by its fingernails, and we should expect to see big changes over small timescales in the future -- even from one year to the next -- once the glacier retreats beyond a shallow ridge in its bed," Robert Larter, a marine geophysicist and one of the study's co-authors from the British Antarctic Survey, said ... The Thwaites Glacier, located in West Antarctica, is one of the widest on Earth and is larger than the state of Florida. But it's just a fraction of the West Antarctic ice sheet, which holds enough ice to raise sea level by up to 16 feet, according to NASA ... in 2021, a study showed the Thwaites Ice Shelf, which helps to stabilize the glacier and hold the ice back from flowing freely into the ocean, could shatter within five years ... Monday's findings [suggest that] Thwaites is capable of receding at a much faster pace than recently thought.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/05/world/thwaites-doomsday-glacier-sea-level-climate/index.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-022-01019-9Major sea-level rise caused by melting of Greenland ice cap is ‘now inevitable’
Major sea-level rise from the melting of the Greenland ice cap is now inevitable, scientists have found, even if the fossil fuel burning that is driving the climate crisis were to end overnight. The research shows the global heating to date will cause an absolute minimum sea-level rise of 27cm (10.6in) from Greenland alone as 110tn tonnes of ice melt. With continued carbon emissions, the melting of other ice caps and thermal expansion of the ocean, a multi-metre sea-level rise appears likely ... the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change used satellite measurements of ice losses from Greenland and the shape of the ice cap from 2000-19. This data enabled the scientists to calculate how far global heating to date has pushed the ice sheet from an equilibrium where snowfall matches the ice lost. This allowed the calculation of how much more ice must be lost in order to regain stability. “It is a very conservative rock-bottom minimum,” said Prof Jason Box from the National Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (Geus), who led the research ... The 27cm estimate is a minimum because it only accounts for global heating so far and because some ways in which glacier ice is lost at the margins of the ice sheet are not included ... Mountain glaciers in the Himalayas and the Alps are already on course to lose a third and half of their ice respectively, while the west Antarctic ice sheet is also thought by some scientists to be past the point at which major losses are inevitable. Warming oceans also expand, adding to sea-level rise.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/29/major-sea-level-rise-caused-by-melting-of-greenland-ice-cap-is-now-inevitable-27cm-climate
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01441-2Severe heat and droughts are wreaking havoc across the globe
The summer of 2022 has seen significant, sustained drought across the globe, from Europe to China to the US and Africa, and has brought with it serious ripple effects, from energy shortages to severe food insecurity [and] doesn’t paint a particularly hopeful picture for our collective climate future ... heat waves are likely to get more severe in the future contributing to further drought. That means more wildfires, more challenges for agriculture, particularly in poor countries, and more displacement and famine ... exacerbated by the human behavior, primarily industrialization and fossil fuel use ... “extremely unlikely” to have happened without human-made climate change ... “This is exactly what climate models projected was going to happen: intensifying extreme weather, severe public health consequences, [and] no reasonable scenario where the warming stops at 1.2°C, so it’s definitely going to get worse.”
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/8/21/23315264/droughts-extreme-heat-climate-crisisDroughts Hurt World’s Largest Economies
Parts of China are experiencing their longest sustained heat wave since record-keeping began in 1961, according to China’s National Climate Center, leading to manufacturing shutdowns owing to lack of hydropower. The drought affecting Spain, Portugal, France and Italy is on track to be the worst in 500 years, according to Andrea Toreti, a climate scientist at the European Commission’s Joint Research Center. In the American West, a drought that began two decades ago now appears to be the worst in 1,200 years, according to a study led by the University of California, Los Angeles ... In the U.S., agricultural forecasters expect farmers to lose more than 40% of the cotton crop, while in Europe the Spanish olive-oil harvest is expected to fall by as much as a third amid hot and dry conditions ... rivers such as the Rhine and Italy’s Po that serve as arteries for trade are running at historic lows, forcing manufacturers to cut shipments. Falling river levels also have reduced hydropower generation ... Heat has forced France to lower production at several nuclear reactors because the river water that cools them is too warm ... smaller snowpacks in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California have sharply reduced water supplies in the region, home to the nation’s largest agriculture industry ... the Colorado River has fallen so much that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on Aug. 16 declared a second consecutive annual shortage, triggering a second straight year of mandatory water cuts to Arizona, Nevada and Mexico ... Water levels along some sections of the Yangtze—China’s longest river and a crucial source of hydropower, transport and water for crops—have fallen to their lowest since record-keeping began, according to China’s Ministry of Water Resources ... American and European climate scientists say global warming has amplified the severity of the effect of La Niña. A warmer atmosphere sucks up more moisture from land, increasing the risk of drought, said Isla Simpson, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/droughts-hurt-worlds-largest-economies-11661087554China’s Growing Water Crisis
China is on the brink of a water catastrophe. A multiyear drought could push the country into an outright water crisis. Such an outcome would not only have a significant effect on China’s grain and electricity production; it could also induce global food and industrial materials shortages on a far greater scale than those wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Given the country’s overriding importance to the global economy, potential water-driven disruptions beginning in China would rapidly reverberate through food, energy, and materials markets around the world and create economic and political turbulence for years to come ... Four decades of explosive economic growth, combined with food security policies that aim at national self-sufficiency, have pushed northern China’s water system beyond a sustainable level, and they threaten to do the same in parts of southern China as well ... The overpumping of aquifers under the Northern China Plain is a core driver of China’s looming water crisis. According to data from NASA GRACE satellites, the North China Plain’s groundwater reserves are even more overdrawn than those of the Ogallala Aquifer under the Great Plains of the United States, one of the world’s most imperiled critical agricultural water sources. These data further suggest that the most populous portion of China north of the Yangtze River—an area from eastern Sichuan to southern Jilin that is home to more than a billion people—has for much of the past 15 years seen steady declines in the amount of water in the region’s lakes, rivers, and aquifers. In parts of North China, groundwater levels have declined by a meter per year, causing naturally occurring underground water storage aquifers to collapse ... farms and cities are pumping water far faster than nature can replenish it ... If the North China Plain were to suffer a 33 percent crop loss because of water insufficiency, China would potentially need to compensate by importing approximately 20 percent of the world’s internationally traded corn and 13 percent of its traded wheat [and] if a drought were to curtail rice yields in southern China or Heilongjiang (in China’s fertile Northeast), that could create even larger market shocks given China’s disproportionate share of rice consumption ... China’s energy sector—the world’s largest—also faces significant water risks. If China lost 15 percent of its hydropower production in a year because of low water levels behind dams—a plausible scenario based on real-world experiences in Brazil—it would have to increase electricity output by an amount equal to what Egypt generates in a year. In China’s energy system, only coal-fired plants could potentially boost output by hundreds of terawatt-hours on short notice [but] the coal mining and preparation process is often highly water intensive ... China’s power shortfalls would directly affect global supply chains, as industrial facilities account for over 65 percent of electricity use ... China is by far the world’s largest producer of aluminum, ferro-silicon, lead, manganese, magnesium, zinc, most rare earth metals, and many other specialty metals and materials ... China produces an overwhelming portion of the polysilicon used for solar cells and the rare earth metals used in wind turbines around the world. The country also dominates raw materials refining and cell production for electric vehicle batteries ... China-centric supply chains took decades to build and cannot be easily or quickly moved elsewhere ... Today’s global supply chains are woefully unprepared for a Chinese drought that could disrupt grain trade patterns and key industrial materials production across multiple continents. As China continues overexploiting groundwater amid intensified weather volatility, it moves closer each year to a catastrophic water event.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/chinas-growing-water-crisisExtreme China heatwave could lead to global chaos and food shortages
Global shortages and soaring prices are almost certain as China's seemingly never-ending heatwave sears on. It's the most extreme heat event ever recorded in world history. For more than 70 days, the intense heat has blasted China's population, factories and fields. Lakes and rivers have dried up. Crops have been killed. Factories have been closed. More than 900 million people across 17 Chinese provinces are subjected to record-breaking conditions [with] far-reaching effects. Energy, water, and food supplies are being hit across the country. Rivers are drying up. Dams are emptying. Hydroelectric plants are shutting down ... factories are being closed to divert available electricity towards residential use. In the fields, crops and animals are wilting – as are their human tenders. Hundreds of thousands of acres have already been seared, with serious worldwide repercussions expected on food supplies ... "There is nothing in world climatic history which is even minimally comparable to what is happening in China," weather historian Maximiliano Herrera told New Scientist. "This combines the most extreme intensity with the most extreme length with an incredibly huge area all at the same time" ... Shipping cargo routes are blocked. Long-lost Buddhist statues are being exposed among the drying mud. And drinking water is being rationed ... But the most immediate problem will be food [with likely] severe shortfalls in the autumn harvest of rice and wheat in the Yangtze basin. And analysts say that's likely to be yet another stressor on global food prices. [Meanwhile] the European Drought Observatory reports some 60 per cent of the European Union is officially drought affected. The US weather service has judged 41 per cent of the United States to also be in drought.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/extreme-china-heatwave-could-lead-to-global-chaos-and-food-shortages/D3FVWMBGHJQD355FDM5R43MG4I/What it’s like to toil in India’s dangerous, unrelenting heat
The men spent most of their days in conditions that would test even world-class athletes ... Jay, the physiologist, noted that the Australian Open has canceled matches when the wet bulb globe temperature exceeded 32.5C. That number, he said, “is the threshold for elite, elite, highly conditioned athletes competing for millions of dollars for playing a sport.” He added: “And these guys [Hussain and Shaw] are supposed to stay in that just to do their jobs.” During the two days The Post spent with Hussain and Shaw, both men dealt with wet bulb globe temperatures up to 33.8C ... The problem is almost always worse in low-income areas. A 2019 study found that such neighborhoods in Delhi could be as much as 6C hotter than a wealthy neighborhood on the same night. “Heat illness is a disease of vulnerability,” said emergency physician Cecilia Sorenson, director of the Global Consortium on Climate Health and Education at Columbia University. “Those who can protect themselves, do. And those who can’t, don’t” ... “[W]hat keeps me up at night,” said Sorenson, [is] imagining the death and devastation of today’s heat waves multiplied by 10, or 30 or 100. “We’re deeply underequipped to deal with what’s going to come.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2022/india-extreme-heat-climate-change/Current Siberian heating is unprecedented during the past seven millennia
The Arctic is warming faster than any other region on Earth ... we provide long-term perspective by reconstructing past summer temperature variability at Yamal Peninsula – a hotspot of recent warming – over the past 7638 years [and] demonstrate that the recent anthropogenic warming interrupted a multi-millennial cooling trend. We find the industrial-era warming to be unprecedented in rate and to have elevated the summer temperature to levels above those reconstructed for the past seven millennia ...undoubtedly of concern for the natural and human systems that are being impacted by climatic changes that lie outside the envelope of natural climatic variations for this region.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-32629-xThe world's rivers are drying up from extreme weather. See how 6 look from space
A painful lack of rain and relentless heat waves are drying up rivers in the US, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Many are shrinking in length and breadth. Patches of riverbed poking out above the water are a common sight. Some rivers are so desiccated, they have become virtually impassable. The human-caused climate crisis is fueling extreme weather across the globe, which isn't just impacting rivers, but also the people who rely on them. Most people on the planet depend on rivers in some way, whether for drinking water, to irrigate food, for energy or to ship goods.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/20/world/rivers-lakes-drying-up-drought-climate-cmd-intl/index.htmlEthiopia Braces for Deeper Drought As IGAD Predicts Fifth Failed Rainy Season
Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia's drought-stricken regions will not get enough rain until the end of the year. It is a major setback for authorities in Ethiopia that were expecting rainfall conditions to improve this year. Drought has killed almost 3.5 million cattle in Ethiopia. At least 36.1 million people in the Horn of Africa are presently impacted by the drought, which started in October 2020. This number includes 24.1 million in Ethiopia, 7.8 million in Somalia, and 4.2 million in Kenya. Guleid Artan, director of IGAD'S Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC), says Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia are on the brink of an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe. About 4.6 million children are acutely malnourished in these three countries. Two million of them are in Ethiopia ... Opposite to the drought in the southern part of Ethiopia, the northern part of the country is likely to witness flooding in the coming rainy season.
https://allafrica.com/stories/202208270045.htmlAustralia's 'Black Summer' fires affected ozone layer: study
Australia's catastrophic "Black Summer" bushfires significantly affected the hole in the Earth's ozone layer, according to a new report published Friday. The report, which appeared in the Nature journal Scientific Reports, traced a link from the unprecedented smoke released by the fires to the ozone hole above Antarctica. The fires, which burned through 5.8 million hectares of Australia's east in late 2019 and early 2020, were so intense they caused dozens of smoke-infused pyrocumulonimbus clouds to form ... The result was "millions of metric tons of smoke and associated gases being injected into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere" [that] prolonged the Antarctic ozone hole, which appears above Antarctica each spring and "reached record levels in observations in 2020".
https://phys.org/news/2022-08-australia-black-summer-affected-ozone.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-15794-3Europe's drought the worst in 500 years - report
Two-thirds of Europe is under some sort of drought warning, in what is likely the worst such event in 500 years. The latest report from the Global Drought Observatory says 47% of the continent is in "warning" [and] 17% is on "alert" ... EU forecasts for harvest are down 16% for grain maize, 15% for soybeans and 12% for sunflowers. The drought observatory is part of the European Commission's research wing.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62648912
reporting on a study at https://edo.jrc.ec.europa.eu/documents/news/GDO-EDODroughtNews202208_Europe.pdfStudy: Already shrunk by half, Swiss glaciers melting faster
Switzerland’s 1,400 glaciers have lost more than half their total volume since the early 1930s, a new study has found, and researchers say the ice retreat is accelerating at a time of growing concerns about climate change. ETH Zurich, a respected federal polytechnic university, and the Swiss Federal Institute on Forest, Snow and Landscape Research on Monday ... estimated that ice volumes on the glaciers had shrunk by half over the subsequent 85 years - until 2016. Since then, the glaciers have lost an additional 12%, over just six years. By area, Switzerland’s glaciers amount to about half of all the total glaciers in the European Alps.
https://apnews.com/article/science-switzerland-glaciers-climate-and-environment-9d4d5984f79b4a0300a673669d7b9d01Two-Thirds of Alaska’s Kenai Fjords Glaciers In Retreat, Study Finds
Almost half of Kenai Fjords National Park, which sits on the southern coast of Alaska, is covered in glacial ice. As temperatures rise, almost two-thirds of the park’s glaciers are in retreat, a new study finds. Of the 19 glaciers dotting the park, 13 have shrunk substantially ... findings were published in the Journal of Glaciology.
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/alaska-kenai-fjords-glaciers-retreatHow the Western drought is pushing the power grid to the brink
About 40 percent of water withdrawals — water taken out of groundwater or surface sources — in the United States go toward energy production. The large majority of that share is used to cool power plants ... where an expansive, decades-long drought is forcing drastic cuts in hydroelectric power generation. At the same time, exceptional heat has pushed energy demand to record highs. As the climate changes, these stresses will mount. “Water supplies for agriculture, fisheries, ecosystems, industry, cities, and energy are no longer stable given anthropogenic climate change,” Camille Calimlim Touton, commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, told Congress in June.
https://www.vox.com/23292669/drought-2022-power-energy-grid-lake-mead-climate-heat-hoover-damThe century of climate migration: why we need to plan for the great upheaval
People driven from their homes by climate disaster need protection. And ageing nations need them
A great upheaval is coming. Climate-driven movement of people is adding to a massive migration already under way to the world’s cities. The number of migrants has doubled globally over the past decade, and the issue of what to do about rapidly increasing populations of displaced people will only become greater and more urgent ... Large populations will need to migrate, and not simply to the nearest city, but also across continents. Those living in regions with more tolerable conditions, especially nations in northern latitudes, will need to accommodate millions of migrants while themselves adapting to the demands of the climate crisis.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/aug/18/century-climate-crisis-migration-why-we-need-plan-great-upheavalAmerican farmers are killing their own crops and selling cows because of extreme drought
Nearly three quarters of US farmers say this year's drought is hurting their harvest -- with significant crop and income loss, according to a new survey by the American Farm Bureau Federation ... 37% of farmers said they are plowing through and killing existing crops that won't reach maturity because of dry conditions. That's a jump from 24% last year, according to the survey ... Farmers in [Texas] reported the largest reduction in herd size, down 50%, followed by New Mexico and Oregon at 43% and 41% respectively.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/17/business/west-drought-farmers-survey-climate/index.htmlClimate change: 'Staggering' rate of global tree losses from fires
Data from Global Forest Watch suggests that across the globe, the amount of tree cover being burned has nearly doubled in the past 20 years. Climate change is a key factor in the increase as it leads to higher temperatures and drier conditions. Of the 9 million hectares of trees consumed by fire in 2021, over five million were in Russia. "It is staggering," says James MacCarthy, an analyst with Global Forest Watch. "What's most concerning is that fires are becoming more frequent, more severe and have the potential to unlock a lot of the carbon that's stored in soils there."
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-62569394Irreversible declines in freshwater storage projected in parts of Asia by 2060
The Tibetan Plateau, known as the "water tower" of Asia, supplies freshwater for nearly 2 billion people who live downstream. New research led by scientists at Penn State, Tsinghua University and the University of Texas at Austin projects that climate change, under a scenario of weak climate policy, will cause irreversible declines in freshwater storage in the region, constituting a total collapse of the water supply for central Asia and Afghanistan and a near-total collapse for Northern India, Kashmir and Pakistan by the middle of the century. "In a 'business as usual' scenario, where we fail to meaningfully curtail fossil fuel burning in the decades ahead, we can expect a near collapse—that is, nearly 100% loss—of water availability to downstream regions of the Tibetan Plateau."
https://phys.org/news/2022-08-irreversible-declines-freshwater-storage-asia.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01443-0Weeks of heat above 100F will be the norm in much of US by 2053, study finds
Almost two-thirds of Americans, who live in mostly southern and central states, will be at risk from the critical temperature increases, according to a Washington Post analysis of data ... by 2053, the record heat being experienced this year in several states will have become normal.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/15/extreme-heat-risk-temperatures-2053-study
see also https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2022/extreme-heat-risk-map-us/Risk of catastrophic California ‘megaflood’ has doubled due to global warming, researchers say
Global warming has doubled the likelihood that weather conditions will unleash a deluge as devastating as the Great Flood of 1862, according to a UCLA study released Friday. In that inundation 160 years ago, 30 consecutive days of rain triggered monster flooding that roared across much of the state ... If a similar storm were to happen today, the study says, up to 10 million people would be displaced, major interstate freeways such as Interstates 5 and 80 would be shut down for months, and population centers including Stockton, Fresno and parts of Los Angeles would be submerged — a $1-trillion disaster larger than any in world history. It would also probably be “bigger in almost every respect” than what scientists have come to call the “ARKStorm scenario” of 1862, said climate scientist Daniel Swain, co-author of the study published Friday in the journal Science Advances ... an ARKStorm event would result in a disaster zone stretched across thousands of square miles.
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-08-12/risk-of-catastrophic-megaflood-has-doubled-for-california
reporting on a study at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abq0995‘Soon it will be unrecognisable’: total climate meltdown cannot be stopped, says expert
This is just the beginning, insists McGuire, who is emeritus professor of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London. As he makes clear in his uncompromising depiction of the coming climatic catastrophe, we have – for far too long – ignored explicit warnings that rising carbon emissions are dangerously heating the Earth. Now we are going to pay the price for our complacency in the form of storms, floods, droughts and heatwaves that will easily surpass current extremes. The crucial point, he argues, is that there is now no chance of us avoiding a perilous, all-pervasive climate breakdown. We have passed the point of no return.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/30/total-climate-meltdown-inevitable-heatwaves-global-catastropheRainwater everywhere on Earth unsafe to drink due to ‘forever chemicals’, study finds
Per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a large family of human-made chemicals that don’t occur in nature. They are known as ‘forever chemicals’ because they don’t break down in the environment. They [are] in household items like food packaging, electronics, cosmetics and cookware. But now researchers at the University of Stockholm have found them in rainwater in most locations on the planet - including Antarctica. There is no safe space to escape them ... The health risks of being exposed to these substances have been researched widely. Scientists say that they could be linked to fertility problems, increased risk of cancer and developmental delays in children.
https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/08/04/rainwater-everywhere-on-earth-unsafe-to-drink-due-to-forever-chemicals-study-findsClimate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios
Prudent risk management requires consideration of bad-to-worst-case scenarios. Yet, for climate change, such potential futures are poorly understood. Could anthropogenic climate change result in worldwide societal collapse or even eventual human extinction? ... We outline current knowledge about the likelihood of extreme climate change, discuss why understanding bad-to-worst cases is vital, articulate reasons for concern about catastrophic outcomes, define key terms, and put forward a research agenda.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2108146119
see also https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-62378157Rampant wildfires once led to global mass extinction, scientists say. Can it happen again?
A long time ago, the carbon was rock, buried in the earth. Then an environmental catastrophe of unprecedented scale began ... By the time it was over, most living things on Earth—up to 95% of ocean species, and more than 70% of those on land—were dead. New research suggests the accelerating fires of this apocalyptic period 252 million years ago were not just a symptom of a warming planet, but a driver of extinction in their own right. Increasingly frequent fires overwhelmed plants' ability to adapt and set off chains of events that threatened life in habitats untouched by flames themselves—just as scientists fear they are doing today.
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-rampant-wildfires-global-mass-extinction.htmlThe Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the globe since 1979
In recent decades, the warming in the Arctic has been much faster than in the rest of the world, a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification. Numerous studies report that the Arctic is warming either twice, more than twice, or even three times as fast as the globe on average. Here we show, by using several observational datasets which cover the Arctic region, that during the last 43 years the Arctic has been warming nearly four times faster than the globe, which is a higher ratio than generally reported in literature.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00498-3Map shows ‘desert’ crossing UK as Met Office warns of ‘scary’ heatwave
The Met Office has raised its Fire Severity Index to its highest level of exceptional today for scorched southern England ... as the nation roasts under its second record-breaking heatwave of the year. James Cheshire, professor of geographic information and cartography at the University College London’s geography department, has branded the map ‘the scarred landscape of the climate crisis ... is unlike anything I’ve seen before.’
https://metro.co.uk/2022/08/11/map-shows-desert-crossing-uk-as-experts-warn-of-scary-heatwave-17164636/Rivers across Europe are too dry, too low, and too warm
Extended heat and low rainfall across Europe are causing major rivers to dry up ... The Rhine is one of the busiest waterways in the world, but low levels mean severe restrictions for cargo ships. If water levels don't rise soon, some ships won't be able to pass at all ... The Thames is as much a part of London as Buckingham Palace or the Houses of Parliament, but it originates near the village of Kemble in southwest England. Or it did — until recently. Conditions have gotten so bad that the Thames surfaces over 8 kilometers downstream from its official starting point ... Water temperatures in the Danube are already dangerously high this summer — and water levels are low. The heat affects the oxygen content of the water, which could drop below six parts per million — a level that low would spell death for some fish.
https://www.dw.com/en/rivers-across-europe-are-too-dry-too-low-and-too-warm/a-62758853Dry, hot summers put Dutch dikes at risk
Often made of peat, dike walls are more likely to dry out and become unstable due to lack of rain. After weeks of drought and intense summer heat, the Netherlands has declared a state of emergency ... Two-thirds of the population live in regions below sea level. Rotterdam and Amsterdam would be flooded without intact dikes and pumping systems.
https://www.dw.com/en/dutch-dikes-at-risk-of-climate-change-drought/a-62771283Netherlands officially has a water shortage due to ongoing drought
The scarce water will be distributed according to legal agreements so that dikes, peatlands, and very vulnerable nature areas are supplied with water for as long as possible. More measures may follow in the coming weeks.
https://nltimes.nl/2022/08/03/netherlands-officially-water-shortage-due-ongoing-droughtNo aquatic life for miles in River Thames drought
The source of the River Thames has dried up so much that there are no signs of aquatic life for 10 miles, experts say. It comes after weeks of dry weather and record-breaking temperatures across the UK.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-62490782Mass crop failures expected in England as farmers demand hosepipe bans
Environment Agency classified eight of the 14 areas of England as being in a drought ... Half of the potato crop is expected to fail as it cannot be irrigated, and even crops that are usually drought-tolerant, such as maize, have been failing. The group was told “irrigation options are diminishing with reservoirs being emptied fast”, and losses of 10-50% are expected for crops including carrots, onions, sugar beet, apples and hops. Milk production is also down nationally because of a lack of food for cows, and wildfires are putting large areas of farmland at risk.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/12/mass-crop-failures-expected-in-england-as-farmers-demand-hosepipe-bansFarmers banned from taking river water in Fife
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) said the majority of water abstraction licences would be suspended from midnight on Saturday. "It is not a step we take lightly, but the evidence is clear, and it is one we can no longer avoid."
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-62518164Wales' green landscape at risk from climate change
Wales could face regular repeats of this summer's prolonged hot and dry weather, says expert. [It] saw just 61% of average rainfall from March to July.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-62505426[Portugal] Hottest July in 92 years
The month of July was the hottest in the last 92 years, with temperatures almost always above normal and with a record of 47ºC registered in Pinhão.
https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/2022-08-07/hottest-july-in-92-years/69283Centuries-old warnings emerge from riverbed as Europe faces historic drought
The recent droughts in Europe once again made visible the "Hunger Stones" in some Czech and German rivers. These stones were used to mark desperately low river levels... one, in the Elbe river, is from 1616 and says: "If you see me, cry" ... Scientists at the European Drought Observatory said that the [current] drought is on track to be the worst one in 500 years.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article264446131.htmlDrought on the Rhine: 'We have 30cm of water left'
It's not unusual for water levels to drop here but, Captain Kimpel says, it's happening more frequently. "We used to have a lot of floods. Now we have a lot of low waters." On the riverbank nearby, there's an old measuring station. Any skipper wanting to enter the Upper Rhine will refer to the official water level recorded here ... Travel a little further upstream and the challenge is obvious. At the town of Bingen, great swathes of the riverbed are exposed, bleached stones powder dry in the baking sun. People from the nearby town pick their way over the rocks, take photographs. In normal times they'd be underwater.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62519683Swiss mountain pass will lose all glacier ice ‘in a few weeks’ for first time in [millenia]
The pass between Scex Rouge and Tsanfleuron has been iced over since at least the Roman era. But as both glaciers have retreated, the bare rock of the ridge between the two is beginning to emerge – and will be completely ice-free before the summer is out. “The pass will be entirely in the open air in a few weeks,” the Glacier 3000 ski resort said in a statement.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/11/swiss-mountain-pass-scex-rouge-tsanfleuron-glacier-melts-climate-crisisFate of ‘sleeping giant’ East Antarctic ice sheet ‘in our hands’ – study
The fate of the world’s biggest ice sheet rests in the hands of humanity, a new analysis has shown. If global heating is limited to 2C, the vast East Antarctic ice sheet should remain stable, but if the climate crisis drives temperatures higher, melting could drive up sea level by many metres. The East Antarctic ice sheet (EAIS) holds the vast majority of Earth’s glacier ice. Sea levels would rise by 52 metres if it all melted. It was thought to be stable, but is now showing signs of vulnerability, the scientists said ... Sea level is rising faster today than for at least 3,000 years, as mountain glaciers and the Greenland ice cap melt, and ocean waters expand as they heat. Even a few metres of sea level rise will redraw the map of the world ... new analysis, published in the journal Nature, assessed the sensitivity of the EAIS to global heating ... Prof Nerilie Abram, a co-author of the analysis at the Australian National University, said: “A key lesson from the past is that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is highly sensitive to even relatively modest warming scenarios. It isn’t as stable and protected as we once thought.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/10/east-antarctic-ice-sheet-in-our-hands-climate-actionNASA Studies Find Previously Unknown Loss of Antarctic Ice
Two studies published Aug. 10 and led by researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California reveal unexpected new data about how the Antarctic Ice Sheet has been losing mass in recent decades. One study, published in the journal Nature, maps how iceberg calving – the breaking off of ice from a glacier front – has changed the Antarctic coastline over the last 25 years. The researchers found that the edge of the ice sheet has been shedding icebergs faster than the ice can be replaced [and] doubles previous estimates of ice loss from Antarctic’s floating ice shelves since 1997, from 6 trillion to 12 trillion metric tons ... The other study, published in Earth System Science Data, shows in unprecedented detail how the thinning of Antarctic ice as ocean water melts it has spread from the continent’s outward edges into its interior, almost doubling in the western parts of the ice sheet over the past decade. “Antarctica is crumbling at its edges,” says JPL scientist Chad Greene, lead author of the calving study.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3206/nasa-studies-find-previously-unknown-loss-of-antarctic-ice/Wildfires Have Burned Through California's 100-Year Carbon Insurance in 10 Years, Study Finds
95 percent of the buffer planned for 100 years of wildfires depleted after less than a decade, a new study warns ... in the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change ... the buffer account is not nearly large enough to make up for the devastating wildfires and disease affecting trees in the offset program’s portfolio ... 95 percent of those credits, which were supposed to last for 100 years, have already been exhausted ... “you know you have a problem when the liabilities that are coming are bigger than what you’ve prepared for.”
https://www.vice.com/en/article/88qqjx/wildfires-have-burned-through-californias-100-year-carbon-insurance-in-10-years-study-findsThe End of Snow Threatens to Upend 76 Million American Lives
Since most of the [western US] region gets little rain in the summer, even in good years, its bustling cities and bountiful farms all hinge on fall and winter snow settling in the mountains before slowly melting into rivers and reservoirs. [But] with the Southwest gripped by its worst drought in 1,200 years, there’s less precipitation of any kind these days across the region, especially the crucial frozen variety with its multi-month staying power ... What little winter precipitation does arrive now often lands as rain and runs off, long gone by summer ... the region will get less precipitation overall in the coming decades than it once did. Columbia University climate scientist Richard Seager’s lab has been modeling the next two decades of rainfall in the US Southwest, and all of the projections show the area will be drier than in the 1980s and 1990s ... “given the trends in water supply and aridification of the Southwest, it’s probably going to happen sooner rather than later.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-western-us-snowpack-drought/The West’s forever fire season
How climate change makes wildfire more likely to happen all year round. In fact, there is no end or beginning to fire season anymore. It’s year-round. And while [the many] big blazes that burned across the West before summer even began can be tied directly to climate change, this new forever fire season can. Warming temperatures can affect snowfall, cause snow to melt earlier, and increase atmospheric thirst, thereby drying out all the fuels that have built up over the last hundred years or more, making them that much more flammable — even during early spring ... “Since the 1970s, human-caused increases in temperature and vapor pressure deficit have enhanced fuel aridity across Western continental U.S. forests, accounting for approximately over half of the observed increases in fuel aridity during this period. These anthropogenic increases in fuel aridity approximately doubled the Western U.S. forest fire area beyond that expected from natural climate variability alone.”
https://www.hcn.org/issues/54.8/infographic-the-wests-wildfire-forever-fire-seasonHow deforestation is pushing the Amazon toward a tipping point
Deforestation has already claimed 17 percent of its area. Climate change and deforestation have weakened as much as 75 percent of what remains, researchers say ... if between 20 and 25 percent is lost — which, if trends continue, could occur within a decade — the Amazon could hit a tipping point, when it can no longer maintain its own ecology and swaths are converted into degraded open savanna ... The Amazon has historically acted as a vast carbon sink, helping to absorb carbon emissions and curb the rise of global temperatures. But scientists worry that the biome, if it passes the tipping point, could be so weakened that it becomes a “carbon bomb.” There are already portions of the forest that are emitting more carbon gases than are absorbed.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/14/amazon-rainforest-deforestation/Heat waves thawing Arctic permafrost
In the northernmost region of the earth the arctic permafrost is melting at an accelerated rate ... Their findings, recently published in the European Geosciences Union journal The Cryosphere, reveal substantial changes ... a strong, 43-fold increase in retrogressive thaw slump activity and a 28-fold increase in carbon mobilization. The increase also happens to coincide with an extreme heat wave that occurred in northern Siberia in 2020 in which temperatures reportedly reached 38 degrees Celsius (more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit)—record-breaking temperatures for the Arctic region ... Arctic permafrost reportedly encases approximately 1.5 trillion metric tons of organic carbon, about twice as much as currently contained in the atmosphere.
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-arctic-permafrost.htmlHumanity faces ‘collective suicide’ over climate crisis, warns UN chief
Wildfires and heatwaves wreaking havoc across swathes of the globe show humanity facing “collective suicide”, the UN secretary general has warned, as governments around the world scramble to protect people from the impacts of extreme heat. António Guterres told ministers from 40 countries meeting to discuss the climate crisis on Monday: “Half of humanity is in the danger zone, from floods, droughts, extreme storms and wildfires. No nation is immune. Yet we continue to feed our fossil fuel addiction.” He added: “We have a choice. Collective action or collective suicide. It is in our hands.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/18/humanity-faces-collective-suicide-over-climate-crisis-warns-un-chiefA Crisis Historian Has Some Bad News for Us
America and the world are living through what Adam Tooze, the internet’s foremost historian of money and disaster, describes as a “polycrisis” ... War, raising the specter of nuclear conflict. Climate change, threatening famine, flood, and fire. Inflation, forcing central banks to crush consumer demand. The pandemic, closing factories and overloading hospitals. Each crisis is hard enough to parse by itself; the interconnected mess of them is infinitely more so. And he feels “the whole is even more dangerous than the sum of the parts” ... much of the world faces a series of self-reinforcing financial and geopolitical pressures, building, perhaps, to some ominous end ... As Tooze sees it, the forces of central-bank tightening, war, inflation, and climate change are reinforcing one another. He is offering no reassurance about where that might head.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/07/adam-tooze-chartbook-substack-newsletter-inflation-crisis/661467/30% Less Than Average: Antarctic Sea Ice Levels Lowest Ever Recorded
Antarctic sea ice extent was the lowest since satellite monitoring started in 1978, according to a recent report from the National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in Japan ... “sea ice extent on February 20, 2022, was 2,128,000 km2, the smallest in over 40 years of observations,” said Project Professor Hironori Yabuki of NIPR "[which] is also a minimal value (73.3%) compared to the average minimum extent of 2,902,000 km2 for each year from 2012 to 2021.”
https://scitechdaily.com/30-less-than-average-antarctic-sea-ice-levels-lowest-ever-recordedIn ominous sign for global warming, feedback loop may be accelerating methane emissions
Tropical wetlands, getting wetter with climate change, emerge as hot spots for heat-trapping gas
If carbon dioxide is an oven steadily roasting our planet, methane is a blast from the broiler: a more potent but shorter lived greenhouse gas that’s responsible for roughly one-third of the 1.2°C of warming since preindustrial times. Atmospheric methane levels have risen nearly 7% since 2006, and the past 2 years saw the biggest jumps yet ... Two new preprints trace it to microbes in tropical wetlands ... climate change itself might be fueling the trend by driving increased rain over the regions. If so, the wetlands emissions could end up being a runaway process beyond human control [says] Paul Palmer, an atmospheric chemist at the University of Edinburgh and co-author of one of the studies ... Studies are now implicating the Sudd in South Sudan, the continent’s largest swamp [where] Palmer and his colleagues were able to show the Sudd had grown as a methane hot spot since 2019 ... A second study, posted in late June by Harvard University researchers and submitted to Environmental Research Letters, finds nearly the same story, especially the surge in East Africa. When combined with smaller increases from the Amazon and the northern forests, it largely explains the observed rise in the atmosphere.
https://www.science.org/content/article/ominous-sign-global-warming-feedback-loop-may-be-accelerating-methane-emissionsThe Trash Mountains of South Asia That Threaten the Climate
Dumps, landfills and waste sites in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are huge emitters of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
More clouds of the powerful greenhouse gas — which has 84 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over its first 20 years in the atmosphere — were spotted in India than any other country except for the US during the first half of this year, according to European Space Agency satellite observations analyzed by Kayrros SAS. Pakistan ranked fourth and Bangladesh sixth ... Last year, more than half of all methane emissions measured globally from landfills by Canada-based monitoring company GHGSat Inc. were in Asia. India accounted for nearly a quarter of the total. “Having landfills around cities is not unique to South Asia, but what is different is the landfill gas management systems,” said Brody Wight, sales director at GHGSat. “Whether they exist or not to begin with is probably the primary factor” ... Plenty of waste sites outside Asia are also major emitters. Despite activating a 5-megawatt power station last summer that runs off methane collected from the massive Norte III landfill in Buenos Aires, GHGSat said its satellites continue to observe emissions from the site and from many land disposal sites globally.
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2022-methane-landfills-south-asia-climate-health-hazard/The amount of Greenland ice that melted last weekend could cover West Virginia in a foot of water
Several days of unusually warm weather in northern Greenland have triggered rapid melting, made visible by the rivers of meltwater rushing into the ocean. Temperatures have been running around 60 degrees Fahrenheit -- 10 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year ... "The northern melt this past week is not normal, looking at 30 to 40 years of climate averages," said Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado ... The latest research points to a more and more precarious situation on the Northern Hemisphere's most icy island. "Unprecedented" rates of melting have been observed at the bottom of the Greenland ice sheet, a study published in February found, caused by huge quantities of meltwater trickling down from the surface. This water is particularly concerning because it can destabilize the sheet above it and could lead to a massive, rapid loss of ice. And in 2020, scientists found that Greenland's ice sheet had melted beyond the point of no return. No efforts to stave off global warming can stop it from eventually disintegrating, said researchers at The Ohio State University. The rate of melting in recent years exceeds anything Greenland has experienced in the last 12,000, another study found ... they have been trying to get flights into the camp so they can ship out the ice cores they have recently collected. But the warmth is destabilizing the landing site. "The temperatures we are seeing right now are simply too hot for the ski-equipped planes to land,"
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/07/20/world/greenland-heat-wave-ice-melting-climateChina endures summer of extreme weather as record rainfall and scorching heat wave cause havoc
Scientists have been warning for years that the climate crisis would amplify extreme weather, making it deadlier and more frequent. Now, like much of the world, China is reeling from its impact. Since the country's rainy season started in May, heavy rainstorms have brought severe flooding and landslides to large swathes of southern China, killing dozens of people, displacing millions and causing economic losses running into billions of yuan. In June, extreme rainfall broke "historical records" in coastal Fujian province, and parts of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces. At the same time, a heat wave began to envelop northern China, pushing temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). That heat wave has now engulfed half the country, affecting more than 900 million people ... The stifling heat has coincided with a surge in Covid cases, making government mandated mass testing all the more excruciating for residents -- including the elderly -- who must wait in long lines under the sun ... the worst might be still to come, according to Yao Wenguang, a Ministry of Water Resources official overseeing flood and drought prevention. "It is predicted that from July to August, there will be more extreme weather events in China."
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/07/20/china/china-summer-extreme-weather-climate-change-intl-hnk-mic/index.htmlA critical shipping lane in Europe’s economic heart is drying up in the searing heat
80% of inland waterway goods transport relies on the [Rhine] river. If low water levels are prolonged, Europe’s largest economy Germany will experience a hit to its manufacturing sector and economic growth ... low water levels mean that river barges will have to travel with reduced freight to limit their draft or even cease operating altogether ... can also affect production in industrial and power plants that rely on river water for cooling ... levels at [a measuring station] at Kaub — seen as a key chokepoint for water-borne freight — have dropped throughout the week and stood at 71cm on Wednesday, data from Germany’s Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration showed. A normal water level would be around the 200cm mark.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/20/germanys-rhine-river-levels-running-low-putting-economy-at-risk.htmlEven in the Midst of Winter, Antarctic Sea Ice Sets New Record Low
After setting a new record for lowest summer extent earlier this year, Antarctic sea ice saw a new record low going into winter as well ... In 2022, from Feb 8 to March 8, the minimum fell below 2 million sq km for the first time in the satellite record. A new record low extent was set on Feb. 25 of just 1.924 million sq km. The sea ice has been expanding since then, as temperatures drop and that region of the world is plunged into the darkness of winter. However, as of June 20, the day before the start of southern winter, the Antarctic sea ice extent has been setting daily record lows for this time of the year ... West Antarctica is experiencing more than just sea ice loss. Glaciers in that region of the continent have been particularly vulnerable to the effects of global warming. New research has found that the Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers, both located along the coast of the Amundsen Sea, are now retreating at a rate faster than anything seen in the past 5,500 years.
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/climate/impacts/even-in-the-midst-of-winter-antarctic-sea-ice-sets-new-record-lowThis is not a drought. This is aridification.
By definition, a drought is a period of abnormally dry weather that eventually ends. What Utah and much of the American West face is better termed “aridification.” This is the process of a region becoming drier through decreased precipitation and/or rising temperatures. And it refers to long-term permanent change. Changes such as diminished rain and snowfall, dying vegetation, declining reservoirs and water tables, increased forest fires and a record breaking low for the Once Great Salt Lake. The list of water worries is long: toxic lake bed dust storms, birdlife crashes, water recreation and skiing economies threatened, wells going dry, livelihoods endangered, dead lawns, dying trees and rising temperatures.
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2022/07/15/eric-c-ewert-this-is-not-drought/Thousands evacuated as wildfires sweep across western Europe
Huge wildfires swept across western Europe on Saturday, destroying swathes of land and forcing thousands from their homes amid a record-breaking heatwave that shows no signs of easing. Firefighters were battling to bring blazes under control in parts of France, Spain and Portugal, with blistering summer temperatures that have allowed them to flourish expected to continue this week. n the region of Gironde in south-western France, more than 12,000 people were evacuated as strong winds frustrated efforts to contain a fire that raced across pine forests. “We have a fire that will continue to spread as long as it is not stabilised,” said Vincent Ferrier, deputy prefect for Langon in Gironde. One resident living near La Teste-de-Buch in Gironde described the conditions as “post-apocalyptic”. In neighbouring Spain, firefighters were battling a series of fires after days of unusually high temperatures which reached up to 45.7C.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/16/thousands-evacuated-as-wildfires-sweep-across-western-europe
See also https://www.dw.com/en/wildfires-continue-to-rage-in-france-and-spain/a-62499603A hypothetical weather forecast for 2050 is coming true next week
The climate crisis is pushing weather to the extreme all over the world. [In 2020] meteorologists at the UK Met Office -- the official weather forecast agency for the UK -- dove in to the super long-range climate models to see what kind of temperatures they'd be forecasting in about three decades. Well, on Monday and Tuesday, the "plausible" becomes reality -- 28 years early ... a sign of how rapidly the climate crisis is altering our weather.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/07/15/weather/2050-uk-forecast-comes-true-in-2022/index.htmlA global horizon scan of issues impacting marine and coastal biodiversity conservation
[W]e brought together 30 scientists, policymakers and practitioners with transdisciplinary expertise in marine and coastal systems to identify new issues that are likely to have a significant impact on the functioning and conservation of marine and coastal biodiversity over the next 5–10 years. Most identified issues are expected to have substantial negative impacts if not managed or mitigated appropriately. This imbalance highlights the considerable emerging pressures facing marine ecosystems that are often a byproduct of human activities. Four issues identified in this scan related to ongoing large-scale (hundreds to many thousands of square kilometres) alterations to marine ecosystems. Another set of issues related to anticipated increases in marine resource use and extraction. The final set of issues related to new technological advancements [with] some having potentially unintended negative consequences on marine and coastal biodiversity.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-022-01812-0A year’s worth of Northern California’s rainfall has gone missing since 2019
Much of Northern California received only two-thirds of its normal rainfall for the last three years, according to meteorologist Jan Null of Golden Gate Weather Services. “It’s like working for three years and only getting paid for two,” he said. Some places, such as Ukiah, Santa Rosa and Mount Shasta City, did even worse, logging about half or less of their normal precipitation ... the northern part of the state is much more consequential [since] most of California’s significant precipitation occurs in the north ... the “bellwether” [Northern Sierra 8-Station Index] stood at 61% of normal for 2019 through 2022, less than two-thirds of what would be expected ... According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, most of the state is in at least severe drought, and about half of the state is in extreme drought. Nearly 12% of California is considered to be in exceptional drought, the worst category. Because of the state’s Mediterranean climate of generally rain-free summer months, there’s no immediate prospect for relief ... Rising temperatures and an ever drier climate due to climate change are amplifying drought in what is the driest 22-year period in the West in 1,200 years.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-07-07/a-years-worth-of-california-rainfall-has-gone-missingRate of Arctic warming faster than previously thought
For years scientists have known the Arctic is among the most rapidly warming regions of the planet, with temperatures rising significantly faster than the global average. Now they say it may be heating up even faster than previous research suggested. Several recent studies indicate the Arctic is now warming around four times as fast as the rest of the globe. It’s a substantial update: Until recently, scientific papers and news reports alike have typically stated the Arctic is warming at two to three times the global average ... A new study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, is one of the latest to weigh in. Prior to the start of the 21st century, the study suggests, the Arctic was indeed warming two to three times as fast as the rest of the planet. But the warming rate has increased over the last 50 years, and it’s reached four times the global average in recent decades ... And that’s all looking at the Arctic as a whole. In recent years, scientists have pointed out that certain local warming rates, in specific areas within the Arctic, may be even higher. One recent study, for instance, found that the part of the Arctic around the northern Barents Sea is currently warming a stunning five to seven times faster than the global average.
https://www.eenews.net/articles/rate-of-arctic-warming-faster-than-previously-thought/
reporting on a study at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022GL099371‘All that’s needed is a spark’: why the US may be headed for a summer of mega-fire
Following an explosive spring that unleashed major wildfires from the US south-west to Alaska, the west is now bracing for a summer of blazes as the parched landscapes risk turning into tinderboxes. Fire activity is expected to increase in several US states over the coming months, according to a newly released outlook from the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), with parts of the Pacific north-west, northern California, Texas, Hawaii and Alaska forecast to be among those hardest hit by fire conditions in the months ahead ... the climate crisis and human-caused warming has turned up the dial on risk-factors with more intense conditions and a greater frequency with which these conditions align. “No matter which way you slice it, it is going to be bad,” said Jim Wollmann, a meteorologist at the NIFC ... the desiccated landscapes are primed to burn. “It is dire across the board,” said Dr Craig Clements, the director of the Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center at San Jose State University.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/06/us-west-wildfire-summer[European Central Bank] stress test shows most euro zone banks don’t include climate risk in their credit models
[M]ost euro zone banks do not sufficiently incorporate climate risk into their stress-testing frameworks and internal models ... the world’s leading climate scientists have warned humanity has reached “now or never” territory [however] roughly 60% of banks do not yet have a climate risk stress-testing framework. Similarly, the ECB said most banks do not include climate risk in their credit risk models and just 20% consider climate risk as a variable when granting loans. As for the reliance of banks on carbon-emitting sectors, the ECB said that on aggregate, almost two-thirds of banks’ income from non-financial corporate customers stems from greenhouse gas-intensive industries ... results warned that credit and market losses could amount to around 70 billion euros ($70.6 billion) on aggregate this year for the 41 directly supervised banks. The ECB noted, however, that this “significantly understates the actual climate-related risk” as it reflects only a fraction of the actual hazard.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/08/ecb-stress-test-shows-most-banks-dont-include-climate-risk-in-credit-models.html‘Carbon Capture’ Is No Fix. Big Oil’s Known for Decades
More than three decades ago, the Exxon-owned oilsands producer [Imperial Oil] undertook one of Canada’s first major studies of “underground carbon dioxide disposal.” The company’s findings, which were published in a newly reviewed 1991 Imperial Oil research paper, were not encouraging. The technology requires massive expenditures, would only mitigate a small fraction of Canada’s carbon output and comes with “large net costs to society,” Imperial concluded ... A report last year from the Global CCS Institute, a proponent of the technology whose membership includes Exxon, found that the global capacity of carbon capture and storage projects was slightly lower in 2021 than it was a decade earlier. “This represents a decade of very limited progress in terms of CCS project development,” noted a separate report from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research ... “Despite years of hype,” a libertarian think tank called the Manhattan Institute concluded in 2018, “CCS still costs too much and cannot come close to matching the scale of growing global carbon-dioxide emissions.” The institute has reportedly received more than $1 million in donations from Exxon ... So why is [Exxon subsidiary] Imperial Oil, a top oilsands producer, continuing to push carbon capture and storage technology despite knowing for decades that it’s a subpar solution to the climate crisis? That’s simple, Stewart told The Tyee. “It extends the life of fossil fuels.”
https://thetyee.ca/News/2022/07/07/Carbon-Capture-No-Fix-Big-Oil-Known-Decades/Climate Change Isn’t a Threat Multiplier. It’s the Main Threat
In the security sector itself, thinking about climate change is dominated by Sherri Goodman’s original framing of global warming as a “threat multiplier” introduced in a 2007 CNA report ... Consequently, defense forces the world over are ambling toward lower-emission technologies, preparing for more natural disasters, and debating the near-term consequences of a degrading global-security environment. These debates miss the main point: that we are moving toward “a shift to a climate inhospitable for most forms of life” that will bring ecological collapse, violence, hardship, and death on nearly unimaginable scales ... A new approach called PLAN E frames climate and environmental issues not as an influence upon the threat environment, but as the main threat—indeed, a new kind dubbed the hyperthreat ... The rationale for this approach and the methods used are outlined in the Spring 2022 issue of the Journal of Advanced Military Studies. To prompt broader imagining of what a new threat posture could look like, Marine Corps University has published a notional PLAN E grand strategy. To be precise, PLAN E is the conceptualization and planning phase of a six-phase “hyper-response”: a civilian-led, whole-of-society mobilization (note: not militarization) ... The hyper-response could be described as a predominantly bottom-up solution; it operates from homes, communities, and workplaces, and up to the geopolitical level. It shifts resources and decision-making capacity to key locations and local governments while also working to restore nation-state agency and fostering eco-multilateralism and regional solutions. This is not just a way to account for the fears and risks associated with securitization of the climate response; it is in fact crucial to success. The enormous amount of work needed in a short time can only be done by harnessing Earth’s large human population; call it a “humans-as-ants” strategy.
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2022/07/climate-change-isnt-threat-multiplier-its-main-threat/368814/Skies Are Sucking More Water from the Land
Drought is typically thought of as a simple lack of rain and snow. But evaporative demand—a term describing the atmosphere's capacity to pull moisture from the ground—is also a major factor. And the atmosphere over much of the U.S. has grown a lot thirstier over the past 40 years, a new study in the Journal of Hydrometeorology found. [Evaporative demand] increases exponentially, says study lead author Christine Albano, an ecohydrologist at the Desert Research Institute in Reno ... Rising evaporative demand adds to the strain as the West continues to endure megadrought conditions that have not been seen for 1,200 years. The increase contributed to low spring runoff from the Sierra Nevada in 2021, when much less stream water came from snow than predicted ... A thirstier atmosphere also dried out Western forests, leading to larger wildfires.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/skies-are-sucking-more-water-from-the-land/Summer in America is becoming hotter, longer and more dangerous
Across the country, heat waves are arriving more frequently, more intensely and earlier in the year. Nights are warming at a slightly higher rate than days in most parts of the United States, according to the most recent National Climate Assessment, harming people’s ability to cool down after hot days. A Climate Central study found that in just more than half of cities analyzed, high-heat days arrived at least a week earlier, on average, than 50 years ago. Three-fourths of places had more “extremely hot” days. In the West and Southwest, the wildfire season is lengthening, and a historic drought is emptying reservoirs. On the East Coast, hotter-than-usual temperatures are contributing to more severe flooding and heavy downpours. As hot weather arrives, the nation’s electric grid is under growing strain, with regulators from the Midwest to the Southwest warning of rolling power outages this summer ... drought is expected to grip parts of the nation’s Corn Belt and the Middle Mississippi Valley. The country is also facing the likelihood of another active wildfire season and the seventh straight above-average Atlantic hurricane season ... Researchers have found that some heat waves in recent years, including the one that struck the Pacific Northwest last year, would have been virtually impossible without human-caused global warming ... “It’s a totally different environment out there these days, and it’s not like it’s going to get back to normal anytime soon,” said Flagstaff City Manager Greg Clifton.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/07/02/summer-2022-climate-change-heat/How heatwaves are creating a pollen crisis
Many of the crops we rely on need to be pollinated to produce food, but extreme heat can destroy pollen ... Even with adequate water, heat can damage pollen and prevent fertilisation in canola and many other crops, including corn, peanuts, and rice. For this reason, many farmers aim for crops to bloom before the temperature rises. But as climate change increases the number of days where temperatures reach over 90F (32C) in regions across the globe, and multi-day stretches of extreme heat become more common, getting that timing right could become challenging, if not impossible ... At stake is much of our diet. Every seed, grain, and fruit that we eat is a direct product of pollination, explains biochemist Gloria Muday of North Carolina's Wake Forest University. "The critical parameter is the maximum temperature during reproduction," she says ... at temperatures starting around 90F (32C) for many crops, the proteins that power a pollen grain's metabolism start to break down, Westgate says. In fact, heat hinders not only tube growth but other stages of pollen development as well. The result: a pollen grain may never form, or may burst, fail to produce a tube, or produce a tube that explodes ... At Michigan State University, Jenna Walters is studying how temperature affects pollen [and found that] that at temperatures above 95 degrees, pollen tubes fail to grow.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220701-how-heatwaves-are-creating-a-pollen-crisisSpain and Portugal suffering driest climate for 1,200 years, research shows
Most rain on the Iberian peninsula falls in winter as wet, low-pressure systems blow in from the Atlantic. But a high-pressure system off the coast, called the Azores high, can block the wet weather fronts ... The scientists said the more frequent large Azores highs could only have been caused by the climate crisis, caused by humanity’s carbon emissions. “The number of extremely large Azores highs in the last 100 years is really unprecedented when you look at the previous 1,000 years,” said Dr Caroline Ummenhofer, at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the US, and part of the research team ... the Tagus River, the longest in the region, is at risk of drying up completely, according to environmentalists. The new research, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, analysed weather data stretching back to 1850 and computer models replicating the climate back to AD850.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/04/spain-and-portugal-suffering-driest-climate-for-1200-years-research-showsRice fields dry up as Italy's drought lingers on
Italy’s largest river is turning into a long stretch of sand due to the lack of rain ... drought stress is the most damaging factor for rice, especially in the early stages of its growth. Heat waves, like those repeatedly hitting Italy with peaks of 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), can significantly reduce the yield of surviving rice. The region’s main water sources, the rivers Po and Dora Baltea, are eight times lower than the average seasonal levels ... most areas are continuing to worsen ... threatening some 3 billion euros ($3.1 billion) in agriculture ... Italy’s confederation of agricultural producers estimates the loss of 30-40% of the seasonal harvest.
https://apnews.com/article/politics-agriculture-italy-f7d0055025659135e8f262ccb2035e57Japan swelters in its worst heatwave ever recorded
The blistering heat has drawn official warnings of a looming power shortage ... Tokyo charted temperatures above 35C on Wednesday for a fifth straight day, marking the worst documented streak of hot weather in June since records started in 1875. Meanwhile, the city of Isesaki, north-west of the capital, saw a record 40.2C - the highest temperature ever recorded in June for Japan.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-61976937Flooding Chaos in Yellowstone, a Sign of Crises to Come
The floodwaters that raged through Yellowstone this week changed the course of rivers, tore out bridges, poured through homes and forced the evacuation of thousands of visitors from the nation’s oldest national park ... scientists are raising the alarm that in the coming years destruction related to climate change will reach nearly all 423 national parks ... “Every single one of our more than 400 national parks are suffering,” said Stephanie Kodish, the director of the climate change program at the National Parks Conservation Association.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/us/yellowstone-national-park-floods.htmlPowerful links between methane and climate change
Findings show how climate drives dangerous increases in the greenhouse gas Using data gathered over the last four decades to study the effects of temperature changes and rain on the atmospheric concentration of methane, scientists have concluded that Earth could be both delivering more, and removing less, methane into the air than previously estimated, with the result that more heat is being trapped in the atmosphere. The study, published in the scientific journal Nature Communications on 23 June, addresses the large uncertainty about the impact of climate change on atmospheric methane. The study finds that this impact could be four times greater than that estimated in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/06/220630083306.htmWorld pledged to cut methane. Emissions rising instead, study finds.
Kayrros, a firm that analyzes satellite data, says emissions of the potent greenhouse gas ‘appear to be going in the wrong direction’ [M]ethane emissions have climbed despite the launch of the Global Methane Pledge at the U.N. climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, last fall ... “This is an alarm call for the fossil fuel industry,” said Antoine Halff, co-founder and chief analyst at Kayrros. About 110 countries have signed on to the Global Methane Pledge, vowing to cut methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030 ... In the Permian Basin, the most prolific U.S. oil and gas basin, methane emissions in the first quarter of 2022 jumped 33 percent from the previous quarter, and soared by 47 percent from the first quarter a year earlier. The increase in methane emissions outstripped oil and gas output, thus increasing the methane intensity ... Emissions also climbed in the Appalachian coal fields ... The Kayrros report also looks at some of the richest fossil fuel reserves in other parts of the world and finds continuing leaks from infrastructure.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/06/27/methane-emissions-rising-report/Circling the drain: the extinction crisis and the future of humanity
Authors: Rodolfo Dirzo, Gerardo Ceballos and Paul R. Ehrlich
Humanity has triggered the sixth mass extinction ... centered on the intersection of two complex adaptive systems: human culture and ecosystem functioning, [and] rooted in three factors. First, relatively few people globally are aware of its existence. Second, most people who are, and even many scientists, assume incorrectly that the problem is primarily one of the disappearance of species, when it is the existential threat of myriad population extinctions. Third, while concerned scientists know there are many individual and collective steps that must be taken to slow population extinction rates, some are not willing to advocate the one fundamental, necessary, ‘simple’ cure, that is, reducing the scale of the human enterprise. We argue that compassionate shrinkage of the human population by further encouraging lower birth rates while reducing both inequity and aggregate wasteful consumption—that is, an end to growthmania—will be required.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Ecological complexity and the biosphere: the next 30 years’.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2021.0378A Warming Climate Takes a Toll on the Vanishing Rio Grande
Rising temperatures and an unprecedented drought pose a grave and growing peril to the river and its ecosystems. [W]ater levels are historically low and dropping precipitously. Experts predict the Rio Grande will dry up completely all the way to Albuquerque this summer ... to make things even more uncertain, the drought is accompanied by an aridification of the West—a prolonged drying that scientists say may become a permanent fixture in the region. The number and scope of wildfires are also increasing sharply ... much of the Rio Grande [is] on a trajectory to disappear.
https://www.wired.com/story/a-warming-climate-takes-a-toll-on-the-vanishing-rio-grande/Extreme temperatures in major Latin American cities could be linked to nearly 1 million deaths
With climate change, heat waves and cold fronts are worsening and taking lives worldwide: about 5 million in the past 20 years, according to at least one study. In a new study published today in Nature Medicine, an international team of researchers estimates that almost 900,000 deaths in the years between 2002 and 2015 could be attributable to extreme temperatures alone in major Latin American cities. This is the most detailed estimate in Latin America, and the first ever for some cities.
https://www.science.org/content/article/extreme-temperatures-major-latin-american-cities-could-be-linked-nearly-1-millionWildfires may have sparked ecosystem collapse during Earth's worst mass extinction
Researchers at University College Cork (UCC) and the Swedish Museum of Natural History examined the end-Permian mass extinction (252 million years ago) that eliminated almost every species on Earth [and] discovered a sharp spike in wildfire activity from this most devastating of mass extinctions. Promoted by rapid greenhouse gas emissions from volcanoes, extreme warming and drying led to wildfires across vast regions that were previously permanently wet. Instead of capturing carbon from the atmosphere, these wetlands became major sources of atmospheric carbon, enhancing the sharp warming trend ... in today's world, wildfires have caused shocking mass animal die-offs [and] our warming global climate has led to prolonged droughts and increased wildfires in typically wet habitats, such as the peat forests of Indonesia and the vast Pantanal wetlands of South America ... "The potential for wildfires as a direct extinction driver during hyperthermal events, rather than a symptom of climatic changes deserves further examination ... we have the opportunity to prevent the burning of the world's carbon sinks and help avoid the worst effects of modern warming."
https://phys.org/news/2022-06-wildfires-ecosystem-collapse-earth-worst.htmlBlaming Russia’s War, G7 Leaders Rescind Another Global Climate Pledge
In May, members of the Group of Seven—a coalition of the world’s largest developed economies, known as G7 for short—pledged to stop funding fossil fuel projects in other countries by the end of the year, saying such development was out of sync with the Paris Agreement. The group’s members consist of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. But at a G7 summit in Germany that began over the weekend, most of the coalition’s members supported nullifying that promise as they scramble to replace ubiquitous Russian fossil fuels amid sky-high energy costs and rising global inflation, according to several news reports. Germany, France and Italy all lobbied for the move.
https://insideclimatenews.org/todaysclimate/blaming-russias-war-g7-leaders-rescind-another-global-climate-pledge/Alaska’s fire agencies are preparing for more starts during an already historic wildfire season
The amount of acreage burned by wildland fires in Alaska hit 1 million on June 15, the earliest in decades if not history. Blazes that prompted evacuations in some Southwest villages scorched huge swaths of tundra in a dangerously dry, warm summer that’s just getting started ... Nearly half the state was considered abnormally dry as of late June, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Anchorage is “very likely” to have the warmest June on record, according to Rick Thoman, a climate specialist with the International Arctic Research Center Alaska at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. This is also expected to be the first June on record that Anchorage hit at least 60 degrees every day, Thoman said.
https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2022/06/24/alaskas-fire-agencies-are-preparing-for-more-starts-during-an-already-historic-wildfire-season/Research reveals northernmost glaciers on the globe are melting at record speed
In the Arctic, temperatures are rising more than in the rest of the world, and this is causing the northernmost glaciers in Greenland to melt at record speed. This is shown in a new study by researchers led by DTU Space in collaboration with Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Utrecht University, University of Bristol, Technical University Munich, and the University of Copenhagen ... These peripheral glaciers make up only about four percent of Greenland's ice-covered areas but they contribute as much as 11 percent of the total loss of ice from Greenland's ice-covered areas. Thus, they are a major contributor to global sea level rise. The new study shows that the melting of the peripheral glaciers has increased dramatically over the past two decades.
https://phys.org/news/2022-06-reveals-northernmost-glaciers-globe.html
reporting on a study at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022GL098915Dire Italian drought worsening, breaking records, water authority says
Drought conditions are rapidly spreading through Italy, with rivers and reservoirs drying up and the forecast of higher temperatures likely to make things worse ... Several Italian regions have already declared a state of emergency ... agricultural output is set to plunge this year in key growing areas ... Italy's longest river, the Po, which crosses the major northern regions and accounts for around a third of the country’s agricultural production, is experiencing its worst drought for 70 years. "The Po continues to record an epoque-making low along its entire course," ANBI said. "The flow rate has halved in two weeks" ... the rate needed to be at 450 cm/s to prevent salt water entering from the sea and wrecking farm land ... hot weather had raised the surface temperature of the Mediterranean by about 4C above the 1985-2005 average.
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/dire-italian-drought-worsening-breaking-records-water-authority-2022-06-23/Here’s The Latest Data On Climate And Food And It’s Not Good
Agricultural areas are among the places in the U.S. experiencing the highest temperature increases ... The regions America relies on most to feed its people are drying up. As populations have grown, more water has been pumped to residential areas as well as large-scale farms ... Soil degradation is expected to be one of the central threats to human health in the coming decades. In America’s Midwest over the past 160 years, nearly 60 billion metric tons of topsoil have eroded. Too much is lost every year due to man-made influences like pollution from fertilizers, agricultural chemicals and antibiotics runoff ... Modern agriculture has been built on three key assumptions, says David Barber, a partner at agriculture and food investors Astanor Ventures: Cheap energy, free water and consistent weather. “The whole system does not function without that,” Barber says. “It reveals some of this for the house of cards that it is. Our legacy food system is now a food system in transition.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chloesorvino/2022/06/26/heres-the-latest-data-on-climate-and-food-and-its-not-good/Louisiana’s insurance market is collapsing, just in time for hurricane season
As another hurricane season promises to bring extra-strong storms driven by high ocean temperatures, Louisiana’s insurance market is headed for a tailspin. The damage from Hurricane Ida caused at least seven private insurance companies to collapse or cancel their policies, and several more could be on their way out [which] threatens to leave tens of thousands of homeowners uninsured during the most dangerous time of year. Following on the heels of upheaval in the fire and flood insurance markets, the turmoil in Louisiana is yet another glaring signal that property and insurance markets aren’t prepared to deal with the financial fallout of climate-driven disasters ... Even insurers that didn’t face financial ruin have moved to exit the state market, canceling all their policies rather than risk having to make an enormous payout this hurricane season. A dozen insurance companies in total have either failed or left the state over the past two years.
https://grist.org/housing/louisiana-homeowner-insurance-hurricane-seasonCalifornia’s largest reservoirs at critically low levels – signaling a dry summer ahead
This week, officials confirmed that Lake Oroville, the state’s second-largest reservoir, was at just 55% of its total capacity when it reached its highest level for the year last month. Meanwhile, Shasta Lake, California’s largest reservoir, was at 40% capacity last month – after the state endured its driest start to a year since the late 19th century. It’s a dire sign for a state already struggling to manage water during the most severe megadrought in 1,200 years.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/24/california-drought-reservoirs-water-levelsLake Mead nears dead pool status as water levels hit another historic low
Lake Mead's water level on Wednesday was measured at 1,044.03 feet, its lowest elevation since the lake was filled in the 1930s. If the reservoir dips below 895 feet Lake Mead would reach dead pool, carrying enormous consequences for millions of people across Arizona, California, Nevada and parts of Mexico ... At roughly this same time last year, Lake Mead's elevation was measured at around 1,069 feet, according to the Bureau of Reclamation. In 2020, water levels at the end of June were around 1,087 feet.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/lake-mead-nears-dead-pool-status-water-levels-hit-another-historic-low-rcna34733Methane levels surged in 2020 despite lockdowns
In situ methane measurements from 2020 showed the largest annual increase of methane concentrations since the 1980s, with this record surpassed in 2021. The year of 2020 was unique owing to the global pandemic, yet methane concentrations continued to rise despite a reduction in economic activity. Anthropogenic emissions of methane have contributed to an additional 23% to the radiative forcing—a direct measure of the amount of Earth's energy budget that is out of balance—in the troposphere since 1750.
https://phys.org/news/2022-06-methane-surged-lockdowns.htmlAustralian methane emissions massively underestimated - report
The US, the EU and Indonesia - the world's biggest coal exporter - were among more than 100 countries that last year promised a 30% cut in methane emissions by 2030. Australia ranks second for coal exports and is among the world's top methane emitters, but it did not sign on to the pledge. Methane has more than 80 times the heating power of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. It is estimated to be responsible for almost a third of the globe's warming since pre-industrial times ... But the new report by UK think-tank Ember has found current methods of calculating those emissions are wrong - in the worst case by a factor of 10. Previous estimates have been based on how much coal is produced rather than measuring how much gas leaked from mines, the report said. Recent research using satellites have given a more accurate picture of pollution and have been adopted by the International Energy Agency (IEA).
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-61727940Climate regulating ocean plants and animals are being destroyed by toxic chemicals and plastics
We have lost 50% of all marine life over the last 70 years ... Every second breath we take comes from marine photosynthesis ... Of particular concern from a climate change perspective is the level of carbonic acid in the oceans [as] atmospheric carbon dioxide dissolves into the oceans ... [Studies note] an acceleration of the ocean acidification process [and] forecast that [by 2045] pH will drop to 7.95, and estimate that with this, 80% to 90% of all remaining marine life will be lost [causing] a tipping point: a planetary boundary from which there will be no return ... the oceans are already showing signs of instability today at pH 8.04.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3860950New Zealand records largest ever bleaching of sea sponges
Researchers say tens of millions of sponges may have been affected by protracted marine heatwave New Zealand is experiencing the largest bleaching of sea sponges ever recorded, scientists say, after extreme ocean temperatures turned millions of the aquatic creatures white. The discovery comes after researchers raised the alarm in May, when sea sponges off New Zealand’s southern coastline were found bleached for the first time. Initially, researchers estimated hundreds of thousands of the sponges had been bleached – but over the past month, scientists conducted investigations at coastlines around the country, and found that millions – possibly tens of millions – had been transformed bone-white. “As far as we’re aware, it’s the largest scale and largest number of sponges bleached in one event that’s been reported anywhere in the world.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/23/new-zealand-records-largest-ever-bleaching-of-sea-spongesHundreds of thousands affected by floods, landslides as heaviest rain in 60 years hits southern China
Almost half a million people have been affected by floods and landslides in the Chinese province of Guangdong, according to authorities, after parts of southern China were hit by the heaviest downpours in 60 years over the weekend ... Guangdong is one of at least seven provinces where the record rainfall has caused severe landslides and flooded roads, according to state media. In southwestern Guizhou province, swollen rivers spilled over roads, sweeping away cars and homes, videos on social media showed. The downpours come amid warnings by experts that extreme weather is becoming more frequent ... China's annual flood season ... has been growing more intense and dangerous in recent years and experts have warned things could get worse.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/20/world/southern-china-southern-severe-flood-rain-climate-crisis-intl-hnk/'Biodiversity loss is humanity's greatest threat'
According to scientists, the world may lose nearly 1 million species by 2030, with one species becoming extinct every 10 minutes. This is catastrophic, because a world that lacks diversity is a dangerous place for all species. Why are so many species going extinct? The answer is human beings. As Earth Overshoot Day illustrates, every year we consume more of our planet's resources than can be replenished ... contributing to an extinction rate that's now 1,000 times higher than it would be without humans around ... never before has so much biodiversity disappeared in such a short space of time ... between 1970 and 2014, the global population of vertebrates declined by 60%, while in South and Central America, that figure is almost 90%. The number of species living in freshwater environments decreased by 83% during the same period.
https://www.dw.com/en/biodiversity-loss-is-humanitys-greatest-threat/a-62113416Here’s what happens if the world loses its rainforests
Forests like the Amazon or the Congo Basin are gigantic reservoirs of biodiversity [and] key for the regulation of water availability at regional levels. The Congo Basin, for example, influences rainfall patterns as far away as North Africa ... some of these systems may be close to tipping points ... the Amazon [is] losing resilience. The Amazon is like a gigantic recycler, a water pump. Water may be recycled up to five times as it travels from the southeast to the northwest of the Amazon. You stop this water pump and the whole system may transform into a savannah because there is not enough water left to sustain a tropical forest. There will be a cascade of impacts following the disappearance of an ecosystem like that. It will probably be more than society as we know it can withstand.
https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/heres-what-happens-if-world-loses-its-rainforestsOver a third of US population urged to stay indoors amid record-breaking heat
More than 125 million people under heat alerts as record high temperatures set throughout USRecord high temperatures were set throughout the US, particularly in the south-west, prompting cities to try to find ways to cope with potentially lethal heat ... Cities in the midwest have also struggled, with government officials racing to provide cooling options for vulnerable people ... Scientists have repeatedly warned that recurring and intense heatwaves could become the norm as the climate crisis intensifies. Other symptoms of increasing temperatures, including wildfires and extreme flooding, have occurred in recent weeks.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/15/us-weather-heat-warnings-alerts-record-temperaturesClimate change is turning more of Central Asia into desert
As global temperatures rise, desert climates have spread north by up to 100 kilometres in parts of Central Asia since the 1980s, a climate assessment reveals. The study, published on 27 May in Geophysical Research Letters, also found that over the past 35 years, temperatures have increased across all of Central Asia, which includes parts of China, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. In the same period, mountain regions have become hotter and wetter — which might have accelerated the retreat of some major glaciers.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01667-2Most major U.S. cities are underprepared for rising temperatures
UCLA-led analysis highlights gaps in municipal planning for often dangerous heat
Their new study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, analyzed municipal planning documents from 50 large cities across the country. The researchers found that 78% of these cities’ climate plans mentioned heat as a problem, but few offered a comprehensive strategy to address it. Even fewer addressed the disproportionate impact heat has on low-income residents and communities of color ... Heat, exacerbated by climate change, has become one of the deadliest weather hazards in the nation, the researchers said, accounting for more deaths in a typical year than hurricanes, floods or tornadoes ... The team found that, overall, solutions to rising temperatures didn’t match the severity or complexity of the problem.
https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/most-cities-underprepared-for-rising-temperaturesWhat caused Yellowstone's 'unprecedented' flooding? Scientists saw it coming
Extreme rainfall rates and rapid snowmelt prompted the flash flooding in Yellowstone National Park early this week, washing out roads and bridges in the park and causing "significant" damage to the town of Gardiner, Montana, at the park's entrance. Abnormally warm temperatures and torrential rain triggered a wave of snowmelt over the weekend which produced nearly a foot of water runoff by Monday ... The extreme rainfall combined with snowmelt led to a massive deluge of water equivalent to the area receiving two to three months worth of summer precipitation in just three days.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/15/us/what-caused-yellowstone-flooding-climate/index.htmlResearch into falling sperm counts finds 'alarming' levels of chemicals in male urine samples
Scientists searching for the causes of falling sperm counts are getting a clearer picture of the role played by chemical pollutants - and it’s not a pretty one. A study of urine samples from nearly 100 male volunteers has uncovered "alarming" levels of endocrine disruptors known to reduce human fertility. Cocktails of chemicals such as bisphenols and dioxins, which are believed to interfere with hormones and affect sperm quality, were present at levels up to 100 times those considered safe. The median exposure to these chemicals was 17 times the levels deemed acceptable. "Our mixture risk assessment of chemicals which affect male reproductive health reveals alarming exceedances of acceptable combined exposures," wrote the authors of the study, published on Thursday in the journal Environment International.
https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/06/10/research-into-falling-sperm-counts-finds-alarming-levels-of-chemicals-in-male-urine-sampleEPA warns toxic ‘forever chemicals’ more dangerous than once thought
The new health advisories for a ubiquitous class of compounds known as polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, underscore the risk facing dozens of communities across the country. Linked to infertility, thyroid problems and several types of cancer, these “forever chemicals” can persist in the environment for years without breaking down. “People on the front-lines of PFAS contamination have suffered for far too long,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement. “That’s why EPA is taking aggressive action.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/06/15/epa-pfas-forever-chemicals/New data reveals extraordinary global heating in the Arctic
Temperatures in the Barents Sea region are ‘off the scale’
North Barents Sea [is] a region where fast rising temperatures are suspected to trigger increases in extreme weather in North America, Europe and Asia. The researchers said the heating in this region was an “early warning” of what could happen across the rest of the Arctic. The new figures show annual average temperatures in the area are rising across the year by up to 2.7C a decade, with particularly high rises in the months of autumn of up to 4C a decade. This makes the North Barents Sea and its islands the fastest warming place known on Earth. Recent years have seen temperatures far above average recorded in the Arctic, with seasoned observers describing the situation as “crazy”, “weird”, and “simply shocking”. Some climate scientists have warned the unprecedented events could signal faster and more abrupt climate breakdown ... “This study shows that even the best possible models have been underestimating the rate of warming in the Barents Sea,” said Dr Ruth Mottram, climate scientist at the Danish Meteorological Institute, and not part of the team. “It’s really on the edge right now and it seems unlikely that sea ice will persist in this region for much longer.” The research, published in the journal Scientific Reports, is based on data from automatic weather stations on the islands of Svalbard and Franz Josef Land.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/15/new-data-reveals-extraordinary-global-heating-in-the-arcticNepal to move Everest base camp from melting glacier
Nepal is preparing to move its Everest base camp because global warming and human activity are making it unsafe. The camp, used by up to 1,500 people in the spring climbing season, is situated on the rapidly thinning Khumbu glacier. A new site is to be found at a lower altitude, where there is no year-round ice ... Researchers say melt-water destabilises the glacier, and climbers say crevasses are increasingly appearing at base camp while they sleep ... The Khumbu glacier, like many other glaciers in the Himalayas, is rapidly melting and thinning in the wake of global warming, scientists have found. A study by researchers from Leeds University in 2018 showed that the segment close to base camp was thinning at a rate of 1m per year.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-61828753Congo peat: The 'lungs of humanity' which are under threat
A giant slab of carbon-rich peat, discovered in central Africa, is under threat from uncontrolled development - posing a significant risk for future climate change ... "This peat is so important in the context of climate change. We have a very large amount - some 30 billion tonnes - of carbon stored here. And if it is released into the atmosphere it is going to accelerate global change," said Suspense Ifo, Congo-Brazzaville's leading expert on the peatlands ... "That's about 20 years of US fossil fuel emissions" ... the peat, which has taken thousands of years to build up, can be destroyed within a matter of weeks if allowed to dry out ... [There is a] possibility of significant oil deposits being confirmed and exploited, close to the peatlands. Congo-Brazzaville's government has already begun parcelling out blocks of land and looking for potential investors ... "You can't ask us to keep our natural resources under wraps. If we need to exploit them, we shall exploit them."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-61708452Raft by Raft, a [Congo] Rainforest Loses Its Trees
The mighty Congo River has become a highway for sprawling flotillas of logs ... For months at a time, crews in the Democratic Republic of Congo live aboard these perilous rafts, piloting the timber in pursuit of a sliver of profit from the dismantling of a crucial forest. The biggest rafts are industrial-scale, serving mostly international companies that see riches in the rainforest ... Forests like these pull huge amounts of carbon dioxide out of the air, making them essential to slow global warming [so the] Congo Basin rainforest, second in size only to the Amazon, is becoming increasingly vital as a defense against climate change as the Amazon is felled. However, the Democratic Republic of Congo for several years in a row has been losing more old-growth rainforest, research shows, than any country except for Brazil ... Industrial logging in Congo is laden with corruption, according to a recent government audit [and] nearly all the logging, Congolese officials say, today is in some fashion illegal.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/06/14/climate/congo-rainforest-logging.htmlWestern Kansas wheat crops are failing just when the world needs them most
This time of year, the wheat growing in this part of western Kansas should be thigh-high and lush green. But as a months-long drought continues to parch the region, many fields tell a different story. “There’s nothing out there. It’s dead,” farmer Vance Ehmke said, surveying a wheat field near his land in Lane County. “It’s just ankle-high straw.” Across western Kansas, many fields planted with wheat months ago now look like barren wastelands ... Kansas isn’t called the Wheat State for nothing. It produced nearly one quarter of all American wheat harvested last year. But this year’s Kansas wheat crop has been through a lot of hardship since seeds went into the ground this past fall. Every inch of western Kansas remains blanketed by some level of drought ... In other parts of the High Plains, the outlook is even more grim. To the west in Colorado, projections say nearly one-third of wheat fields won’t produce enough to bother harvesting. In Texas, around three-quarters of the crop will likely be abandoned.
https://www.kcur.org/news/2022-06-09/western-kansas-wheat-crops-are-failing-just-when-the-world-needs-them-mostThousands of Cattle Reported Dead
The current heat wave blazing through Kansas feedlots has killed an estimated 10,000 head of fat cattle ... temperatures in the area were over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, there was humidity, and there was little to no wind to help cool the animals ... veterinarian A.J. Tarpoff, who works with Kansas State University Extension, explained that when there is a "perfect storm" of too much heat and no opportunity for nighttime cooling, cattle can accumulate heat and die from the stress.
https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/article/2022/06/14/heat-stress-kills-estimated-10-000Italy's largest river dries up, exposing World War II barge that sank in 1943
Water is so low in large stretches of Italy's largest river that local residents are walking through the middle of the expanse of sand and shipwrecks are resurfacing. Authorities fear that if it doesn't rain soon, there'll be a serious shortage of water for drinking and irrigation for farmers and local populations across the whole of northern Italy ... The drying up of the Po, which runs 652 kilometers (405 miles) from the northwestern city of Turin to Venice, is jeopardizing drinking water in Italy's densely populated and highly industrialized districts and threatening irrigation in the most intensively farmed part of the country, known as the Italian food valley. Northern Italy hasn't seen rainfall for more than 110 days and this year's snowfall is down by 70%. Aquifers, which hold groundwater, are depleted ... The water shortage won't just hamper food production, but energy generation, too. If the Po dries up, numerous hydroelectric power plants will be brought to a halt.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/po-river-italy-dries-up-exposes-1943-shipwreck-zibello/'The moment of reckoning is near': Feds warn huge cuts needed to shore up Lake Mead, Colorado River
A top federal water official told Congress on Tuesday that shortages on the Colorado River system have taken an even grimmer turn, with a whopping 2 million to 4 million acre-feet of reduction in water use needed by 2023 just to keep Lake Mead functioning and physically capable of delivering drinking water, irrigation and power to millions of people. Levels at the reservoir have dropped to an all-time low of 28% of capacity, with no relief in sight, said Camille Touton, Bureau of Reclamation commissioner ... "There is so much to this that is unprecedented," Touton said. "But unprecedented is now the reality and the normal in which Reclamation must manage our system, for warmer, drier weather is what we are facing." Touton said accelerating climate change — including hotter temperatures leading to earlier and less snowfall, drier soil and other conditions — have created declines in reclamation systems never seen before ... “What has been a slow-motion train wreck for 20 years is accelerating, and the moment of reckoning is near," said John Entsminger, general manager of of Southern Nevada Water Authority. "We are 150 feet (of elevation in Lake Mead) from 25 million Americans losing access to Colorado River water."
https://usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/06/16/water-cuts-needed-lake-mead-colorado-river/7638011001/'We beg God for water': Chilean lake turns to desert, sounding climate change alarm
The Penuelas reservoir in central Chile was until twenty years ago the main source of water for the city of Valparaiso, holding enough water for 38,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. Water for only two pools now remains ... Amid an historic 13-year drought, rainfall levels have slumped in this South American nation that hugs the continent's Pacific coast. Higher air temperatures have meant snow in the Andes, once a key store of meltwater for spring and summer, is not compacting, melts faster, or turns straight to vapor ... Behind the issue, academic studies have found, is a global shift in climate patterns [where] naturally occurring warming of the sea off Chile's coast, which blocks storms from arriving, has been intensified by rising global sea temperature, according to a global study on sea temperature and rainfall deficits. Ozone depletion and greenhouse gasses in the Antarctic, meanwhile, exacerbate weather patterns that draw storms away from Chile.
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/we-beg-god-water-chilean-lake-turns-desert-sounding-climate-change-alarm-2022-06-13/
reporting on a study at https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D8V12DD7NOAA's "new normal" climate report is anything but normal
Updated maps show how U.S. temperatures and rainfall patterns are shifting – and reveal some clues about the future.Just a quick glance at the new U.S. Climate Normals maps published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Tuesday is enough for most climate scientists to say, "I told you so" ... because for decades climate scientists and their computer models have projected the regions that should expect the most warming, the most drying and the biggest increase in precipitation due to human-caused climate change. NOAA's new maps are clear evidence that this impact is now being felt ... the data reveals [that] since the 1800s the globe has warmed by around 2 degrees Fahrenheit. Nine out of 10 of the warmest years on record worldwide have all occurred in the past decade. A recent study by NASA proves that all recent warming is related to humans' burning of fossil fuels and the resultant amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases and aerosols in the atmosphere. "We're really seeing the fingerprints of climate change in the new normals," said Michael Palecki, the project manager of NOAA's latest climate normals update.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-new-normal-temperature-noaaCalifornia’s drought has caused entire towns to sink nearly a foot in just one year
The ground is sinking in parts of California as the continued drought strains reservoirs, increasing reliance on the state’s already precarious groundwater reserves depleted by years of well-pumping. In just one year, from October 2020 to September 2021, satellite-based estimates showed entire towns in the Central Valley, including in Kings and Tulare counties, sinking by nearly a foot ... land subsidence happens when excessive pumping dries out the water reserves underground and collapses the space where water used to be.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/climate/article/California-drought-groundwater-17202022.phpPlastic Recycling Doesn’t Work and Will Never Work
The United States in 2021 had a dismal recycling rate of about 5 percent for post-consumer plastic waste, down from a high of 9.5 percent in 2014, when the U.S. exported millions of tons of plastic waste to China and counted it as recycled—even though much of it wasn’t ... The first problem is that there are thousands of different plastics, each with its own composition and characteristics. They all include different chemical additives and colorants that cannot be recycled together, making it impossible to sort the trillions of pieces of plastics into separate types for processing ... Another problem is that the reprocessing of plastic waste—when possible at all—is wasteful. Plastic is flammable, and the risk of fires at plastic-recycling facilities affects neighboring communities ... Plastic products can include toxic additives and absorb chemicals, and are generally collected in curbside bins filled with possibly dangerous materials such as plastic pesticide containers. According to a report published by the Canadian government, toxicity risks in recycled plastic prohibit “the vast majority of plastic products and packaging produced” from being recycled into food-grade packaging ... plastic recycling is simply not economical. Recycled plastic costs more than new plastic because collecting, sorting, transporting, and reprocessing plastic waste is exorbitantly expensive ... Despite this stark failure, the plastics industry has waged a decades-long campaign to perpetuate the myth that the material is recyclable.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/single-use-plastic-chemical-recycling-disposal/661141/Lake Mead falls below 30% capacity
https://www.8newsnow.com/news/local-news/lake-meads-capacity-falls-below-30/City of Phoenix Stage 1 Water Alert
The City of Phoenix has declared a Stage 1 Water Alert and activated its Drought Management Plan. The City is taking this action to address the mandatory reduction of Colorado River water and deeper cuts that are likely to occur in the future. The levels of Lake Powell and Lake Mead continue to fall precipitously, and the projections show conditions will worsen significantly. “The situation on the Colorado River is unprecedented, and we are taking it very seriously,” said Mayor Kate Gallego.
https://azbigmedia.com/business/heres-what-the-city-of-phoenix-stage-1-water-alert-meansSevere drought all over Portugal in May
Every area in the country saw significant increases in drought at the end of May, with 97.1% of the country experiencing “severe drought” during that period, the Portuguese Maritime and Atmospheric Institute (IPMA) has announced. The figure represents a sharp increase from the end of the previous month, where the drought affected just 4.3% of the country ... the month of May was the hottest in 92 years.
https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/2022-06-09/severe-drought-all-over-portugal-in-may/67801Cocktail of chemical pollutants linked to falling sperm quality in research
Chemicals such as bisphenols and dioxins are thought to interfere with hormones and damage sperm quality, and the study found combinations of these compounds are present at “astonishing” levels, up to 100 times those considered safe ... Sperm counts and concentration had undergone an alarming decline in western countries for decades, the scientists said, with sperm counts halving in the last 40 years ... The study team “were astonished by the magnitude of the hazard index” ... The research, published in the journal Environment International, assessed measurements of nine chemicals, including bisphenol, phthalates and paracetamol ... Paracetamol has been shown to cause a decline in sperm quality in laboratory animals and increase risk of non-descending testes in boys born to mothers using the painkiller during pregnancy.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/10/cocktail-of-chemical-pollutants-linked-to-falling-sperm-quality-in-research
reporting on a study at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412022002495Antarctic glaciers losing ice at fastest rate in 5,500 years, finds study
[T]he glaciers have begun retreating at a rate not seen in the last 5,500 years. With areas of 192,000 km2 (nearly the size of the island of Great Britain) and 162,300 km2 respectively, the Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers have the potential to cause large rises in global sea level. Co-author Dr. Dylan Rood of Imperial's Department of Earth Science and Engineering says that they "reveal that although these vulnerable glaciers were relatively stable during the past few millennia, their current rate of retreat is accelerating and already raising global sea level." The paper is published in Nature Geoscience.
https://phys.org/news/2022-06-antarctic-glaciers-ice-fastest-years.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-022-00961-y'The West Antarctic ice sheet was gone in the past': Scientists are spooked about South Pole's stability
The ice holds enough fresh water to raise sea level by nearly 200 feet ... For most of the past few centuries, the ice sheet has been stable [but] now, as the surrounding air and ocean warm, areas of the Antarctic ice sheet that had been stable for thousands of years are breaking, thinning, melting, or in some cases collapsing in a heap. As these edges of the ice react, they send a powerful reminder: If even a small part of the ice sheet were to completely crumble into the sea, the impact for the world’s coasts would be severe ... As recently as 120,000 years ago, this area was probably an open ocean – and definitely so in the past 2 million years. This is important because our climate today is fast approaching temperatures like those of a few million years ago.
https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/scientists-spooked-south-pole-stability/Southern Company Knew About Climate Change for Decades While Funding Climate Denial, Report Finds
One of the largest and most profitable electric utility companies in the U.S. knew about climate change for decades and yet continued to build fossil fuel facilities while funding groups that contribute to climate misinformation, a report released Wednesday has found. Executives at Southern Company, which serves 9 million customers across six states, had been involved in discussions about the impact of carbon dioxide on the atmosphere as early as the 1960s ... The report uses archived documents, including Securities and Exchange Commission filings from Southern Company, as well as documents previously recovered in other investigations and litigation to compile a timeline of Southern Company’s involvement in climate research.
https://gizmodo.com/southern-company-knew-about-climate-change-for-decades-1849033258Singapore's dengue 'emergency' is a climate change omen for the world
The Southeast Asian city-state has already exceeded 11,000 cases -- far beyond the 5,258 it reported throughout 2021 -- and that was before June 1, when its peak dengue season traditionally begins. Experts are warning that it's a grim figure not only for Singapore -- whose tropical climate is a natural breeding ground for the Aedes mosquitoes that carry the virus -- but also for the rest of the world. That's because changes in the global climate mean such outbreaks are likely to become more common and widespread in the coming years ... The outbreak in Singapore has been made worse by recent extreme weather, experts say, and its problem could be a harbinger of what is to come elsewhere as more countries experience prolonged hot weather spells and thundery showers that help to spread both the mosquitoes and the virus they carry.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/06/asia/health-dengue-singapore-emergency-climate-heat-intl-hnk/index.htmlScientists find new indicators of Alaska permafrost thawing
More areas of year-round unfrozen ground have begun dotting Interior and Northwest Alaska and will continue to increase in extent due to climate change, according to new research by University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute scientists. The scientists said the spread of taliks -- volumes of unfrozen ground within areas of permafrost -- has major implications ... findings were reported today in the journal Nature Geoscience ... "We're in a transition phase where we commonly see talik formation but also can see them refreeze if we have a year with low snow ... After approximately 2030, however, our air temperatures in the summer and winter will warm up enough that we're going to have talik formation no matter what the snow does. I think it's important for people to know that what we have seen so far with permafrost degradation in Fairbanks, for example, is not a steady state. The rate and extent of permafrost degradation is probably going to accelerate as talik development really kicks in."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/06/220607121021.htmAs California's big cities fail to rein in their water use, rural communities are already tapped out
Biggs, 72, still remembers when the family property had a thriving orchard. "Now, it's all dirt ... central California is dying. We're becoming a wasteland. Climate change is here, and California is a poster child for it. I tell my grandkids [to] get out, leave this area, go somewhere where there's water, because this place is dying" ... Gov. Gavin Newsom has pleaded with urban residents and businesses to reduce their water consumption by 15%, but water usage in March was up by 19% in cities compared to March 2020, the year the current drought began.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/05/us/california-rural-groundwater-crisis-climate/index.htmlHow humid air, intensified by climate change, is melting Greenland ice
On Aug. 14, 2021, the system drew exceptionally warm and moist air from southern latitudes northward, increasing temperatures around 32 degrees F (18C) higher than normal. Rain, not snow, fell on Greenland’s summit for the first time on record. Melting persisted over the next two weeks, covering 46 percent of the ice sheet. This was the largest melt event to occur so late in the year ... Amid rising temperatures, Greenland has lost more ice mass than it gained for 25 years in a row. In a study released Thursday, Box and his colleagues illuminate how an atmospheric river caused the August 2021 melt event and brought rain to the summit. The explanation foretells a future that could be increasingly common as global temperatures rise due to human-caused climate change, accelerating sea level rise.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/06/02/greenland-melt-warm-climate-change/
reporting on a study at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GL097356Record Methane Spike Boosts Heat Trapped by Greenhouse Gases
Greenhouse gases trapped 49 percent more heat in 2021 than in 1990, as emissions continued to rise rapidly, according to NOAA [who] released its “Annual Greenhouse Gas Index” last week. [Its] observational method means it “contains little uncertainty,” according to the agency. “Our data show that global emissions continue to move in the wrong direction at a rapid pace,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad. NOAA found that carbon dioxide, the most plentiful and long-lived gas, expanded at the most rapid rate over the last 10 years. But the most potent global warmer also broke records: methane increased more than it has since at least the early 1980s, when NOAA began its current measuring record ... As these greenhouse gas emissions accumulate, climate change impacts are multiplying, in the form of more frequent extreme weather such as droughts, wildfires and heat waves.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/record-methane-spike-boosts-heat-trapped-by-greenhouse-gases/#Current policies will bring ‘catastrophic’ climate breakdown, warn former UN leaders
The policies currently in place to tackle the climate crisis around the world will lead to “catastrophic” climate breakdown, as governments have failed to take the actions needed to fulfil their promises, three former UN climate leaders have warned. There is a stark gap between what governments have promised to do to protect the climate, and the measures and policies needed to achieve the targets ... the policies and measures passed and implemented by governments would lead to far greater temperature rises, of at least 2.7C, well beyond the threshold of relative safety, and potentially as much as 3.6C. That would have “catastrophic” impacts, in the form of extreme weather, sea-level rises and irreversible changes to the global climate. “The further climate change progresses, the more we lock in a future featuring more ruined harvests, and more food insecurity, along with a host of other problems including rises in sea level, threats to water security, drought and desertification.” Actions by developed countries have so far been “disappointing”.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/02/current-policies-will-bring-catastrophic-climate-breakdown-warn-former-un-leadersPhysicists predict Earth will become a chaotic world, with dire consequences
Humans aren't just making Earth warmer, they are making the climate chaotic, a stark new study suggests ... "The implications of climate change are well known (droughts, heat waves, extreme phenomena, etc)," study researcher Orfeu Bertolami told Live Science in an email. "If the Earth System gets into the region of chaotic behavior, we will lose all hope of somehow fixing the problem" ... Some years would experience sudden flashes of extreme weather, while others would be completely quiet. Even the average Earth temperature may fluctuate wildly, swinging from cooler to hotter periods in relatively short periods of time. "A chaotic behavior means that it will be impossible to predict the behavior of Earth System in the future even if we know with great certainty its present state," Bertolami said. "It will mean that any capability to control and to drive the Earth System towards an equilibrium state that favors the habitability of the biosphere will be lost."
https://www.livescience.com/humanity-turns-earth-chaotic-climate-systemMajor New Zealand salmon producer shuts farms as warming waters cause mass die-offs
New Zealand’s biggest king salmon farmer says it is shutting some of its farms after warming seas prompted mass die-offs of fish, warning that it is a “canary in the coalmine” for climate change. New Zealand is the world’s largest producer of king, or “chinook” salmon, a highly valued breed which fetches a premium on the world market. The country’s farms account for about 85% of global supply, New Zealand King Salmon chief executive Grant Rosewarne said. Now, increasingly warm summer seas mean the fish at some sites are dying en masse before they can reach maturity, leaving farmers dumping thousands of tonnes of dead fish into local landfills. “There should be alarm bells,” Rosewarne said. “When I joined this company, I never heard of the term ‘marine heatwave’…. Recently, there’s been three of them.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/26/major-new-zealand-salmon-producer-shuts-farms-as-warming-waters-cause-mass-die-offsThe Middle East's $13 billion sandstorm problem is about to get worse
Thousands of people in the Middle East flooded hospitals, unable to breathe properly. In Syria, medical units stockpiled canisters of oxygen. Businesses and schools were shut in Baghdad, while Tehran suspended flights and Kuwait halted maritime traffic. Sandstorms know no borders ... Experts are warning that the phenomenon is only getting worse. It's driven partly by climate change that's making the region's landscapes hotter and drier, and warping weather patterns to create more intense storms ... Iraq has been especially hard hit, with storms occurring on an almost weekly basis this spring ... an Iraqi official warned this year that the country is now facing an average of 272 "dust days" a year, with 300 days of dust predicted by 2050.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/25/middleeast/climate-change-sand-storms-mime-intl/index.htmlThe Vanishing Rio Grande: Warming Takes a Toll on a Legendary River
The story of the Rio Grande is similar to that of other desert mountain rivers in the U.S. Southwest, from the Colorado to the Gila. The water was apportioned to farmers and other users at a time when water levels were near historic highs. Now, as a megadrought has descended on the West, the most severe in 1,200 years, the flows are at crisis levels. And to make things even more uncertain, the drought is accompanied by an aridification of the West — a prolonged drying that scientists say may become a permanent fixture in the region ... The Rio Grande was once a perennial river [but] as agriculture and municipal use took more of the water, the river’s flow became intermittent, and by the mid-1900s only 20 percent of its flow reach the mouth. This year, the river has been hit by unprecedented drought, and the lower Rio Grande, the border between Texas and Mexico, is now dry for hundreds of miles ... Because it’s in an arid part of the world, its existence and the life it supports are already on a knife’s edge. Profound anthropogenic changes have exacerbated that, and in many places there has been ecosystem collapse, with more in the offing.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/warming-and-drought-take-a-toll-on-the-once-mighty-rio-grandeDefiance, acceptance and cries of ‘bull—’ as sweeping L.A. water restrictions begin
Earlier this year, California water officials said they could only allocate 5% of requested supplies from the State Water Project after the driest-ever January, February and March left meager snowpack and reservoirs near record lows. Despite the deficits, the region’s residents responded by using about 27% more water in March compared to the same month in 2020, the year the current drought began. “We must do more. Our situation is critical,” said Adel Hagekhalil, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which provides water to the DWP. But as the sun rose on Wednesday, some residents were less than enthusiastic about the new restrictions ... In Beverlywood, the sprinklers at one house on Hillsboro Avenue were running at full blast, sending water streaming down the sidewalks and into the streets even though Wednesdays are now, technically, non-watering days.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-06-02/angelenos-begin-the-first-day-of-historic-water-restrictionsSweeping water restrictions begin in Southern California as drought worsens
Households are now forbidden from watering their lawns more than once a week in many jurisdictions. The goal is to slash water use by 35% as the state enters its third straight year of drought. The rules come after California officials in March announced they were cutting State Water Project allocations from 15% to 5% of normal amid declining reservoir levels and reduced snowpack. California’s two largest reservoirs have already dropped to critically low levels, and the state this year experienced its driest January, February and March on record ... The megadrought in the U.S. West has produced the driest two decades in the region in at least 1,200 years. Conditions are likely to continue through 2022 and could persist for years. Researchers publishing in the journal Nature Climate Change have estimated that 42% of the drought’s severity is attributable to human-caused climate change.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/01/southern-california-water-restrictions-start-today-amid-drought.htmlCity of Phoenix issues water alert amid drought
The City of Phoenix declared a stage 1 water alert during the afternoon City Council meeting. The alert means officials are urging people to cut back on their water use that’ll have a minimal impact on their daily lives. The city points to watering landscape correctly as one of the easiest and most effective ways to conserve water. Since the water reductions are voluntary, the city will focus on customer outreach and education on the drought conditions rather than enforcement. There is less and less water in the Colorado River, and the federal government is working with the seven states who use the water to manage the changing conditions. The record-low levels of Lake Powell and Lake Mead are also troubling and experts’ predictions say it’ll only get worse ... Officials say Phoenicians shouldn’t be worried as the city has a 100-year assured water supply.
https://www.azfamily.com/2022/06/02/city-phoenix-issues-water-alert-amid-drought/Energy experts sound alarm about US electric grid: 'Not designed to withstand the impacts of climate change'
Power operators in the Central US, in their summer readiness report, have already predicted "insufficient firm resources to cover summer peak forecasts" ... "The reality is the electricity system is old and a lot of the infrastructure was built before we started thinking about climate change," said Romany Webb, a researcher at Columbia University's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. "It's not designed to withstand the impacts of climate change."
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/31/us/power-outages-electric-grid-climate-change/index.htmlClimate change already causing storm levels only expected in 2080
An Israeli study published on Thursday found that climate change is already causing a “considerable intensification” of winter storms in the Southern Hemisphere to a level not anticipated until 2080. The study published by the Weizmann Institute of Science in the Nature Climate Change journal is part of an effort by scientists around the world to use 30 massive, intricate computer networks to better model and predict climate change. The study, which compared previous predictions of human-caused intensification of winter storms in the Southern Hemisphere with current storm observations, found that the “bleak” reality was far worse than expected.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-study-climate-change-already-causing-storm-levels-only-expected-in-2080/Global food crisis looms as fertilizer supplies dwindle
[A]ccording to noted Canadian energy researcher Vaclav Smil, two-fifths of humanity—more than three billion people—are alive because of nitrogen fertilizer, the main ingredient in the Green Revolution that supercharged the agricultural sector in the 1960s ... “I’m not sure it’s possible any more to avoid a food crisis,” says World Farmers’ Organization President Theo de Jager. “The question is how wide and deep it will be ... In many regions farmers simply can’t afford to bring fertilizers to the farm, or even if they could, the fertilizers are not available to them. And it’s not just fertilizers, but agrichemicals and fuel as well” ... it’s the agricultural powerhouses in Latin America that are the most vulnerable to fertilizer disruptions, particularly Brazil, which imports about 85 percent of its fertilizer, a quarter of it typically from Russia. If farmers there cut back on fertilizers and their yields fall, it could have a significant impact on global food supplies.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/global-food-crisis-looms-as-fertilizer-supplies-dwindleApocalypse now? The alarming effects of the global food crisis
António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said [the] result could be “malnutrition, mass hunger and famine in a crisis that could last for years” – and increase the chances of a global recession. The World Food Programme estimates about 49 million people face emergency levels of hunger. About 811 million go to bed hungry each night. The number of people on the brink of starvation across Africa’s Sahel region, for example, is at least 10 times higher than in pre-Covid 2019. Many governments had exhausted their financial and material reserves fighting Covid and incurred large debts. Now the cupboard is bare ... As the food “apocalypse” approaches, the poorest peoples will suffer, as they always do, while the wealthiest may be insulated, up to a point. But it is feared that the pain will rapidly move up the global food chain ... It is no longer controversial to assert that destroyed crops, lost livelihoods and impoverished communities – key micro-ingredients of mass hunger emergencies – are intimately connected to, and affected by, climate change ... Horn of Africa countries such as Somalia, for example, are experiencing the worst drought in 40 years amid unprecedentedly high temperatures. As Foreign Policy magazine reported recently, when the rains did come, they were extreme and short-lived, causing flooding and breeding swarms of locusts. It is claimed that about 3 million livestock have perished in southern Ethiopia and semi-arid parts of Kenya since last year.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/21/apocalypse-now-the-alarming-effects-of-the-global-food-crisisIndia’s wheat farmers count cost of 40C heat that evokes ‘deserts of Rajasthan’
[As] farmers across north India began to harvest their wheat crop in mid-April, amid temperatures that were regularly above 40C, they were confronted with damaged, shrivelled grain. Unseasonable winter rain and then a scorching summer heatwave that arrived two months early – both markers of climate change – had stunted crop growth and laid waste to his grain and therefore his livelihood ... It hasn’t rained in Baras since January; the usual showers that traditionally come in April and May, after the wheat harvest and before they plant the rice, simply never arrived.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/21/india-wheat-farmers-40c-heat-food-securityGlobal Power Grids Face Biggest Test in Decades With Summer Blackouts Expected
Energy markets across the planet have been put through the wringer over the past year [but] things are on track to get even worse. Blame the heat. Summer in much of the Northern Hemisphere is a typical peak for electricity use. This year, it’s going to be sweltering as climate change tightens its grip. It’s already so hot in parts of South Asia that the air temperatures are blistering enough to cook raw salmon. Scientists are predicting scorching months ahead for the US. Power use will surge as homes and businesses crank up air conditioners. The problem is that energy supplies are so fragile that there just won’t be enough to go around, and power cuts will put lives at risk when there are no fans or air conditioners to provide relief from searing temperatures ... The world is grappling with “more than two years of global supply chain distress caused by the pandemic, the spreading fallout from the war in Ukraine and extreme weather caused by climate change,” said Henning Gloystein, an analyst at Eurasia Group. “The main risk is that if we see major blackouts on top of all the aforementioned problems this year, that could trigger some form of humanitarian crisis in terms of food and energy shortages on a scale not seen in decades.”
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2022/05/23/668755.htmElectricity Shortage Warnings Grow Across U.S.
[E]lectric-grid operators are warning that power-generating capacity is struggling to keep up with demand, a gap that could lead to rolling blackouts during heat waves or other peak periods as soon as this year. California’s grid operator said Friday that it anticipates a shortfall in supplies this summer, especially if extreme heat, wildfires or delays in bringing new power sources online exacerbate the constraints. The Midcontinent Independent System Operator, or MISO, which oversees a large regional grid spanning much of the Midwest, said late last month that capacity shortages may force it to take emergency measures to meet summer demand and flagged the risk of outages. In Texas, where a number of power plants lately went offline for maintenance, the grid operator warned of tight conditions during a heat wave expected to last into the next week.
https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/electricity-shortage-warnings-grow-across-u-s-11652002380Facing a sizzling summer, large parts of the U.S. risk blackouts, government agency warns
In its annual summer assessment released this week, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation noted that the Upper Midwest is facing a capacity shortfall leading to a "high risk of energy emergencies." The entire Western U.S. also could face a power outage emergency in the event of spikes in energy use. "We've been doing this for close to 30 years. This is probably one of the grimmest pictures we've painted in a while," [said] John Moura, NERC's director of reliability assessment and performance analysis ... Drought conditions across much of the West means less water available for hydroelectric power. Drought also affects power plants that run on coal, gas or nuclear power, which create heat and need water for cooling.
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/summer-blackouts-rising-risk-power-grid-nercHow climate is making Australia more unliveable
In the past three years, record-breaking bushfire and flood events have killed more than 500 people and billions of animals. Drought, cyclones and freak tides have gripped communities ... Australia is facing an "insurability crisis" with one in 25 homes on track to be effectively uninsurable by 2030, according to a Climate Council report. Nowhere is this a bigger issue than in Queensland. It is home to almost 40% of the 500,000 homes projected to be effectively uninsurable. Queensland has been ravaged by floods in recent months. In February, the state capital Brisbane had more than 70% of its average yearly rainfall in just three days. Insurers say the floods - which also battered New South Wales - will become Australia's most expensive flood event ever. But even before this year, insurance costs were skyrocketing. Though rising property prices are one factor, Australia's peak insurance industry body points the finger at climate change. After massive bushfires in 2019-20, Australians were warned to prepare for an "alarming" future of simultaneous and worsening disasters.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-61432462Summer Wildfires Ravage Forest-Rich Siberia
Large swathes of Siberia are in flames as what looks to be another record-breaking wildfire season sets in. Environmental group Greenpeace said last month that this year's wildfires are already twice as large as those of the same time last year ... Climate experts have sounded the alarm over the increasingly intense annual wildfires, saying the burning trees release massive amounts of carbon while melting methane-rich permafrost. The wildfires have become increasingly destructive in recent years as Russia's northern regions warm faster than the rest of the world. The 2021 wildfire season was Russia's largest ever.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/05/15/summer-wildfires-ravage-forest-rich-siberia-in-photos-a77647Key Iraq irrigation reservoir close to drying out
Iraq's Lake Hamrin, a once-vast reservoir northeast of Baghdad that is the sole source of water for irrigation across Diyala province, has nearly dried out, a senior official said Friday. Successive years of low rainfall and a sharp reduction in the flow of water down the Sirwan River from neighbouring Iran have reduced much of the lake to a dust bowl ... “There are no other sources of water in the province -- the volume arriving in Lake Hamrin is the volume used in the province” ... Iraq's upstream neighbours Iran, Turkey and Syria experience similar shortfalls, meaning that its appeals for help generally fall unheeded.
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2022/05/23/Key-Iraq-irrigation-reservoir-close-to-drying-out-#Climate change increases cross-species viral transmission risk
Climate and land use change will produce novel opportunities for viral sharing among previously geographically-isolated species of wildlife. In some cases, this will facilitate zoonotic spillover—a mechanistic link between global environmental change and disease emergence ... driving the novel cross-species transmission of their viruses an estimated 4,000 times ... we find that this ecological transition may already be underway, and holding warming under 2C within the century will not reduce future viral sharing.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04788-wYes, The Drought Really Is That Bad
Shrinking snowpacks, parched topsoil and depleted reservoirs are symptoms of the West’s worst set of dry years since 800 AD ... A study published in Nature Climate Change in February predicted a 94% chance the drought stretches through 2023; the chances of it persisting through 2030 are 75% ... According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, most of the West is in “moderate” to “severe drought.” Certain regions, like eastern and southwestern Oregon, California’s Central Valley, southern Nevada and eastern New Mexico are in “extreme” to “exceptional” drought ... Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the nation's largest reservoirs, are at record lows - 24% full and 31% full, respectively ... researchers are seeing widespread and severe low-snow and low-runoff conditions across the region ... California’s largest reservoirs, Lake Shasta and Lake Oroville, are at ‘critically’ low levels ... More than a third of [Oregon] has been in drought since the year 2000 ... Glaciers in Washington’s Olympic National Park could be gone by 2070, with permanent impacts on an important source of summer water, according to a new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface.
https://www.hcn.org/articles/south-drought-yes-the-drought-really-is-that-badRice is Sacramento Valley’s gift to the world. Can it withstand California’s epic drought?
The drought, in its third punishing year, is drying up wide swaths of California’s farm economy, and the rice industry is getting hit especially hard. Plantings are minimal [and] the Valley’s rites of spring — farm trucks clogging the roads, agricultural airplanes dropping seeds — have been shut off like a faucet. “A lot of our system is going to be dry,” said Thad Bettner, general manager of the Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District, one of the largest supplier of water to farmers in California ... Last year the drought erased $1.2 billion worth of farm output across California, according to a UC Merced study, and this year is practically guaranteed to be worse ... The drought will likely affect almost every commodity in California’s $50 billion-a-year farm economy.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/water-and-drought/article260998317.htmlThe longest river in Italy is drying up
At a monitoring station in Boretto, Alessio Picarelli, head of the Interregional Body of the Po River (AIPO), received results that the Po was measuring 2.9 metres below the zero gauge height, drastically below the seasonal average. During its course, the great waterway nourishes the expansive fertile plains of northern Italy where farmers have thrived for generations. Dubbed Italy’s breadbasket, these flatlands covered with crops are responsible for some 40 per cent of Italy's GDP. At the moment, however, the normally life-giving waters of the Po River have suddenly become an unexpected threat. The dramatically low water levels of the river have been causing seawater to be sucked back upstream. “This is because the vacuum left by the lack of river water is being filled by seawater,” which can be seen flowing back upstream in some areas [which] means saltwater seeping into the earth and poisoning crops, which are blackened and wilting. These record-low water levels, which the AIPO would normally only measure in August, are partly a result of the lack of rainfall that northern Italy has been suffering. “Normally it should rain once every one or two weeks,” says Mantovani, “but now it hasn’t rained for three months.” The problems start, however, in the mountains, where snowfall has been at its lowest for 20 years measuring 50 per cent less than the seasonal average. The glaciers of the Alps, which act as reservoirs to feed the river, are also shrinking.
https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/05/14/the-longest-river-in-italy-is-drying-up-what-does-this-mean-for-those-who-rely-on-it-for-fAfter Visiting Both Ends of the Earth, I Realized How Much Trouble We’re In
https://time.com/6174966/north-south-pole-melting-climate-changeClimate change isn't just making cyclones worse, it's making the floods they cause worse too
Although wind speeds within these storms can reach 270 km/h, the largest loss of life comes from the flooding they cause—known as a "storm surge"—when sea water is pushed onto the coast. Climate change is predicted to worsen these floods, swelling cyclone clouds with more water and driving rising sea levels that allow storm surges to be blown further inland ... Our findings were clear: exposure to flooding from cyclone storm surges is extremely likely to increase ... other cyclone-related hazards are also projected to worsen, including deadly heatwaves following cyclones hitting land.
https://phys.org/news/2022-05-climate-isnt-cyclones-worse.htmlEvery heatwave enhanced by climate change: experts
All heatwaves today bear the unmistakable and measurable fingerprint of global warming ... Burning fossil fuels and destroying forests have released enough greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to also boost the frequency and intensity of many floods, droughts, wildfires and tropical storms, they detailed in a state-of-science report. "There is no doubt that climate change is a huge game changer when it comes to extreme heat," Friederike Otto, a scientist at Imperial College London's Grantham Institute, told AFP ... "Every heatwave in the world is now made stronger and more likely to happen because of human-caused climate change," Otto and co-author Ben Clarke of the University of Oxford said in the report, presented as a briefing paper for the news media.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220511-every-heatwave-enhanced-by-climate-change-expertsClimate chaos certain if oil and gas mega-projects go ahead, warns IEA chief
Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), was responding to an investigation in the Guardian that revealed fossil fuel companies were planning huge “carbon bomb” projects that would drive climate catastrophe. The IEA advised almost exactly a year ago that no new gas, oil or coal development could take place from this year onwards if the world was to limit global heating to 1.5C ... But many countries, and private sector companies, have ignored the advice [thus eliminating] any hope of staying within the 1.5C threshold.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/may/12/oil-gas-mega-projects-climate-iea-fatih-birol-carbon-bombs-global-energy-crisis-fossil-fuelRevealed: the ‘carbon bombs’ set to trigger catastrophic climate breakdown
The world’s biggest fossil fuel firms are quietly planning scores of “carbon bomb” oil and gas projects that would drive the climate past internationally agreed temperature limits with catastrophic global impacts ... in effect placing multibillion-dollar bets against humanity halting global heating. Their huge investments in new fossil fuel production could pay off only if countries fail to rapidly slash carbon emissions, which scientists say is vital. The oil and gas industry is extremely volatile but extraordinarily profitable, particularly when prices are high, as they are at present [and] the lure of colossal payouts in the years to come appears to be irresistible to the oil companies, despite the world’s climate scientists stating in February that further delay in cutting fossil fuel use would mean missing our last chance “to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all”. As the UN secretary general, António Guterres, warned world leaders in April: “Our addiction to fossil fuels is killing us” ... plans include 195 gigantic oil and gas projects that would each result in at least a billion tonnes of CO2 emissions over their lifetimes, in total equivalent to about 18 years of current global CO2 emissions. About 60% of these have already started pumping ... Experts have been warning since at least 2011 that most of the world’s fossil fuel reserves could not be burned without causing catastrophic global heating ... “Either the scientists have spent 30 years working on this issue and have got it all wrong – the big oil CEOs know better – or, behind a veil of concern, they have complete disregard for the more climate vulnerable communities, typically poor, people of colour and far away from their lives. Equally worrying, they are disinterested in their own children’s future.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2022/may/11/fossil-fuel-carbon-bombs-climate-breakdown-oil-gasWhy our continued use of fossil fuels is creating a financial time bomb
We know roughly how much more carbon dioxide we can put into the atmosphere before we exceed our climate goals. From that, we can figure out how much more fossil fuel we can burn before we emit that much carbon dioxide. But [to] reach our climate goals, we'll need to leave a third of the oil, half of the natural gas, and nearly all the coal we're aware of sitting in the ground, unused. Yet we have - and are still building - infrastructure that is predicated on burning far more than that ... If we're to reach our climate goals, some of those things will have to be intentionally shut down and left to sit idle before they can deliver a return on the money they cost to produce [creating] assets that, if we were to get serious about climate change, would see their value drop to zero. At that point, they'd be termed "stranded assets," and their stranding has the potential to unleash economic chaos on the world.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/05/why-our-continued-use-of-fossil-fuels-is-creating-a-financial-time-bomb/More measures taken as Netherlands' spring drought continues
Most of the Netherlands hasn't seen significant rain since the beginning of March. The next two weeks will be even warmer, with hardly any rain expected. The water level in the major rivers is low for the time of year and is expected to fall further ... deficit in May could exceed that of the record year 1976 ... farmers and horticulturists raised concerns that this early drought would result in failed harvests and potential food shortages.
https://nltimes.nl/2022/05/09/measures-taken-netherlands-spring-drought-continuesA climate scientist on India and Pakistan’s horror heatwave, and the surprising consequences of better air quality
The record-shattering heatwave that engulfed most of India and Pakistan through March and April brought temperatures exceeding 45℃ in many areas, leading to critical electricity and water shortages ... the severe heat has strained healthcare systems across both nations, which are already stretched due to the continuing high numbers of COVID cases [and] affected hundreds of millions of people in one of the most densely populated and vulnerable regions of the world ... in less wealthy areas such as in India and Pakistan, millions of people work outdoors, with few ways to find relief from the brutal heat. Landfills are reportedly catching fire. Critical wheat crops are dying in the dry heat. And the electricity network is also less able to cope, with spikes in demand and frequent hours-long power outages.
https://theconversation.com/a-climate-scientist-on-india-and-pakistans-horror-heatwave-and-the-surprising-consequences-of-better-air-quality-182516Antarctic Heatwave: A Rapid Analysis of the March 2022 Dome C Record Heatwave
The heat wave on the Antarctic plateau lasted ~8 days and peaked at nearly nearly 40C above average ... temperature measurements from the manned station at Vostok, 560 km away from Dome C, also registered an extraordinary heatwave at the same time as the observers on the ground at Dome C ... This Antarctic heatwave appears to have set a new world record for the largest temperature excess above normal.
https://berkeleyearth.org/antarctic-heatwave-rapid-attribution-review-dome-c-recordThe 2021 western North America heat wave among the most extreme events ever recorded globally
In June 2021, western North America experienced a record-breaking heat wave outside the distribution of previously observed temperatures ... Characterizing the relative intensity of an event as the number of standard deviations from the mean, the western North America heat wave is remarkable, coming in at over four standard deviations. [Globally] only five other heat waves were found to be more extreme since 1960.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abm6860[Arizona] braces for additional water cuts amid megadrought
Arizona water authorities are bracing for additional cuts to the quantity of water supplied by the Colorado River ... These expected cuts stem from the effects of a decades-long megadrought, which has been greatly exacerbated by the climate crisis. Moreover, the Colorado River, which provides water to almost 40 million people, has been imperiled due to decades of overuse. The river’s reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, have seen worsening declines in their water levels ... Buschatzke said that if water from the Rocky Mountain snowpack does not boost the reservoirs in 2023, a more serious shortage could impact Arizona cities’ water supplies.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/07/arizona-water-cuts-megadrought-colorado-riverFarmers in the Plains are in 'dire straits' due to drought, wildfire conditions
More than 80% of the Nebraska-Kansas-Oklahoma region is abnormally dry, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center’s most recent data. And more than half of the area is severely dry. Even with a few recent rains, much of the Great Plains are in a drought. Wildfires have swept across the grasslands and farmers are worried about how they’ll make it through the growing season ... the dryness has exceeded expectations. “We’re currently seeing a tremendous amount of drought. And it’s getting to be more intense from South Dakota, down into Nebraska, Kansas and all the way into Texas.”
https://www.iowapublicradio.org/2022-05-05/great-plains-droughtOfficials worry Southern California won't have enough water to get through summer
"Some would consider this a wake-up call. I disagree," Wade Crowfoot, California's secretary for natural resources, told CNN. "The alarm's already gone off." Scientists reported earlier this year that the West's current megadrought is the worst in at least 1,200 years and that the human-caused climate crisis has made it 72% worse. For the past two decades, weather in the West has been characterized by extended periods of drought with fleeting bursts of wintertime precipitation which have never been enough to overcome the region's severe water shortage ... In a normal year, snow melt would provide 30% of the state's water, according to the Department of Water Resources. But by April, at the end of this year's wet season, California's snowpack was only 4% of normal. By May there was no snow at all ... At Lake Mead, the waterline has dropped so low in the lake that it has exposed a water intake valve that had been in service since 1971 [which shows] "how serious the situation is on the Colorado River right now," said Colby Pellegrino, deputy general manager of resources for Southern Nevada Water Authority. "Reservoir levels are lower than they've ever been in both Lake Powell and Lake Mead since the time that they filled."
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/04/us/california-drought-water-restrictions-climate/index.html‘Canaries in the coalmine’: loss of birds signals changing planet
Billions of birds are disappearing because of humanity’s impact on Earth, global review finds
“Birds are a much more powerful taxa [than others] to tell us a story about the health of the planet,” said Alexander Lees, at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, and who led the review. “We know so much about them ... Currently, we’re triaging the species at risk, but we’re not stopping the flow of species towards extinction.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/may/05/canaries-in-the-coalmine-loss-of-birds-signals-changing-planetTropical forest losses emitted as much CO2 emissions as India in 2021
The loss of humid tropical rainforests continued at a blistering pace in 2021, contributing 2.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions, which is equivalent to the annual fossil fuel co2 emissions of India – the world's fourth largest emitter, an authoritative new report finds. The report, put together by Global Forest Watch and the University of Maryland, shows the stark challenge of reining in forest loss. Forests are a key repository of carbon, which, if released into the atmosphere, will accelerate human-caused global warming. Protecting forests, particularly those that are rich in stored carbon such as tropical forests, is a key component of plans to curb global warming. The top 10 list of countries for tropical primary forest loss last year was topped once again by Brazil, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bolivia, Indonesia, Peru, Colombia, Cameroon, Laos, Malaysia and Cambodia, respectively.
https://www.axios.com/tropical-forest-loss-emitted-co2-emissions-india-4fda9012-a45a-428e-906b-5331249d52ef.htmlClimate crisis is speeding the water cycle, satellite data reveals
New research published in Scientific Reports last month found satellite evidence that the water cycle is speeding up, as fresh ocean water becomes fresher and salty ocean water becomes saltier. “The acceleration of the water cycle has implications both at the ocean and on the continent, where storms could become increasingly intense,” study lead author Estrella Olmedo of the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM) in Barcelona said in a press release. The climate crisis is naturally speeding this process because warmer temperatures cause water to evaporate faster, the press release explained. In addition to raising the risk of extreme weather events like heavy rainstorms and drought, a faster water cycle could contribute to the melting of polar ice. “This higher amount of water circulating in the atmosphere could also explain the increase in rainfall that is being detected in some polar areas, where the fact that it is raining instead of snowing is speeding up the melting,” Olmedo said in the press release.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/05/climate-crisis-is-speeding-the-water-cycle-satellite-data-reveals/Flood and cyclone-prone areas in eastern Australia may be ‘uninsurable’ by 2030, report suggests
The most at-risk areas were mostly found to be in flood and cyclone-prone areas of Queensland and in parts of Victoria built over flood plains near major rivers. “Uninsurable” is defined in the report as an area where the required type of insurance product was expected to be not available, or only available at such high cost that no one could afford it. Nicki Hutley, an economist and member of the Climate Council who wrote the report, said insurance costs were already rising sharply and people were struggling to get insurance in parts of the country. She said people were seeing changes, citing the black summer bushfires and the recent devastating floods in northern New South Wales.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/may/03/flood-and-cyclone-prone-areas-in-eastern-australia-may-be-uninsurable-by-2030-report-suggestsLake Powell officials face an impossible choice in the West’s megadrought: Water or electricity
Lake Powell, the country’s second-largest reservoir, is drying up. The situation is critical: if water levels at the lake were to drop another 32 feet, all hydroelectricity production would be halted at the reservoir’s Glen Canyon Dam. The West’s climate change-induced water crisis is now triggering a potential energy crisis for millions of people in the Southwest who rely on the dam as a power source. Over the past several years, the Glen Canyon Dam has lost about 16 percent of its capacity to generate power. The water levels at Lake Powell have dropped around 100 feet in the last three years.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/30/us/west-drought-lake-powell-hydropower-or-water-climate/index.htmlNew [US] government maps show nearly all of the West is in drought and it's not even summer yet: "This is unprecedented"
Nearly all of the West is in drought, and 95% of California is suffering severe or extreme drought ... reservoirs across the West are draining. Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the nation formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, needs a new pump to ensure water can flow to Las Vegas ... "We're just starting to see the dominoes fall. It's drier, we're starting to see less water in our reservoirs, and we have fires, and in California, there's just this series of consequences that we anticipate."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/west-climate-change-water/India’s Heat Wave Is a Grim Warning for Deadly ‘Wet Bulb’ Temperatures
Climate models once anticipated that these temperatures would not occur until the mid-21st century, but they’re already here
An abnormally early heat wave has brought India the highest temperatures it’s seen in 122 years this month—and climatologists are concerned. For starters, heat waves are the deadliest form of natural disaster, they typically place socially vulnerable populations at disproportionate risk, and, in this part of the world, are only expected to worsen. But another factor could prove lethal for India as the severity and frequency of extreme heat worsens: wet bulb conditions. Wet bulb temperature is a metric that accounts for both heat and humidity—it can perhaps most intuitively be thought of as “how effectively a person sheds heat by sweating” ... When there’s enough moisture in the air, the body can’t perform one of its primary cooling functions: Sweating ... There is a point at which wet bulb temperatures become, as Radley Horton, Lamont Research Professor at the Columbia Climate School put it in a 2020 paper in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances, “too severe for human tolerance.” A wet bulb temperature of 35 degrees celsius (95 degrees fahrenheit) is the upper physiological limit, his paper notes. An exceedance of 35 degrees celsius would be deadly.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjbq5p/indias-heat-wave-is-a-grim-warning-for-deadly-wet-bulb-temperaturesUN says up to 40% of world’s land now degraded
Human damage to the planet’s land is accelerating, with up to 40% now classed as degraded, while half of the world’s people are suffering the impacts, UN data has shown. The world’s ability to feed a growing population is being put at risk by the rising damage ... Many people think of degraded land as arid desert, rainforests maimed by loggers or areas covered in urban sprawl, but it also includes apparently “green” areas that are intensely farmed or stripped of natural vegetation. Growing food on degraded land becomes progressively harder as soils rapidly reach exhaustion and water resources are depleted.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/27/united-nations-40-per-cent-planet-land-degradedOcean life projected to die off in mass extinction if emissions remain high
Marine animals could die off at a level rivaling the biggest mass extinctions in geologic history [says] a study published Thursday in the journal Science, which found that many ocean creatures could face conditions too warm and with too little oxygen to survive if we don't turn things around. The more warming, the fewer species are likely to survive, the results show.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/ocean-life-mass-extinction-emissions-high-rcna26295Climate change increases risk of new viruses emerging: Research
Climate change will drive animals towards cooler areas where their first encounters with other species will vastly increase the risk of new viruses infecting humans, researchers warned on Thursday. There are currently at least 10,000 viruses “circulating silently” among wild mammals that have the capacity to cross over into humans, mostly in the depths of tropical forests. As rising temperatures force those mammals to abandon their native habitats, they will meet other species for the first time, creating at least 15,000 new instances of viruses jumping between animals by 2070, according to a study published in the journal Nature.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/28/climate-change-increasing-risk-of-new-viruses-emerging-researchGlobal warming risks most cataclysmic extinction of marine life in 250m years
Accelerating climate change is causing a “profound” impact upon ocean ecosystems that is “driving extinction risk higher and marine biological richness lower than has been seen in Earth’s history for the past tens of millions of years”, according to the study. The world’s seawater is steadily climbing in temperature due to the extra heat produced from the burning of fossil fuels, while oxygen levels in the ocean are plunging and the water is acidifying from the soaking up of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere ... the planet could slip into a “mass extinction rivaling those in Earth’s past”, states the new research, published in Science. The pressures of rising heat and loss of oxygen are, researchers said, uncomfortably reminiscent of the mass extinction event that occurred at the end of the Permian period about 250m years ago. This cataclysm, known as the “great dying”, led to the demise of up to 96% of the planet’s marine animals.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/28/global-warming-risks-cataclysmic-mass-extinction-marine-lifeThe world is on course to experience 560 major disasters each year
By 2030, the world may be experiencing around 560 disasters, ranging from fires to chemical accidents, every single year. That’s an average of more than one major disaster each day. And even this might be an underestimate as climate change worsens ... according to the newest Global Assessment Report (GAR2022), released by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), an astounding 350 to 500 medium- or large-scale disasters happen every year—and this has been the case for the past two decades. But it hasn’t always been so. Between 1970 to 2000, only about 90 or 100 disasters of this size were reported each year ... “These are the events that can wipe out hard-earned development gains, leading already vulnerable communities or entire regions into a downward spiral,” co-author Markus Enenkel of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative told the Associated Press. The situation with insurance is also dire. Only 40 percent of disaster-related losses since 1980 were insured, with that number sinking devastatingly close to zero in some developing countries, according to the report [and] over the past five years, the number of people who die in disasters has increased as incidents become more dangerous and unpredictable. And as climate events hit even more unpredictable locations, conflicts erupt, and pandemics spread, those events exacerbate each other.
https://www.popsci.com/environment/climate-disaster-planning/Groundbreaking study reveals 20 percent of reptile species face extinction from climate change
One-fifth of all reptile species face the risk of extinction, according to a comprehensive new study, with crocodiles and turtles most threatened. It's the first study of its kind for reptiles and involved 961 scientists in 24 countries across six continents and took 15 years to complete. Similar global assessments for other classes of animal have revealed that 40.7% of amphibians, 25.4% of mammals and 13.6% of bird species face the threat of extinction.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/27/world/reptiles-extinction-threat-scn/index.htmlFreshwater planetary boundary “considerably” transgressed: New research
Humanity’s modification of the water cycle has pushed the world further beyond a safe operating space for continued life on Earth, say scientists. A reassessment of the planetary boundary for freshwater that now includes rainfall, soil moisture and evaporation — so-called “green water” — found the boundary to be “considerably transgressed,” with the situation likely to worsen before any reversals in the trend will be observed. Based on the findings, water is now the sixth boundary to be transgressed, out of the nine identified by the Planetary Boundaries Framework. Published in 2009 and updated regularly, the framework demarcates a safe operating space for humanity, beyond which civilization could collapse, and life altered as we know it. The other boundaries already transgressed are climate change, biosphere integrity, biogeochemical flows (nitrogen and phosphorous pollution), land-system change, and also since 2022, novel entities, which includes pollution by plastics and other humanmade substances. The findings were published this week in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment.
https://news.mongabay.com/2022/04/freshwater-planetary-boundary-considerably-transgressed-new-research/Five charts that show why our food is not ready for the climate crisis
The industrialization of agriculture in the last century boosted production around the world – but that success also made our food systems much more vulnerable to the growing climate crisis. Modern agriculture depends on high-yield monocrops from a narrow genetic base that needs lots of fertilisers, chemicals and irrigation ... Like an investor with stocks, savings and real estate, diversity in the field spreads the risk: so if an early season drought wipes out one crop, there will be others which mature later or are naturally more drought tolerant, so farmers aren’t left with nothing. Here are five key graphics from our recent special report on the precariousness of our modern food system.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/22/climate-food-biodiversity-five-chartsSiberian wildfires burning unchecked because Russian military units which usually fight them are at war
Vast blazes have become an increasingly common occurrence in the region from spring to autumn. Because they release huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the Arctic atmosphere, they are a major cause of climate change concern. Scientists have repeatedly said they need putting out as soon as possible. But this year several of the fires are said to have been left burning because many of the military units which are responsible for tackling them have been dispatched to help with the Ukraine invasion. The revelation comes three days after The Independent reported a monster blaze in the Tyumen region of Western Siberia ... The fires thaw permafrost, which releases carbon dioxide and methane emissions into the atmosphere. Methane in particular has particularly potent greenhouse heating impacts in the short-term. Land temperature in the Arctic Circle reached a record-breaking 48 degrees Celsius during a “persistent heatwave” in Siberia last summer.
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/siberian-wildfires-climate-crisis-russia-b2063988.htmlMassive wildfires raging in Russia are ‘already double last year’
Video, published by The Siberian Times, showed a huge blaze in the Tyumen region of Western Siberia. The footage shows fire crews outlined against a smoke-filled orange sky, trying to tackle the blaze. In another clip, a family of elk can be seen in the distance fleeing the flames ... Governments are unprepared for the scale and ferocity of these events, the UN Environment Program said, which could increase more than 50 per cent by 2100. Wildfires are part of a concerning feedback loop in Siberia, which sits within the Arctic Circle. The fires thaw permafrost, which releases carbon dioxide and methane emissions into the atmosphere. Methane in particular has particularly potent greenhouse heating impacts in the short-term.
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/russia-siberia-wildfires-smoke-omsk-b2061003.htmlEurope's summer of floods and fire was its hottest on record, report finds
Europe swung from unusually cold temperatures in the spring to its hottest summer on record last year, smashing temperature and daily rain records [says] the fifth European State of the Climate report, published Friday, which found the summer of 2021 was 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than the 1991-2020 average. The average air temperature in Europe has risen about 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, according to the report ... These impacts are unsurprising, said Vamborg, considering the continued emissions of carbon dioxide and methane, which are both generated primarily by the burning of fossil fuels ... The climate crisis is fueling extreme weather around the world. The summer of 2021 was also the hottest on record in the US, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/22/europe/europe-climate-copernicus-summer-2021-intl/index.html‘We Woke Up and We Lost Half Our Water’ - How climate change sparked a multistate battle over the Colorado River
Starting in the early 20th century, much of the Colorado’s natural majesty was corralled into a system of reservoirs, canals, and dams that now provides drinking water for 40 million people, irrigation for 5 million acres of farmland, and sufficient power to light up a city the size of Houston. Not so long ago, there was more than enough rainfall to keep this vast waterworks humming ... Then the drought arrived. And never left. After the driest two-decade stretch in 12 centuries, both Mead and Powell fell below one-third of their capacity last year, throwing the Southwest into crisis. On January 1, mandatory cuts went into effect for the first time ... Bill Hasencamp, a water manager from Southern California, says, “The reservoir is still going down ... I don’t think we’ll ever not have a shortage going forward” ... most scientists agree that America’s deserts will only get drier as the climate crisis worsens.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/04/the-multistate-battle-over-the-colorado-river.htmlOzone in the atmosphere found to have weakened one of Earth’s main cooling mechanisms
According to new research, ozone may be weakening one of the planet’s most important cooling mechanisms, making it a more significant greenhouse gas than previously thought. Changes in ozone levels in the upper and lower atmosphere were found to be responsible for nearly a third of the warming seen in ocean waters bordering Antarctica in the second half of the twentieth century, according to a new study.
https://scitechdaily.com/ozone-may-be-weakening-one-of-the-earths-most-important-cooling-mechanisms-heating-the-planet-more-than-we-realize/Methane Feedback Loop Beyond Humans' Ability to Control May Have Begun—NOAA
A methane feedback loop that is beyond humans' ability to control may have begun, scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have said ... Xin Lan, a research scientist at the NOAA, told Newsweek that after 2006, the majority of methane emissions produced were caused by natural wetlands and man-made emissions. Natural wetlands produce methane when organic matter decays and man-made emissions are caused by livestock, waste and landfills [and] because the Earth's climate is already warming the methane produced from natural wetlands is only set to increase. This signals the beginning of a feedback loop—an ongoing cycle that cannot be broken ... "Methane production from microbes increases with increases in global temperature which is driven by long-term greenhouse gas emissions. More atmospheric methane, in turn, can further warm up the earth. That's the feedback loop we are referring to." In a statement, the NOAA said this loop could be beyond humans capabilities to control ... "It's going to take a lot of hard work to reverse these trends, and clearly that's not happening," Ariel Stein, director of the NOAA's Global Monitoring Laboratory, said in a statement.
https://www.newsweek.com/methane-feedback-loop-beyond-humans-ability-control-may-have-begun-1697512Record low Antarctic sea ice extent could signal shift
Sea ice around Antarctica shrank to the smallest extent on record in February, five years after the previous record low, researchers said Tuesday, suggesting Earth's frozen continent may be less Sea ice around Antarctica shrank to the smallest extent on record in February, five years after the previous record low, researchers said Tuesday, suggesting Earth's frozen continent may be less impervious to climate change than thought. In late February, the ocean area covered by ice slipped below the symbolic barrier of two million square kilometres (around 772,000 square miles) for the first time since satellite records began in 1978, according to a study in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences. Researchers found that the key driver of ice loss was change in temperature, though shifts in ice mass also played a lesser role. Both the North and South pole regions have warmed by roughly three degrees Celsius compared to late 19th-century levels, three times the global average ... Ice sheets atop West Antarctica hold the equivalent of six metres of sea level rise, whereas East Antarctica's massive glaciers would raise global oceans by more than 50 metres.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220419-record-low-antarctic-sea-ice-extent-could-signal-shiftDead rivers, polluted oceans: Industry adds to world's mounting water crisis, report warns
[F]or industries across the globe, water is deeply undervalued, leading to irresponsible usage and pollution that can harm humans and animals alike ... The report, two years in the making, draws from nearly 200 scientific studies, government documents and white papers to assess myriad threats to the world's waters. It paints a picture of a planet with deep problems, ranging from dwindling supplies of groundwater to oceans overloaded with microplastics, lakes choked with algae and waterways contaminated by mineral mining booms. Half of all river basins across the world are now "severely affected" by water diversion projects, which can exacerbate drought conditions and lead to human conflict, the report says. About the same percentage of lakes and reservoirs in Asia, Europe and North America also show eutrophication, an excess of nutrients that can lead to algae blooms and ecosystem collapse ... [in California] millions of acres of crop land have gone unplanted in recent years because of groundwater depletion. The heavy withdrawal of groundwater in India, which uses more than any other country, has led to decreases in yields of wheat, rice and maize, and they could fall by 68% in some regions by 2025. In Chile and China, the mining of metals like lithium for next-generation batteries to power electric cars requires up to 56% more water than what was used for traditional batteries, stressing local groundwater supplies.
https://phys.org/news/2022-04-dead-rivers-polluted-oceans-industry.htmlBacked-up pipes, stinky yards: Climate change is wrecking septic tanks
From Miami to Minnesota, septic systems are failing, posing threats to clean water, ecosystems and public health ... Many systems are clustered in coastal areas that are experiencing relative sea-level rise ... Solutions are expensive, beyond the ability of localities to fund them. Permitting standards that were created when rainfall and sea-level rise were relatively constant have become inadequate ... For decades, septic systems have been designed with the assumption that groundwater levels would remain static. That’s no longer true. “Systems that were permitted 40, 50 years ago and met the criteria at that time now wouldn’t,” said Charles Humphrey, an East Carolina University researcher who studies groundwater dynamics. In North Carolina’s Dare County, which includes Outer Banks destinations such as Nags Head and Rodanthe, groundwater levels are a foot higher than in the 1980s. That means there’s not enough separation between the septic tank and groundwater to filter pollutants. The threat isn’t only along the coasts. More intense storms dumping inches of rain in a few hours soak the ground inland, compromising systems for weeks ... Miami-Dade County has a porous limestone bedrock problem. The soil under its 2.7 million South Florida residents allows septic tank effluent to reach groundwater, a problem intensified by climate change. About half of the area’s 120,000 septic tanks were compromised during storms or wet years, according to a study. Roughly 9,000 are vulnerable to compromise or failure under current conditions. That number is expected to rise to 13,500 by 2040 ... “The septic system is the canary in the coal mine,” Stiles said. “If you’ve got a house and the septic is starting to flood, it won’t be long before the house goes.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/04/12/backed-up-pipes-stinky-yards-climate-change-is-wrecking-septic-tanks/Methane in atmosphere hits new high, rising at fastest rate recorded, NOAA says
Atmospheric methane levels rose by 17 parts per billion in 2021, NOAA said in a Thursday news release. Total levels of atmospheric methane are 162 percent greater than preindustrial levels and about 15 percent higher than they were several decades ago ... “Our data show that global emissions continue to move in the wrong direction at a rapid pace,” NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said in a news release. “Reducing methane emissions is an important tool we can use right now to lessen the impacts of climate change in the near term, and reduce the rate of warming.” The most recent United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change analysis estimated that methane’s potential contribution to global warming is more than 81 times that of an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide when impacts are measured over 20 years.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/methane-atmosphere-hits-new-high-rising-fastest-rate-recorded-noaa-say-rcna23487Even the Cactus May Not Be Safe From Climate Change
The hardy cactus — fond of heat and aridity, adapted to rough soils — might not seem like the picture of a climate change victim. Yet even these prickly survivors may be reaching their limits as the planet grows hotter and drier ... The study looks at 408 cactus species, or roughly a quarter of all known cactus species, and how their geographic range could shift under three different trajectories for global warming in this century. To the researchers’ surprise, their results did not vary much between different pathways for climate change, Mr. Pillet said: Even if the planet heats up only modestly, many types of cactus could experience declines in the amount of territory where the climate is hospitable to them ... global warming could put 60 percent of cactus species at greater risk of extinction.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/14/climate/cactus-climate-change.html70 MPH Winds and High Heat: Tuesday's Wicked Weather May Be the Final Nail in the Coffin for Texas' Winter Wheat
Farmers have battled multiple wind events already this year, along with intensifying drought. The situation has hammered the crop planted last fall, with the majority of the dryland winter wheat crop across the Panhandle and southern Plains already zeroed out by crop adjusters ... “Now we're at that stage where the little bit of wheat that was there has blown out and is pretty much non- existent. We've been seeing zero-bushel yield across the farm on a lot of stuff. It just is not looking good right now” ... USDA said none of the Texas winter wheat was considered excellent. Only 7 percent is fair. 79 percent is already rated poor to very poor.
https://www.agweb.com/news/crops/wheat/70-mph-winds-and-high-heat-tuesdays-wicked-weather-may-be-final-nail-coffin-texasDriven by climate change, thawing permafrost is radically changing the Arctic landscape
Massive lakes, several square miles in size, have disappeared in the span of a few days. Hillsides slump. Ice-rich ground collapses, leaving the landscape wavy where it once was flat, and in some locations creating vast fields of large, sunken polygons. It’s evidence that permafrost, the long-frozen soil below the surface, is thawing. That’s bad news for the communities built above it – and for the global climate ... These frozen soils maintain the structural integrity of many northern landscapes, providing stability to vegetated and unvegetated surfaces, similar to load-bearing support beams in buildings. As temperatures rise and patterns of precipitation change, permafrost and other forms of ground ice become vulnerable to thaw and collapse ... Under the surface, something else is active – and it is amplifying global warming. When the ground thaws, microbes begin feasting on organic matter in soils that have been frozen for millennia. These microbes release carbon dioxide and methane, potent greenhouse gases. As those gases escape into the atmosphere, they further warm the climate, creating a feedback loop: Warmer temperatures thaw more soil, releasing more organic material for microbes to feast on and produce more greenhouse gases ... permafrost is estimated to hold twice as much carbon as the atmosphere today.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/driven-by-climate-change-thawing-permafrost-is-radically-changing-the-arctic-landscapeClimate toll on Arctic bases: Sunken runways, damaged roads
U.S. military bases in the Arctic and sub-Arctic are failing to prepare their installations for long-term climate change as required, even though soaring temperatures and melting ice already are cracking base runways and roads and worsening flood risks up north, the Pentagon’s watchdog office said Friday. The report from the inspector general of the Department of Defense provides a rare bit of public stock-taking of the military’s state of readiness – or lack of readiness – for the worsening weather of a warming Earth. The U.S. military long has formally recognized climate change as a threat to national security. That’s in part because of the impact that intensifying floods, wildfires, extreme heat and other natural disasters are having and will have on U.S. installations and troops around the world ... For years, laws, presidential orders and Pentagon rules have mandated that the military start planning and work so that its installations, warships, warplanes and troops can carry out their missions despite increasingly challenging conditions as the use of fossil fuels heats up the Earth [but] inspectors visiting the United States’ six northernmost military bases last June and July found none were carrying out the required assessments and planning to prepare their installations and operations against long-term climate change ... Of 79 U.S. military installations overall, the Department of Defense says two-thirds are vulnerable to worsening flooding as the climate worsens and half are vulnerable to increasing drought and wildfires.
https://apnews.com/article/wildfires-climate-floods-arctic-fires-9c55de05afeabcdbb6aca2ba322d0458Increase in atmospheric methane set another record during 2021
Carbon dioxide levels also record a big jump
For the second year in a row, NOAA scientists observed a record annual increase in atmospheric levels of methane, a powerful, heat-trapping greenhouse gas that’s the second biggest contributor to human-caused global warming after carbon dioxide. NOAA’s preliminary analysis showed the annual increase in atmospheric methane during 2021 was 17 parts per billion (ppb), the largest annual increase recorded since systematic measurements began ... Meanwhile, levels of carbon dioxide also continue to increase at historically high rates ... the 10th consecutive year that carbon dioxide increased by more than 2 parts per million, which represents the fastest sustained rate of increase in the 63 years since monitoring began ... “Our data show that global emissions continue to move in the wrong direction at a rapid pace,” said Rick Spinrad, Ph.D., NOAA Administrator. “The evidence is consistent, alarming and undeniable.”
https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/increase-in-atmospheric-methane-set-another-record-during-2021Storms batter aging power grid as climate disasters spread
[A] warming climate stirs more destructive storms that cripple broad segments of the nation’s aging electrical grid, according to an Associated Press analysis of government data. Forty states are experiencing longer outages — and the problem is most acute in regions seeing more extreme weather, U.S. Department of Energy data shows ... “The electric grid is our early warning,” said University of California, Berkeley grid expert Alexandra von Meier. “Climate change is here and we’re feeling real effects.”
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Storms-batter-aging-power-grid-as-climate-17060281.phpNo longer a last resort: Pulling CO2 from the air [is ineffective]
To save the world from the worst ravages of climate change, slashing carbon pollution is no longer enough — CO2 will also need to be sucked out of the atmosphere and buried, a landmark UN report is expected to say on Monday ... If humanity had started to curb greenhouse gas emissions 20 years ago, an annual decrease of two percent out to 2030 would have put us on the right path ... Instead, the emissions climbed another 20 percent to more than 40 billion tonnes of CO2 in 2021. This means an abrupt drop in emissions of six or seven percent a year is needed [and] staying under the safer aspirational threshold of 1.5C would mean an even steeper decline ... Hence the need for carbon dioxide removal (CDR), or "negative emissions" [but] even under the most aggressive carbon-cutting scenarios, several billion tonnes of CO2 will need to be extracted each year from the atmosphere by 2050, and an accumulated total of hundreds of billions of tonnes by 2100. As of today, however, CO2 removal is nowhere near these levels. The largest direct air capture facility in the world removes in a year what humanity emits in three or four seconds.
https://phys.org/news/2022-04-longer-resort-co2-air.htmlWorld’s biggest carbon removal machine ‘freezes over’ in Iceland
[T]he Orca machine outside Reykjavik is running behind schedule and is still yet to hit its target of removing 4,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the air each year. The system, run by Swiss company Climeworks, was launched in September 2021 and works by drawing in air using giant fans and fabric tubes ... Though it is the world’s largest such machine, the device is still operating on a small scale. Even when it hits full capacity, sucking up 4,000 tonnes of CO2 a year will deal with a tiny fraction of global emissions, which totalled 31.5 billion tonnes in 2020.
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/iceland-carbon-removal-orca-freeze-b2060663.htmlBird populations in Panama rainforest in severe decline, study finds
A new study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that the majority of sampled species had declined in abundance, many of them severely. Twice a year over four decades, the authors deployed mist nets in multiple study sites, identifying and banding thousands of birds ... Of the species sampled, 35 out of 40 lost more than 50% of their initial abundance. Only two species increased in numbers. The declines extended across different bird families and were generally independent of ecological traits.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/04/bird-populations-in-panama-rainforest-in-severe-decline-study-findsArizona farmers getting slammed by water cuts
Farming in the desert has always been a challenge for Arizona’s farmers, who grow water-intensive crops like cotton, alfalfa and corn for cows. But this year is different. An intensifying drought and declining reservoir levels across the Western U.S. prompted the first-ever cuts to their water supply from the Colorado River. The canals that would normally bring water from an eastern Arizona reservoir to Caywood’s family farm have mostly dried up ... Farmers here fear additional water restrictions in the coming weeks as a warming climate continues to reduce the amount of water that typically fills the Colorado River from rainfall and melting snow [and] farmers will only be able to pump groundwater for so long until it runs out entirely.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/03/arizona-farmers-are-slammed-by-water-cuts-in-the-west-amid-drought.htmlStratospheric ozone depletion and tropospheric ozone increases drive Southern Ocean interior warming
Both stratospheric and tropospheric ozone changes have contributed to Southern Ocean interior warming with the latter being more important ... Our results highlight that tropospheric ozone is more than an air pollutant and, as a greenhouse gas, has been pivotal to the Southern Ocean warming.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01320-w'A year after year disaster:' The American West could face a 'brutal' century under climate change
[A study] predicts the growth of wildfires could cause dangerous air quality levels to increase during fire season by more than 50% over the next 30 years in the Pacific Northwest and parts of northern California. A second shows how expected increases in wildfires and intense rain events could result in more devastating flash floods and mudslides across a broad portion of the West ... “These studies reinforce the likelihood of a brutal future for the West,” said Jonathan Overpeck, a climate scientist and dean of the University of Michigan's School for Environment and Sustainability.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2022/04/02/climate-change-american-west-air-pollution-fires-floods-studies/7213780001/Subsidence in Coastal Cities Throughout the World Observed by InSAR
Satellite data indicate that land is subsiding faster than sea level is rising in many coastal cities throughout the world. If subsidence continues at recent rates, these cities will be challenged by flooding much sooner than projected by sea level rise models ... The most rapid subsidence is occurring in South, Southeast, and East Asia. However, rapid subsidence is also happening in North America, Europe, Africa, and Australia. Human activity — primarily groundwater extraction — is likely the main cause of this subsidence.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022GL098477As drought pushes east, more intense wildfires are sparking in new areas
They've been popping up in places like Colorado and Texas, and have burned hundreds of thousands of acres in the past few weeks alone ... "there is a key difference about this spring, which is that the drought has expanded eastward, pushing 70% of Texas -- which was less impacted over the last two years -- into severe drought," [said] Justin Mankin, assistant professor of geography at Dartmouth College and co-lead of NOAA's Drought Task Force, told CNN. Texas has been besieged by wildfires over the past few weeks as severe drought took hold ... and nearly 10 million people in the Plains were under red flag warnings on Tuesday as forecasters warned a significant wildfire outbreak was possible.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/29/weather/wildfires-texas-colorado-drought-climate/index.htmlMany glaciers could disappear in a decade, scientists warn
New Zealand’s glaciers had lost mass most years over the past decade, said Dr Lauren Vargo from Victoria University. “But what was more striking to me is how much smaller and more skeletal so many of the glaciers are becoming.” The country is experiencing more frequent temperature extremes, four to five times more extreme than would be expected in a climate with no long-term warming [and] 2021 was New Zealand’s hottest year on record.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/31/many-of-new-zealands-glaciers-could-disappear-in-a-decade-scientists-warnUnderwater Permafrost Is a Big, Gassy Wild Card for the Climate
Submarine permafrost is largely unstudied, owing to its inaccessibility. Now, in an alarming paper published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international team of scientists give us a rare look at what’s going on down there ... The result is the worrisome image shown above—a massive sinkhole indicating that the subsea permafrost has thawed and collapsed.
https://www.wired.com/story/underwater-permafrost-is-a-big-gassy-wild-card-for-the-climate/Flash Droughts Coming on Faster, Global Study Shows
“Globally, the flash droughts that come on the fastest — sending areas into drought conditions within just five days — have increased by about 3%-19%. And in places that are especially prone to flash droughts — such as South Asia, Southeast Asia and central North America — that increase is about 22%-59%.
https://news.utexas.edu/2022/04/01/flash-droughts-coming-on-faster-global-study-shows/Warmer summers and meltwater lakes are threatening the fringes of the world’s largest ice sheet
This research, published today in Nature Communications, is the first time that meltwater lakes have been studied over consecutive melt seasons across the whole ice sheet ... "Due to climate change, air temperatures in Antarctica will continue to rise and our study suggests that this will lead to an increase in the number and volume of supraglacial lakes, which will in turn put some East Antarctic ice shelves at risk of meltwater-driven collapse."
https://phys.org/news/2022-03-warmer-summers-meltwater-lakes-threatening.htmlIn Tahoe's 'year of extremes,' final Sierra Nevada snowpack measurements come in far below average
Historically, scientists chose April 1 as the big day for snow measurements because, at the end of the winter, it should be when the snowpack is at its deepest. That’s not the case this year. This year, after a record-setting December, the snowpack peaked months ago and has been flat-lining ever since. Today, the Sierra Nevada snowpack will clock in well below average after one of the driest periods from January through March on record ... “We’ve had the deepest December on record, driest period in January and February on record, and now our snow is effectively melting off about a month before it was [melting] even last year,” Schwartz continued. “And you know, last year was definitely not a great year either.”
https://www.sfgate.com/renotahoe/article/tahoe-snowpack-well-below-average-17045070.phpAntarctic ice shelves are shattering. How fast will seas rise?
The size of Florida, the Thwaites Glacier holds enough ice to raise global sea levels two feet. It’s also a bottleneck protecting the larger West Antarctic ice sheet, which would raise sea level 10 feet if it were to melt completely ... “It is the most important glacier in the world,” says Julia Wellner, a marine geologist at the University of Houston ... it's clear where sea level is headed: Up, possibly a lot, possibly soon.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/antarctic-ice-shelves-are-shattering-how-fast-will-seas-riseHeat wave shatters records across California, spells trouble for drought-dried state
California’s record-dry start to the year is converging with record-high temperatures ... The heat wave spells trouble for the drought-dried state, which is already experiencing dwindling snowpack and shrinking reservoirs after an arid start to the year. January and February were the driest on record in California, and officials say March could follow suit. The three-month stretch is typically the heart of the state’s rainy season.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-23/early-spring-heat-wave-shatters-temperature-recordsAntarctic ice shelf nearly the size of Los Angeles collapsed as temperatures soared to 40 above normal
The Conger Ice Shelf, spanning approximately 460 square miles, collapsed around March 15. It was around the time temperatures soared to minus-12 degrees Celsius, more than 40 degrees warmer than normal, at the Concordia research station. "I don't think there has been a shelf collapse like this in East Antarctica since we've been able to receive satellite data," Rob Larter, a marine geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey, told CNN ... When a shelf collapses, there tends to be an increase in the ice that flows from the land into the ocean, which leads to sea level rise— a phenomenon that threatens coastal communities around the world ... warming temperatures are making the collapse of ice shelves more likely. There has been a series of ice shelf collapses over the past 40 years, but those have mainly been in West Antarctica, which is warmer compared to the east.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/25/world/antarctic-conger-ice-shelf-collapse-climate/index.html‘Can’t Cope’: Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Suffers 6th Mass Bleaching Event
A wide stretch of the Great Barrier Reef has been hit by a sixth mass bleaching event, the marine park’s authority said on Friday, an alarming milestone for the coral wonder that points to the continued threat of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions ... Bleaching events have now occurred in four of the past seven years, with 2022 offering a disturbing first — a mass bleaching in a year of La Niña, when more rain and cooler temperatures were supposed to provide a moment of respite for sensitive corals to recover ... “We’re seeing that coral reefs can’t cope with the current rate of warming and the frequency of climate change,” said Dr. Neal Cantin, a coral biologist who led one of the teams observing the state of the reef ... bleaching is often called a climate change warning system, a canary in the coal mine of a struggling earth. It indicates that corals are under intense stress from the waters around them, which have been growing steadily warmer. Last year, scientists recorded the hottest year on record for the world’s oceans — for the sixth year in a row.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/25/world/australia/great-barrier-reef-bleaching.htmlPermafrost thawing faster than expected due to extreme summer rainfall
In the past 50 years, the Arctic region has been warming three times faster than the average rate of global warming [and] research published in Nature Communications has revealed that extreme summer rainfall is accelerating this process ... "We were not surprised that the permafrost thawed to a greater depth during wet summers, but that the effect would be so extreme and last for several years was really unexpected ... If we only take warmer temperatures into account, we will underestimate how much permafrost is thawing as a result of climate change, and how much extra CO2 and methane is being released," explains Magnusson.
https://phys.org/news/2022-03-permafrost-faster-due-extreme-summer.htmlHeatwaves at both of Earth’s poles alarm climate scientists
Temperatures in Antarctica reached record levels at the weekend, an astonishing 40C above normal in places. At the same time, weather stations near the north pole also showed signs of melting, with some temperatures 30C above normal, hitting levels normally attained far later in the year. At this time of year, the Antarctic should be rapidly cooling after its summer, and the Arctic only slowly emerging from its winter, as days lengthen. For both poles to show such heating at once is unprecedented.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/20/heatwaves-at-both-of-earth-poles-alarm-climate-scientistsSatellites show Arctic sea ice is melting even faster than scientists realized
A new study based on NASA and ESA satellite data shows that Arctic sea ice is thinning at a "frightening rate." [P]olar scientists Sahra Kacimi of the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Ron Kwok of the University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory observed that it thinned 5 feet (1.5 meters) during that period. "We weren't really expecting to see this decline, for the ice to be this much thinner in just three short years," Kacimi said in a statement released by the American Geophysical Union, which published the new research in one of its journals ... the scientists determined that the Arctic sea ice has lost one-third of its volume over the past two decades due to the decrease in multiyear ice and the increase in seasonal ice. "Current models predict that by the mid-century we can expect ice-free summers in the Arctic, when the older ice, thick enough to survive the melt season, is gone," said Kacimi.
https://www.space.com/arctic-sea-ice-thinning-frightening-rateClimate change: Wildfire smoke linked to Arctic melting
The dense plumes of wildfire smoke seen in recent years are contributing to the warming of the Arctic, say scientists. Their study says that particles of "brown carbon" in the smoke are drifting north and [heating] the polar region. The authors believe the growing number of wildfires helps explain why the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the planet. They're concerned that this effect will likely increase.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60782084Algarve [Portugal] rain not enough to boost dams
The Algarve dams of Odeleite and Beliche, both in the east of the Algarve, and those of Odelouca and Bravura, to the west, maintain levels below 50% of their useful storage volumes, with Bravura, in the municipality of Lagos, the one with the most worrying situation, at only 14.5% of its usable capacity. Teresa Fernandes stressed that the amount of rain that has fallen in the region “until now, has been insufficient” to alleviate the extreme drought that the region faces.
https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/2022-03-25/algarve-rain-not-enough-to-boost-dams/66003Sunniest March ever recorded in Netherlands
On average, the Netherlands only gets about 146 hours of sunshine in March. As [March] still has nearly a week to go, Weer.nl expects the record to be around 250 hours of sunshine in March - almost 50 hours more than a typical summer month [and summer does not begin for three months] ... this month could also set the record for driest March on record.
https://nltimes.nl/2022/03/25/sunniest-march-ever-recorded-netherlandsCalifornia slashes State Water Project allocation as year begins with record dryness
After a record dry start to 2022, California water officials announced Friday that they were cutting State Water Project allocations from 15% to 5%, and warned residents to brace for a third year of drought ... after the driest January and February on record — and a March on track to follow suit — officials said they had to make reductions. “We are experiencing climate change whiplash in real time with extreme swings between wet and dry conditions” ... “Reservoirs are low, the snowpack is low, so we’re not going to see much refilling of those reservoirs as the snow melts, and as a result we just have less water to go around.”
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-18/california-cuts-state-water-project-allocation-to-5-percentU.S. fires became larger, more frequent, and more widespread in the 2000s
[A]verage fire events in regions of the United States are up to four times the size, triple the frequency, and more widespread in the 2000s than in the previous two decades. Moreover, the most extreme fires are also larger, more common, and more likely to co-occur with other extreme fires. This documented shift in burning patterns across most of the country aligns with the palpable change in fire dynamics noted by the media, public, and fire-fighting officials.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abc0020Permafrost peatlands approaching tipping point
Researchers warn that permafrost peatlands in Europe and Western Siberia are much closer to a climatic tipping point than previous believed. The frozen peatlands in these areas store up to 39 billion tons of carbon -- the equivalent to twice that stored in the whole of European forests ... projections indicate that even with the strongest efforts to reduce global carbon emissions, and therefore limit global warming, by 2040 the climates of Northern Europe will no longer be cold and dry enough to sustain peat permafrost.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220314120647.htm
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01296-7It’s 70 degrees warmer than normal in eastern Antarctica. Scientists are flabbergasted.
The coldest location on the planet has experienced an episode of warm weather this week unlike any ever observed, with temperatures over the eastern Antarctic ice sheet soaring 50 to 90 degrees [F] above normal ... “completely unprecedented and upended our expectations about the Antarctic climate system” ... He likened the event to the June heat wave in the Pacific Northwest, which scientists concluded would have been “virtually impossible” without human-caused climate change ... massive heat wave by Antarctic standards.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/03/18/antarctica-heat-wave-climate-change/Record ‘bomb cyclone’ bringing exceptional warmth to North Pole
The mild temperatures are also accompanied by liquid rain at far northern latitudes, hastening the seasonal melting of sea ice. “Looking back over the last few decades, we can clearly see a trend in warming, particularly in the 'cold season’ in the Arctic,” Ruth Mottram, a climate scientist with the Danish Meteorological Institute, wrote in an email. “It’s not surprising that warm air is busting through into the Arctic this year. In general we expect to see more and more of these events in the future.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/03/15/north-pole-melting-arctic-climate/A drowning world: Kenya’s quiet slide underwater
Lake Nakuru, which was previously enclosed by a national park, now extended beyond it. It had increased in size by 50% ... Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced from their homes. And this seems to be just the start of the disaster ... In 2019, Kenya received the third most rainfall it had ever recorded ... In October 2021, the government [released a report that] stated that greater levels of rainfall, caused by the climate crisis, was the main cause. Other forms of human interference with the environment – such as deforestation – had also led to landslides and increased water runoff, which had in turn contributed to the rising water levels.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/17/kenya-quiet-slide-underwater-great-rift-valley-lakes-east-africa-floodingTropical deforestation emitting far more carbon than previously thought: Study
The rate at which carbon escaped from the deforestation of tropical forests more than doubled in the first two decades of the 21st century, according to new research. Earlier assessments relied primarily on government statistics on the land, which “painted a much different picture” ... Improvements in satellite technology and the monitoring work that remote-sensing scientists such as Matt Hansen and his colleagues are doing at the University of Maryland have put more detailed information at the fingertips of researchers around the world ... The data set has a resolution of 30 square meters (323 square feet), making it much “more reliable” than tabulations based on government-gathered statistics ... evidence also suggests global climate goals may be slipping out of reach ... Ziegler said the changes at these high-level meetings aren’t translating into action that will address the problem. “We get together and shake hands, we make a pact, and then it really doesn’t make a change,” he said.
https://news.mongabay.com/2022/03/tropical-deforestation-emitting-far-more-carbon-than-previously-thought-study/Amazon rainforest reaching tipping point, researchers say
There are signs of a loss of resilience in more than 75% of the forest, with trees taking longer to recover from the effects of droughts largely driven by climate change ... Around a fifth of the rainforest has already been lost, compared to pre-industrial levels ... The findings, based on satellite data from 1991 to 2016, are published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60650415Newest satellite data shows remarkable decline in Arctic sea ice over just three years
In the past 20 years, the Arctic has lost about one-third of its winter sea ice volume, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Washington and the California Institute of Technology. That decline is largely due to loss of older, multiyear sea ice. New satellite data also show that wintertime Arctic sea ice is likely thinner than previous estimates. The study was published March 10 in Geophysical Research Letters. “Current models predict that by the mid-century we can expect ice-free summers in the Arctic, when the older ice, thick enough to survive the melt season is gone,” [said lead author Sahra Kacimi at CalTech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory].
https://www.washington.edu/news/2022/03/10/newest-satellite-data-shows-remarkable-decline-in-arctic-sea-ice-over-just-three-years/Extremely Hot, Humid Weather Could Kill a Person Far More Easily Than We Thought
The human body might not cope with nearly as much heat and humidity as [wetbulb] theory predicts. One of the first studies to directly assess humid heat stress among young people has found that when humidity is at an absolute max, the upper limit of human adaptability is just 31°C (87 °F). That's four degrees less than theoretical [wet bulb] estimates, and for older people, the threshold is probably even lower.
https://www.sciencealert.com/human-survival-in-hot-and-humid-conditions-isThe Arctic Seafloor Is Degrading and Could Be a Climate Time Bomb
Up to a trillion tons of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, may be locked away in the decaying ocean floor of a vast Arctic continental shelf. The East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) extends for some 770,000 square miles—an area bigger than Mexico—off the coast of Siberia, making it the widest and shallowest continental shelf in the world’s ocean. The shelf contains enormous reserves of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, that have been locked up for thousands of years under an impermeable layer of permafrost, which is a type of frozen sediment. However, expeditions to the shelf led by Evgeny Chuvilin, a geoscientist at Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech)—a private university founded in partnership with MIT—in Moscow, Russia, “demonstrate progressive degradation of subsea permafrost which controls the scales of [methane] release from the sediment into the water-atmospheric system,” according to a recent study published in the journal Marine and Petroleum Geology [which] confirms previous studies that raised alarms ... Scientists are concerned both by the gargantuan volume of gas reserves and the shallow depth of the ocean over much of the shelf, which makes it easier for greenhouse gasses to bubble up to the surface and into the atmosphere.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kbmzb/the-arctic-seafloor-is-degrading-and-could-be-a-climate-time-bombThe World’s Fastest-Growing Cities Are Facing the Most Climate Risk
United Nations-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) notes that the effects of melting glaciers and thawing permafrost are now approaching irreversibility, that half the world is now living with annual periods of severe water scarcity, and that we can expect global increases in heat-related deaths without more efforts toward adaptation. In a world that continues to urbanize, cities in developing countries will feel the brunt of these drastic shifts most strongly ... Cities across the world are already showing vulnerabilities to climate change, the report notes.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-28/global-south-cities-face-dire-climate-impacts-un-reportGlobal excess deaths due to pandemic are 3 times higher than official Covid toll, study finds
The number of people worldwide who died because of the pandemic in its first two years may total more than 18 million, according to a sobering study released Thursday. That's three times more than the reported global death toll from Covid-19, which crossed 6 million earlier this week. The research, published in the peer-reviewed journal The Lancet, analyzed data from 74 countries and 266 states and territories between Jan. 1, 2020, and Dec. 31, 2021.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/excess-pandemic-deaths-are-3-higher-official-covid-toll-study-rcna19497Climate Change Brings Extreme, Early Impact to South America
Scientists have long been warning that extreme weather would cause calamity in the future. But in South America — which in just the last month has had deadly landslides in Brazil, wildfire in Argentine wetlands and flooding in the Amazon so severe it ruined harvests — that future is already here ... Global warming is altering the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events, such as El Nino and La Nina, the natural heating and cooling of parts of the Pacific that alters weather patterns around the globe. These events have also become more difficult to predict, causing additional damage ... most governments across the region have failed to heed the IPCC's warnings and stop the destruction. Many South American leaders have remained silent about illegal logging and mining activities in sensitive regions.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-01/climate-change-brings-extreme-early-impact-to-south-americaUN panel's grim climate change report: 'Parts of the planet will become uninhabitable'
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report is a "dire warning about the consequences of inaction" on climate change. It's not just ecosystems and weather being affected by warming: People are suffering and dying, experts say. In North America, human life, safety and livelihood will be at risk from sea-level rise, severe storms and hurricanes, especially in coastal areas ... Life in some locations on the planet is rapidly reaching the point where it will be too hot for the species that live there to survive, international climate experts said in a report Monday. “With climate change, some parts of the planet will become uninhabitable,” said German scientist Hans-Otto Pörtner, co-chair of Working Group II for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which produced the report released in Berlin.
https://eu.statesman.com/story/news/world/2022/02/28/un-climate-change-report/6927625001/UN 'house on fire' climate report key to action
A new science report from the United Nations spells out in excruciating detail the pain of climate change to people and the planet with the idea—the hope really—that if leaders pay attention, some of the worst can be avoided or lessened. Monday's report is about the impacts, what climate change has done, is doing and will do to people and the world we live in. One scientist calls it the "Your House is On Fire" report ... "It is a massive compendium of how climate change is affecting us here, now, in ways that matter to our lives."
https://phys.org/news/2022-02-house-climate-key-action.htmlAntarctic sea ice falls to lowest level since measurements began in 1979
Data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center showed the Southern Ocean sea ice coverage had fallen below 2m sq km for the first time since satellite measurement began more than 40 years ago ... Dr Walt Meier, a senior research scientist with the NSIDC, said it coincided with strong winds over part of the Ross Sea that had pulled ice to the north, where it melted in warmer waters or was broken up by waves. This pushed the sea ice extent – the area of the ocean covered by at least 15% floating ice – to below the previous record low.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/23/antarctic-sea-ice-falls-to-lowest-level-since-measurements-began-in-1979Wildfires likely to increase by a third by 2050, warns UN
The escalating climate crisis and land-use change are driving a global increase in extreme wildfires ... Wildfires are becoming an expected part of life on every continent, except Antarctica, destroying the environment, wildlife, human health and infrastructure, according to the report, which was written in collaboration with GRID-Arendal, a non-profit environmental communications centre. The report warned of a “dramatic shift in fire regimes worldwide”.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/23/climate-crisis-driving-increase-in-wildfires-across-globe-says-report-aoeAs drought lingers, larger and more destructive wildfires pose new threats to water supply
In a UCLA-led study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers determined that increasing forest fire activity is “unhinging” western U.S. stream flow from its historical predictability. In areas where more than a fifth of the forest had burned, stream flow increased by an average of 30% for six years after the fire. On its surface, increased stream flow — the rate at which water is carried by rivers and streams — could be seen as a boon for the drought-stricken region. But too much water comes with hazards, including increased erosion, flooding and debris flows. “Water is a really heavy, destructive thing, so when there’s too much of it, or when we get surprised by a large amount of water at once, it’s definitely not a good thing,” said Park Williams, an associate professor of geography at UCLA and one of the study’s lead authors. The findings underscore how extreme wildfire can alter long-established water cycles. Now, as the state moves into a new era of heat, flames and dryness driven by climate change, the conversation around water in the West must increasingly account for fire. “We need to be adapting quickly, because the fires are increasing in size and intensity, despite our best efforts to continue controlling them,” Williams said. “We — and our hydrological infrastructure — are not really suited to deal with it.”
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-02-21/growing-wildfires-pose-new-problems-for-water-supplyClimate change is intensifying Earth’s water cycle at twice the predicted rate, research shows
Rising temperatures pushing much more freshwater towards poles than climate models previously estimated Scientists have long known that rising global temperatures are intensifying the global water cycle, with dry subtropical regions likely to get drier as freshwater moves towards wet regions. Last August, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s sixth assessment report concluded that climate change will cause long-term changes to the water cycle, resulting in stronger and more frequent droughts and extreme rainfall events. Sohail said the volume of extra freshwater that had already been pushed to the poles as a result of an intensifying water cycle was far greater than previous climate models suggest.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/24/climate-change-is-intensifying-earths-water-cycle-at-twice-the-predicted-rate-research-shows
reporting on a study at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04370-wClimate scientist in Antarctica speaks to Metro Vancouver officials about 'doomsday' glacier
The water underneath an ice shelf is 3 C above the freezing point, which has frightening implications for how fast the glacier is melting. “This is absolutely massive. So this ice sheet that I’m standing on is melting from the bottom and is melting in some places by 100 metres per year, which is an enormous number. It’s the largest melt anywhere on Earth,” said Holland, who is also a professor of mathematics and atmosphere/ocean science at New York University. “This is why this has garnered worldwide attention.” Holland is part of an international team on two research icebreakers sent to the Antarctic about two months to figure out how fast the widest ice shelf on Earth is breaking apart. Cracks in the glacier have raised the alarm that it could collapse sooner than expected ... this latest research in the Antarctic isn’t included in the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s prediction of a sea level rise of one metre by 2100, which means it could be much higher than policy-makers are anticipating in their climate action plans ... Thwaites could break up within five years but scientists are still trying to figure out what will happen to the sea level once it does because it acts as a cork to Antarctica’s ice.
https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/climate-scientist-in-antarctica-speaks-to-metro-vancouver-officials-about-doomsday-glacierIn One Part of Europe, Soil Is Rapidly Degrading. It's a Warning to Us All In the Mediterranean region, the soil is degrading, and land is turning to desert faster than anywhere else in the European Union, according to a new analysis. Experts warn that the combined effects of unsustainable land practices and climate change have depleted a finite resource to a critical point. A recent publication by a European commission on soil health found up to 70 percent of soils in the EU were losing the capacity to provide crucial ecological functions ... Droughts have been increasing in the Mediterranean since the 1950s, and it's already forced some farmers to abandon their land, risking desertification. This can also increase the chance of wildfires.
https://www.sciencealert.com/experts-warn-mediterranean-soil-is-reaching-a-critical-limit
reporting on a study at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969721051810Unexpected Fish and Squid Found Thriving in Rapidly Warming Central Arctic Ocean The Arctic region is the most hastily warming part of the Earth. As a consequence, the marine environment across the North Pole, the Central Arctic Ocean (CAO), is in rapid transition from a permanently to a seasonally ice-blanketed ocean. This implies a massive environmental change of Earth's northernmost surroundings, which includes deep intercontinental basins and submarine ridges overlaying an area of 3.3 million km.
https://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/49500/20220219/unexpected-fish-squid-found-central-arctic-ocean.htmDrought Worries Return After Driest January and February in California History The first two months of 2022 are shaping up to be the driest January and February in California history, prompting state officials to warn of dire water conditions ahead ... the past six weeks — usually among the wettest months in California — have seen precipitation totals plateau at roughly half the yearly average in the state’s major watersheds. The dry spell follows the driest year in California since 1924, as aridity continues to dominate the West. The prolonged drought, which began in early 2020, leaves many water suppliers leaning more on their stored water supplies or shifting to other sources, such as groundwater. Jennifer Pierre, general manager of the State Water Contractors, an association of water agencies in Southern and Northern California and the San Joaquin Valley that receive supplies from the State Water Project, called the storms late last year “a blip” that meant little to California’s water supplies.
https://timesofsandiego.com/politics/2022/02/19/drought-worries-return-after-driest-january-and-february-in-california-history/Flourishing plants show warming Antarctica undergoing ‘major change’
The increase in plants since 2009 has been greater than the previous 50 years combined ... primary driver of change is warming summer air, according to the study, which provides one of the longest records of changes in vegetation in Antarctica. A secondary reason is there are fewer fur seals on the island, which trample on the plants. It is not known why the number of seals has declined but it is likely to be related to changes in food availability ... Warming trends are expected to continue, with more ice-free areas created over the coming decades ... “Our findings support the hypothesis that future warming will trigger significant changes in these fragile Antarctic ecosystems,” researchers wrote in the paper, published in Current Biology.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/14/flourishing-plants-show-warming-antarctica-undergoing-major-change-aoeUN science report to sound deafening alarm on climate
Nearly 200 nations kick off a virtual meeting Monday to finalise what promises to be a harrowing scientific overview of accelerating climate impacts ... driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels, with last year seeing a cascade of deadly floods, heatwaves and wildfires across four continents ... [will] outline in stark detail what the best available science tells us are the impacts of the changing climate ... species extinction, ecosystem collapse, crippling health impacts from disease and heat, water shortages — all will accelerate in the coming decades even if the carbon emissions that drive global warming are drawn down ... the report will probably emphasise more than ever before dangerous "tipping points", invisible temperature trip wires in the climate system for irreversible and potentially catastrophic change. Some of them — such as the melting of permafrost housing twice as much carbon as in the atmosphere — could fuel global warming all on their own.
https://phys.org/news/2022-02-science-deafening-alarm-climate.htmlWestern megadrought is worst in 1,200 years, intensified by climate change, study finds
The extreme dryness that has ravaged the American West for more than two decades now ranks as the driest 22-year period in at least 1,200 years, and scientists have found that this megadrought is being intensified by humanity’s heating of the planet ... judging from the past, may persist for years ... “drought conditions we are facing now are substantially worse because of climate change,” said Park Williams, a climate scientist at UCLA and the study’s lead author ... “there is quite a bit of room for drought conditions to get worse” ... The scientists pointed out that the flow of the Colorado River during the 2020 and 2021 water years shrank to the lowest two-year average in more than a century of recordkeeping. The river supplies water across seven states, from Wyoming to California, and to northern Mexico. But it has been chronically overused, and the drought has compounded the problems. Over the past year, its two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, declined to their lowest levels on record ... 96% of the Western U.S. is now abnormally dry or worse, and 88% of the region is in drought [so] the research should serve as a warning that the drying could get much worse in the years and decades to come.
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-02-14/western-megadrought-driest-in-1200-years
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01290-zSerious, Salty Trouble Is Brewing Under Antarctic Glaciers
Alarming new research suggests warm seawater is rushing under the ice, perhaps doubling the rate of melting. The problem isn’t so much that the sun’s beating down on them, but that the warming sea is uppercutting them. The bit of a glacier that’s resting on land is known as an ice sheet, and the bit floating on the ocean is the ice shelf. The exact divider between them, where the ice lifts off, is called the grounding line. As the world rapidly warms, that line is falling back. And as a result, Antarctica’s glaciers may be degrading far faster than scientists anticipated ... current glacier melt models don’t account for a phenomenon called tidal pumping. Whenever the tide rises, it heaves Thwaites’ ice sheet upward, allowing relatively warm seawater to rush farther upstream underneath the glacier. That drives melting along its belly, making the ice sheet more prone to fracture. “It means that warm water that is at the bottom of the glacier can infiltrate up to several kilometers upstream” [and] the more of the glacier’s underside that’s exposed to seawater, the more melting.
https://www.wired.com/story/serious-salty-trouble-may-be-brewing-under-antarctic-glaciers/Oil firms’ climate claims are greenwashing, study concludes
Accusations of greenwashing against major oil companies that claim to be in transition to clean energy are well-founded, according to the most comprehensive study to date ... study found a sharp rise in mentions of “climate”, “low-carbon” and “transition” in annual reports in recent years, especially for Shell and BP, and increasing pledges of action in strategies. But concrete actions were rare and the researchers said: “Financial analysis reveals a continuing business model dependence on fossil fuels along with insignificant and opaque spending on clean energy ... If they were moving away from fossil fuels we would expect to see, for example, declines in exploration activity, fossil fuel production, and sales and profit from fossil fuels. But if anything, we find evidence of the reverse happening.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/16/oil-firms-climate-claims-are-greenwashing-study-concludesHow Climate Change Is Destroying Arctic Coasts
Global warming is causing permafrost in the Arctic to thaw and sea ice to melt. As a result, coasts are less protected and are being eroded, while carbon stored in the soil and carbon dioxide are being released into the ocean and atmosphere. In a first, researchers at Universität Hamburg have now calculated the future scale of these processes for the entire Arctic. Their conclusion: each degree of warming accelerates them considerably. Their findings have now been published in the journal Nature Climate Change [which] has for the first time calculated the future balance for the Arctic as a whole – an important achievement, since coastal erosion varies greatly from region to region.
https://www.uni-hamburg.de/en/newsroom/presse/2022/pm6.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01281-0Corn ethanol no better — and probably worse — than burning gasoline, study says
For over a decade, the US has blended ethanol with gasoline in an attempt to reduce the overall carbon pollution produced by fossil fuel-powered cars and trucks. But a new study says that the practice may not be achieving its goals. In fact, burning ethanol made from corn—the major source in the US—may be worse for the climate than just burning gasoline alone. Corn drove demand for land and fertilizer far higher than previous assessments had estimated. Together, the additional land and fertilizer drove up ethanol’s carbon footprint to the point where the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions—from seed to tank—were higher than that of gasoline. Some researchers predicted this might happen, but the new paper provides a comprehensive and retrospective look at the real-world results of the policy.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/02/us-biofuel-mandate-likely-increased-carbon-emissions-inflated-crop-prices-20-30/
reporting on a study at https://www.pnas.org/content/119/9/e2101084119Climate Change Is Dramatically Changing Birdlife Across Europe
By contributing to global warming, humans are causing major disruptions to birdlife ... annual northward bird migration between Africa and Europe, which traditionally starts this month, is being impacted. Migrants are arriving earlier, staying longer, and in some cases not returning south ... Global warming and increasing desertification has been changing habitats and food availability in Africa, thus making Portugal and all other European spring and summer breeding grounds even more attractive than they used to be. Studies forecast that many of the commonest migrants will continue to spend as much as two months longer in Europe before returning south in the autumn or winter - and that an increasing number may cease to be long-distance travellers ever again ... overall population of birds in Europe has decreased by around 600 million since 1980. Most of them are common species such as sparrows, starlings and skylarks. Many have been wiped out by agricultural developments, land clearance, air pollution and insecticides ... equivalent population decrease over the same period in the United States and Canada is estimated to be more than two billion.
https://algarvedailynews.com/wildlife/20144-climate-change-is-dramatically-changing-birdlife-across-europeCo-occurring droughts could threaten global food security
[C]ontinuing fossil fuel dependence will [create] an approximately ninefold increase in agricultural and human population exposure to severe co-occurring droughts ... a result of a warming climate coupled with a projected 22% increase in the frequency of El Niño and La Niña events, the two opposite phases of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)... projections show that nearly 75% of compound droughts in the future will coincide with these irregular but recurring periods of climatic variation.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220209093355.htm
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01276-3Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane
Methane concentrations in the atmosphere raced past 1,900 parts per billion last year, nearly triple preindustrial levels, according to data released in January by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ... The growth of methane emissions slowed around the turn of the millennium, but began a rapid and mysterious uptick around 2007. The spike has caused many researchers to worry that global warming is creating a feedback mechanism that will cause ever more methane to be released, making it even harder to rein in rising temperatures ... estimate that microbes are responsible for around 85% of the growth in emissions since 2007, with fossil-fuel extraction accounting for the remainder ... “Is warming feeding the warming? It’s an incredibly important question,” says Nisbet. “As yet, no answer, but it very much looks that way.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00312-2Greenhouse gas emission impact from peatland fires underestimated by 200–300 percent
Deforestation fires in Brazil and Indonesia accounted for 3 percent and 7 percent, respectively, of the planet's total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2019 and 2020, finds a new study ... showing a severe underrepresentation by previous estimations ... forest fires in 2019 and 2020, such as the wildfires in Australia and California, and the deforestation fires in Brazil and Indonesia, accounted for between 10 percent and 15 percent of global GHG emissions ... Comparing the results of the study with previous GHG estimates shows that the prior data is underestimating the true impact of deforestation fires by two- to threefold.
https://phys.org/news/2022-02-greenhouse-gas-emission-impact-peatland.html‘We no longer have a fire season. We have a fire year.’ Heat, winds fuel two winter blazes in Southern California
A wind-driven brush fire that broke out in the hills in Laguna Beach amid high temperatures and winds forced residents to flee ... “This is exactly what fire service in state of California has been talking about for the last couple of years,” the chief said. "We no longer have a fire season. We have a fire year. It’s Feb. 10. This is supposed to be the middle of winter and we’re anticipating 80 to 90 degree weather. Even though the hillsides are green it doesn’t take but low humidity and wind to cause fires to occur. If this is any sign of what’s to come throughout the rest of the winter and spring we’re in for a long year.”
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-02-10/brush-fire-near-laguna-beach-threatens-homesWater Supplies From Glaciers May Peak Sooner Than Anticipated
In the tropical Andes, for instance, the study estimated glacier volume to be 27 percent less than the scientific consensus as of a few years ago. In parts of Russia and northern Asia, glacier volume was 35 percent smaller, the study found ... melting of glaciers is threatening livelihoods and reshaping landscapes in North America, Europe, New Zealand and many places in between ... In the upper Indus basin of the Himalayas, which straddles Afghanistan, China, India and Pakistan, glacial melt accounts for nearly half of river flow ... With 1.5 billion people benefiting from the water and other resources of the Himalayas, while also facing growing risks of severe floods, the region “is just waiting for a disaster to happen” ... the big picture globally — that the glaciers will thin substantially during this century — is unlikely to change much, Dr. Hock said. “There is only so much ice, and then it’s gone.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/07/climate/glaciers-water-global-warming.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00885-zWater reserves in Spain fall to 45%
This situation in the reservoirs is added to the lack of rain, which in the first four months of this hydrological year - from October 2021 to September 2022 - resulted in a deficit of 35%. According to the Spanish State Meteorological Agency (Aemet), forecast models suggest that in the coming months there is a 50% probability that rainfall will be below average and only 20% that it will be above average, in a period of the year when it is usually the most intense rainfall recorded.
https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/2022-02-08/water-reserves-in-spain-fall-to-45/65124Ghost village emerges in Spain as drought empties reservoir
A [submerged town] has emerged as drought has nearly emptied a dam on the Spanish-Portuguese border ... reservoir at 15% of its capacity, details of a life frozen in 1992, when the Aceredo village in Spain’s north-western Galicia region was flooded to create the Alto Lindoso reservoir ... “this is what will happen over the years due to drought and all that, with climate change.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/11/ghost-village-emerges-in-spain-as-drought-empties-reservoir-aceredoMaximum [Portugal] temperature in January was the highest in 90 years, extreme drought increases in the South
Last January was hot and very dry in mainland Portugal, announced the Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA) in its climate report [with] “daily values of maximum air temperature almost always higher than the monthly average value” ... lack of rain and higher temperatures led to “a very significant worsening of the meteorological drought situation, with an increase in area and intensity” ... at the end of last month, the entire [country] was in drought.
https://www.sulinformacao.pt/en/2022/02/temperatura-maxima-em-janeiro-foi-a-mais-alta-dos-ultimos-90-anos-seca-extrema-aumenta-no-sul/The extinction crisis that no one’s talking about
Coffee, wine, and wheat varieties are among the foods we could lose forever
There are just two species of coffee plants on which the entire multibillion-dollar industry is based: One of them is considered poor-tasting, and the other, which you’re likely familiar with, is threatened by climate change and a deadly fungal disease. Thankfully there’s another kind of coffee out there, known as stenophylla. It has a higher heat tolerance, greater resistance to certain fungal pathogens, and it tastes great. [But] Stenophylla is just one of dozens of important foods that are threatened with extinction ... As we grow and harvest fewer varieties of plants and animals, the foods you can buy in the grocery store may become less nutritious and flavorful, and — as the current state of coffee demonstrates — the global food system could become less resilient.
https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/22906478/food-diversity-extinction-dan-saladinoPreparing for Category 6 hurricanes, a new facility will test winds of 200 mph and storm surge
National Science Foundation (NSF) just awarded a $12.8 million grant to FIU's Extreme Events Institute for the design of a full-scale testing facility capable of producing winds of 200 mph, along with a water basin to simulate storm surge and wave action in extreme winds ... storms are getting stronger, moving slower and are holding more water than ever before. They are also rapidly intensifying, meaning the winds are increasing ... "The scientific consensus is that we're going to see more intense storms, so we have to research and test for more intense storms."
https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/07/weather/category-6-hurricane-wxn/index.htmlClimate Change Has Likely Begun To Suffocate The World’s Fisheries
[M]id-ocean depths that support many fisheries worldwide are already losing oxygen at unnatural rates and passed a critical threshold of oxygen loss in 2021 ... as the oceans warm due to climate change, their water can hold less oxygen. Scientists have been tracking the oceans’ steady decline in oxygen for years, but the new study provides new, pressing reasons to be concerned sooner rather than later. The new study is the first to use climate models to predict how and when deoxygenation, which is the reduction of dissolved oxygen content in water, will occur throughout the world’s oceans outside its natural variability ... The results were published in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters.
https://news.agu.org/press-release/climate-change-has-likely-begun-to-suffocate-the-worlds-fisheriesA satellite finds massive methane leaks from gas pipelines
Thomas Lauvaux, a researcher with the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences in France, says there's been a persistent discrepancy between official estimates of methane emissions and field observations. "For years, every time we had data [on methane emissions] — we were flying over an area, we were driving around — we always found more emissions than we were supposed to see," he says. Researchers turned to satellites in an effort to get more clarity. The European Space Agency launched an instrument three years ago called the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) that can measure the methane in any 12-square-mile block of the atmosphere, day by day. Lauvaux says that TROPOMI detected methane releases that the official estimates did not foresee. "No one expects that pipelines are sometimes wide open, pouring gas into the atmosphere," he says. Yet they were ... Lauvaux and his colleagues published their findings this week in the journal Science.
https://www.npr.org/2022/02/03/1077392791/a-satellite-finds-massive-methane-leaks-from-gas-pipelines
see also https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60203683As Earth warms, air conditioning use could exceed power supply in next decade
[R]esidents can expect more rolling blackouts like those seen during the punishing heatwave of August 2020, or even prolonged outages like the ones that followed severe winter storms that hit Texas in February 2021, according to the authors of the study, which appeared in Earth’s Future, a publication of the American Geophysical Union. The researchers projected an even bigger increase in air conditioner-less days in some Southern and Midwestern states. Researchers predicted an average of 13.9 days for Missouri and 13.5 days for Illinois.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-02-04/as-earth-warms-air-conditioning-could-exceed-power-supplyCountries Back Away from Pledge to Update Climate Goals This Year
[E]ven before the ink was dry on the Glasgow pact, questions about how many nations would actually honor their pledges were already circulating ... in 2021, the first year such updates were due, some countries like Australia and Indonesia submitted targets that did nothing to limit their emissions. Others, like India, didn’t submit new plans at all ... U.S. would not submit a new target ... Australia and Canada are also unlikely to put forward new NDCs ... [China] says the nation will “peak” its [CO2] emissions before 2030, but it doesn’t put a ceiling on that peak [and] did not join an international pledge to cut methane 30 percent this decade.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/countries-back-away-from-pledge-to-update-climate-goals-this-year/Remnant of Antarctica’s Larsen B Ice Shelf Disintegrates
Twenty years after the Antarctic Peninsula’s Larsen B Ice Shelf disintegrated in spectacular fashion, a remaining portion of that ice shelf dramatically broke apart last month ... appears that warm, wet weather — once unheard of in this part of Antarctica — may have melted and destabilized the embayment ... Antarctic Peninsula has been steadily warming in recent decades, causing the Larsen A Ice Shelf to collapse in 1995 and the 1,250-square-mile Larsen B to collapse in early 2002. The Larsen B embayment was a portion of the defunct ice shelf that refroze in 2011 ... shelves act as dams that hold back the land-based glaciers behind them, and the loss of the shelves dramatically increases the rate at which the glaciers flow into the sea, which does raise sea levels ... with sea ice now gone in the Larsen B embayment, “the likelihood is that backstress will be reduced on all glaciers in the [embayment] and that additional inland ice losses will be coming soon.”
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/remnant-portion-of-antarcticas-larsen-b-ice-shelf-disintegrates
see also https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/149410/larsen-b-embayment-breaks-upEverest’s highest glacier has lost 2,000 years of ice in 30 years
The study, published in the Nature Portfolio Journal Climate and Atmospheric Research, found that Mount Everest’s South Col Glacier, which climbers traverse on their way to the summit, may have lost half its mass since the 1990s as a result of warming temperatures in the region ... expedition head and lead scientist Paul Mayewski [said] “It was the most complete scientific experiment ever conducted on the south side of Everest” ... mountain glaciers around the world are in rapid retreat as a result of climate change. But, says Mayewski, a glaciologist who is director of the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute, there is relatively little information about glaciers at the highest elevations ... radiocarbon dating revealed that the ice at the surface was approximately 2,000 years old. In other words, any ice that had been laid down on the glacier in the past two millennia was simply gone ... most of this loss has occurred since the 1990s.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/perpetual-planet-everests-highest-glacier-has-lost-2000-years-of-ice-in-30-years
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-022-00230-0Study ties environmental conservation to pandemic prevention
Reduced deforestation, better management of wildlife trade and hunting, and better surveillance of zoonotic pathogens before they spill over into human populations should be considered “primary pandemic prevention,” according to the report published in Science Advances, which calculates their annual costs at $20 billion. That’s less than 5 percent of the lowest estimated value of lives lost from emerging infectious diseases every year, from the coronavirus to HIV. In particular, the paper says, current funding for monitoring and surveillance of the wildlife trade is inadequate and enables zoonotic diseases to cross over to humans by increasing human-animal contact.
https://www.eenews.net/articles/study-ties-environmental-conservation-to-pandemic-prevention/
reporting on a study at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abl4183Catastrophe-Bond Market Hits a Record $12.8 Billion as Extreme Weather Worsens
Catastrophe bonds reached a record in 2021, with more than $12.8 billion of new issuance, surpassing the previous annual high set a year earlier. The insurance-linked securities market also saw a dozen companies issue cat bonds for the first time, despite a “challenging year of catastrophe losses,” Swiss Re AG said in a report Thursday. Last year’s new issuance topped 2020’s $11.3 billion total. The growth in the cat-bond market, which helps provide capital for risks from natural disasters such as hurricanes and wildfires, comes as insurers hunt for ways to deal with increasing costs brought on by worsening extreme weather events.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-03/catastrophe-bond-market-hits-record-at-12-8-billion-in-issuancePlants in the UK flower a month earlier under recent warming
Global temperatures are rising at an unprecedented rate, but environmental responses are often difficult to recognize and quantify ... we present 419354 recordings of the first flowering date [FFD] from 406 plant species in the UK between 1753 and 2019 CE ... study reveals that the UK's community-wide mean FFDs advanced by almost one month from the mid-1980s compared to all phenological observations of the preceding years since 1753 CE ... our observed phenological trends and extremes are much greater than those reported by the UK Spring Index that informs the British government and is used for public guidance ... we conclude that if plants in the UK continue to flower earlier, and if the frequency, intensity and duration of climatic extremes increase further, the functioning and productivity of biological, ecological and agricultural systems will be at an unprecedented risk.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2021.2456All coral will suffer severe bleaching when global heating hits 1.5C, study finds
Almost no corals on the planet will escape severe bleaching once global heating reaches 1.5C, according to a new study of the world’s reefs ... at 1.5C of global heating, only 0.2% of the area covered by reefs is in water cool enough to avoid bleaching at least once every five years – a frequency considered too short to allow corals to recover ... Even areas with strong currents that can protect corals from heat, such as those in Panama, Florida and the Lesser Sunda Islands in Indonesia, would be overwhelmed by the heat ... the study, published in the journal PLOS Climate, showed corals worldwide were at even greater risk from climate change than previously thought.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/01/all-coral-will-suffer-severe-bleaching-when-global-heating-hits-15c-study-findsThe past’s extreme ocean heat waves are now the new normal
A new analysis of surface ocean temperatures over the past 150 years reveals that in 2019, 57 percent of the ocean’s surface experienced temperatures rarely seen a century ago, researchers report February 1 in PLOS Climate. [The study] analyzed monthly sea-surface temperatures from 1870 through 2019, mapping where and when extreme heat events occurred decade to decade. Looking at monthly extremes rather than annual averages revealed new benchmarks in how the ocean is changing. More and more patches of water hit extreme temperatures over time, the team found. Then, in 2014, the entire ocean hit the “point of no return,” Van Houtan says. Beginning that year, at least half of the ocean’s surface waters saw temperatures hotter than the most extreme events from 1870 to 1919 ... This study emphasizes that ocean heat extremes are also now the norm, Van Houtan says. “Much of the public discussion now on climate change is about future events, and whether or not they might happen,” he says. “Extreme heat became common in our ocean in 2014. It’s a documented historical fact, not a future possibility.”
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ocean-extreme-heat-wave-past-climate-new-normal
reporting on a study at https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000007Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane
Methane concentrations in the atmosphere raced past 1,900 parts per billion last year, nearly triple pre-industrial levels, according to data released in January by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ... spike has caused many researchers to worry that global warming is creating a feedback mechanism that will cause ever more methane to be released, making it even harder to rein in rising temperatures.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00312-2Pioneering research forecasts climate change set to send costs of flooding soaring
Climate change could result in the financial toll of flooding rising by more than a quarter in the United States by 2050—and disadvantaged communities will bear the biggest brunt, according to new research ... Lead author Dr. Oliver Wing, Honorary Research Fellow at the university's world-renowned Cabot Institute for the Environment, said: "Climate change combined with shifting populations present a double whammy of flood risk danger and the financial implications are staggering. Typical risk models rely on historical data which doesn't capture projected climate change or offer sufficient detail. Our sophisticated techniques using state-of-the-science flood models give a much more accurate picture of future flooding and how populations will be affected."
https://phys.org/news/2022-01-climate-soaring.htmlMore 'snowmageddon' and 'bomb cyclone' winter storms are in our future
[A]s the globe warms in response to relentless emissions of greenhouse gases, the Arctic warms much faster than the rest of the world ... loss of snow and ice makes the planet less reflective and increases the absorption of solar radiation. The weaker temperature contrast between the high and low latitudes makes the jet stream more sinuous, which allows cold Arctic air to penetrate southward, creating “polar vortex” events that can mean more extreme cold, storminess and snow ... oceans have absorbed more than over 90 percent of the human-caused warming, and warmer oceans contribute more water vapor to the atmosphere. Just as hurricanes are getting supercharged by warmer atmosphere and ocean temperatures, the warmer atmosphere and ocean likely helped increase snowfall rates ... [and] sea-level rise has been nonstop over the last century due to global warming, and this serves to amplify coastal flooding due to storm surges ... As the climate continues to warm, we can expect to see even more extreme winter storms. But with time, they won’t all be snowstorms. As temperatures rise, major winter storms will shift to producing mixed snow and rain, freezing rain or simply intense rain, creating a different range of hazards.
https://seas.umich.edu/news/more-snowmageddon-and-bomb-cyclone-winter-storms-are-our-futureBarely 15% of the world’s coastal regions remain ecologically intact, study says
The study, led by researchers at the University of Queensland, used satellite data to examine the extent to which human activities have encroached on coastlines around the globe. It found that up to 2013 – the latest year for which the data was available – few intact coastlines remained, with even remote areas such as the Kimberley region of Western Australia affected by fishing and mining. The research, published in the scientific journal Conservation Biology, builds on previous work that examined human activities within terrestrial and marine ecosystems ... very few intact areas and often high levels of degradation were found in island nations, much of Europe, and countries including Vietnam, India and Singapore. Coastal regions containing seagrasses, savannah and coral reefs had the highest levels of human pressure.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/04/barely-15-of-the-worlds-coastal-regions-remain-ecologically-intact-study-saysA third of Americans already face above-average warming
The US as a whole has heated up over the past century due to the release of planet-warming gases from burning fossil fuels, and swathes of the US west, northeast and upper midwest – representing more than 124.6 million people – have recorded soaring increases since federal government temperature records began in 1895 ... “The warming isn’t distributed evenly,” said Brian Brettschneider, an Alaska-based climate scientist who collated the county temperature data from [NOAA] ... counties that include many of America’s largest cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Boston, have all seen their average temperatures rise far beyond the national average ... California is in the grip of its most severe drought in 1,200 years and scientists say this is fueling the heat seen in many places in the state – Los Angeles has warmed by 2.3C (4.2F) since 1895, while Santa Barbara has jumped by 2.4C (4.38F) ... It’s the more northern latitudes that have experienced the most extreme recent heat, however, with counties in Alaska making up all of the top six fastest warming places since 1970 (comparable temperature data for Alaska does not go back further than the 1920s). Alaska’s North slope, situated within the rapidly warming Arctic, has heated up by an enormous 3.7C (6.6F) in just the past 50 years.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/05/americans-above-average-temperature-increase-climate-crisisAlaska permafrost thaw is clue in mystery of Arctic methane explosions
[T]his episode of the public television program Nova ... follows University of Alaska Fairbanks [UAF] researchers investigating the appearance of craters, sometimes big ones, in northern regions. That’s where a rapidly warming climate has thawed permafrost and allowed more methane to percolate upward [via] a kind of tube, not unlike magma in a volcano, and then builds up pressure at the surface until it erupts ... Longtime permafrost researcher Dr. Vladimir Romanovsky with UAF’s Geophysical Institute, a professor emeritus as of this week, is featured in the Nova episode ... Romanovsky says there are several reasons to keep an eye on the exploding methane phenomenon. [Full transcript and audio at the link]
https://www.alaskapublic.org/2022/02/03/alaska-permafrost-thaw-is-clue-in-mystery-of-arctic-methane-explosionsThe future of hurricanes is full of floods—a lot of them
[T]he combined frequency of intense storm surge and rainfall that clobbers the coastline may increase by seven to 36 times in the southern US and 30 to 195 times in the Northeast. “The results that are presented in the paper give us a pretty good idea of what to possibly expect in the future,” says Thomas Wahl, a coastal engineer at the University of Central Florida who wasn’t involved in the research. “There will likely be a pretty dramatic change in…the likelihood that different flooding drivers occur simultaneously” ... climate change is altering the intensity, size, track, and frequency of hurricanes, says Ning Lin, an environmental engineer at Princeton University and coauthor of the new findings. These storm characteristics and sea level rise both influence how much damage hurricanes can wreak on coastal cities ... “In the future climate it’s more likely that we’ll get extreme surge and extreme rainfall at the same time, so that you will have much higher total flooding,” she says.
https://www.popsci.com/science/hurricanes-extreme-flooding/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01272-7Measuring climate change: It’s not just heat, it’s humidity
Researchers say temperature by itself isn’t the best way to measure climate change’s weird weather and downplays impacts in the tropics. But factoring in air moisture along with heat shows that climate change since 1980 is nearly twice as bad as previously calculated, according to their study in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The energy generated in extreme weather, such as storms, floods and rainfall is related to the amount of water in the air ... “There are two drivers of climate change: temperature and humidity,” Ramanathan said. “And so far we measured global warming just in terms of temperature.” But by adding the energy from humidity, “the extremes — heat waves, rainfall and other measures of extremes — correlate much better” ... water vapor is a potent heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere that increases climate change, he said. From 1980 to 2019, the world warmed about 1.42 degrees (0.79 degrees Celsius). But taking energy from humidity into account, the world has warmed and moistened 2.66 degrees (1.48 degrees Celsius), the study said. And in the tropics, the warming was as much as 7.2 degrees (4 degrees Celsius).
https://apnews.com/article/climate-floods-science-environment-and-nature-42655c2d26ebef9f76383a59bd1e6df0
reporting on a study at https://www.pnas.org/content/119/6/e2117832119Permafrost carbon emissions in a changing Arctic
Anthropogenic warming threatens to release an unknown quantity of this carbon to the atmosphere ... Abrupt thaw and thermokarst could emit a substantial amount of carbon to the atmosphere rapidly (days to years), mobilizing the deep legacy carbon sequestered in Yedoma. Carbon dioxide emissions are proportionally larger than other greenhouse gas emissions in the Arctic, but expansion of anoxic conditions within thawed permafrost and soils stands to increase the proportion of future methane emissions. Increasingly frequent wildfires in the Arctic will also lead to a notable but unpredictable carbon flux.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-021-00230-3Study: Gas stoves worse for climate than previously thought
Gas stoves are contributing more to global warming than previously thought because of constant tiny methane leaks while they’re off, a new study found ... Even when they are not running, U.S. gas stoves are putting 2.6 million tons of methane — in carbon dioxide equivalent units — into the air each year, a team of California researchers found in a study published in Thursday’s journal Environmental Science & Technology. That’s equivalent to the annual amount of greenhouse gases from 500,000 cars.
https://apnews.com/article/climate-science-california-united-states-environment-5750b9cec67fb0ae3075d654eddad2f6Parasites that thrive in a warming planet are killing Minnesota’s moose
Since 2006, the population in the state has fallen by 64 percent. “The moose is declining directly as a result of climate change,” said Seth Moore, a biologist who studies the animals ... the leading cause of moose death in northeast Minnesota [is] a type of parasitic brainworm. An odd downstream effect of climate change is that these 2- to 3-inch long critters are catching rides in from elsewhere — and are overwhelming the moose [having] slipped into this region via white-tailed deer, a host that the worms have co-evolved with and don’t cause any harm to (even though they burrow into the deer’s brains) ... Warmer winters are also driving the second-biggest moose killer that Moore and his team discovered: ticks. Climate change has caused a tick explosion by melting away what has typically kept their numbers in check ... Ice and snow used to kill a sizable portion of them [but that] is melting earlier than ever, so now more ticks survive, resulting in skyrocketing populations. It’s enough for fatal tick infestations. Moore and his colleagues have found moose covered in thousands of ticks.
https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/2022/1/28/22872494/climate-change-moose-minnesota-brainworm-ticks-deerGreat Barrier Reef on verge of another mass bleaching after highest temperatures on record
In the three months leading up to 14 December, an analysis from scientists at NOAA says heat stress over the corals reached a level “unprecedented in the satellite record” for that time of year. According to the analysis, temperatures were so hot that between mid-November and mid-December, the minimum temperatures over more than 80% of the reef were higher for that period than previous maximums ... “There’s never been heat stress like that in our records ... almost certainly a climate change signal.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/29/great-barrier-reef-on-verge-of-another-mass-bleaching-after-highest-temperatures-on-recordBirds [are] disappearing from our world
In the past half century, North America has lost more than one-fourth of its birds. Nearly everywhere, they are in decline. Massive die-offs ... thousands of birds “falling out of the sky” – have been recorded in recent years in New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Arizona and Nebraska ... Today only 30% of all birds are wild; the other 70% are mostly poultry chickens ... Of all the species that have ever existed, more than 99% are now gone, most having winked away during five major extinction events, the last caused by an asteroid that struck Earth some 66 million years ago. Today, given global habitat loss and widespread persistent toxins, we modern humans are the asteroid. The sixth mass extinction is here.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/28/birds-are-remarkable-and-beautiful-animals-and-theyre-disappearing-from-our-worldRio Verde Foothills [Arizona] Homes to Lose Water Source
The area known as Rio Verde Foothills looks abundant, from the desert landscaping to the red-tile roofs. But one thing isn’t abundant: water. The wealthy community north of Scottsdale is the site of the latest skirmish in a coming water war ... usage of wells and water haulers was doable until the drought worsened in Arizona. Scottsdale will cut off its supply at the end of 2022 as a part of its drought contingency plan, the city's Nov. 1 announcement said. “We’ve been telling them for five years since this began that we are not their permanent water solution,” said Valerie Schneider, Scottsdale Water’s public information officer. “At some point, we have to realize this is our water, we’re in a drought, we’re in a Colorado River shortage” ... “In most of the United States, people expect water access as a given ... We are very lucky in that regard because less than one percent of the world’s population has clean, running water 24/7. We are spoiled in that regard.”
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/arizona/articles/2022-01-22/exchange-rio-verde-foothills-homes-to-lose-water-sourceThawing permafrost can accelerate global warming
Thawing permafrost in the Arctic could be emitting greenhouse gasses from previously unaccounted-for carbon stocks, fuelling global warming [says] a study published in Frontiers in Earth Science [on] so-called 'yedoma' permafrost [which] contains up to 80 per cent ice [and] can thaw very abruptly, causing the bedrock to collapse and erode. Such processes, known as thermokarst, make carbon previously stored in the frozen ground accessible to microorganisms, which break it down and release it as carbon dioxide and methane. The greenhouse gas release amplifies global warming ... A large proportion of the carbon—up to 80 per cent—comes from ancient organic matter that was freeze-locked into the sediments more than 30,000 years ago [but] in addition, the team found out for the first time that up to 18 per cent of carbon dioxide comes from inorganic sources. "We did not expect that this previously unnoticed carbon source would account for such a high proportion of the total amount of greenhouse gasses released," said first author of the study Jan Melchert from the University of Cologne.
https://phys.org/news/2022-01-permafrost-global.html
reporting on a study at https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2021.737237/fullU.S. crop insurance payouts rise sharply as climate change worsens droughts, floods
The report reinforces concerns that insuring the nation’s crops will get more expensive for insurance companies, farmers and taxpayers as climate change drives more erratic weather events that disrupt agriculture ... Insurance payments to farmers due to drought rose more than 400% between 1995 and 2020 to $1.65 billion, while payments due to excess moisture – like floods - rose nearly 300% to $2.61 billion ... “As extreme weather has become more frequent, the climate crisis has already increased insurance payments and premium subsidies. These costs are expected to go up even more, as climate change causes even more unpredictable weather conditions," EWG said in the report.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/us-crop-insurance-payouts-rise-sharply-climate-change-worsens-droughts-floods-2022-01-27/Only 38% of 2021’s Natural Disaster Losses of $343B Were Covered by Insurance: Aon
Reporting on Aon Insurance “2021 Weather, Climate and Catastrophe Insight” study
This was the third-highest loss on record for such events ... “Many global communities are exposed to increasingly volatile weather conditions that are in part enhanced by the growing effects of climate change. This includes record-setting episodes of extreme temperatures, rainfall and flooding, droughts and wildfires, rapidly intensifying tropical cyclones and late season severe convective storms,” said Steve Bowen, meteorologist and head of Catastrophe Insight at Aon, in a statement.
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2022/01/26/650983.htm
full report available at https://www.aon.com/weather-climate-catastrophe/index.aspxPesticides released into Brazil’s Amazon to degrade rainforest and facilitate deforestation
Pesticides have been dropped [from aircraft] with the aim of evading IBAMA, the Brazilian environmental agency, for years as a method to clear remote and hard-to-reach areas of the Amazon rainforest. That practice — used more frequently since 2018 — takes longer than clear-cut deforestation (the removal of all existing vegetation using heavy machinery). On the other hand, pesticide use cannot be detected via real-time satellite imagery. According to IBAMA, some pesticides work as defoliants. The dispersion of those chemicals over native forest is the initial stage of deforestation, causing the death of leaves — and a good part of the trees. The material is burned and surviving trees are removed with chainsaws and tractors.
https://news.mongabay.com/2022/01/pesticides-released-into-brazils-amazon-to-degrade-rainforest-and-facilitate-deforestation/Deep Frozen Arctic Microbes Are Waking Up
Thawing permafrost is releasing microorganisms, with consequences that are still largely unknown
In the last 10 years, warming in the Arctic has outpaced projections [leading] to glacier melt and permafrost thaw levels that weren’t forecast to happen until 2050 or later ... Permafrost covers 24 percent of the Earth’s land surface ... As the permafrost thaws with increasing rapidity, scientists’ emerging challenge is to discover and identify the microbes, bacteria and viruses that may be stirring ... evidence of genes moving between thawing ecosystems indicates a restructuring at multiple levels. In the Arctic Ocean, planktonic Chloroflexi bacteria recently acquired genes used for degrading carbon from land-based Actinobacteria species. As melt-swollen Arctic rivers carried sediments from thawing permafrost to the sea, the genes for processing permafrost carbon were also transported ... Organisms that co-evolved within now-extinct ecosystems from the Cenozoic to the Pleistocene may also emerge and interact with our modern environment in entirely novel ways ... there are microbes that are entirely unfamiliar to scientists, which may represent a novel threat.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/deep-frozen-arctic-microbes-are-waking-up/Shell’s Massive Carbon Capture Plant Is Emitting More Than It’s Capturing
A first-of-its-kind “green” Shell facility in Alberta is emitting more greenhouse gases than it’s capturing ... Shell’s Quest carbon capture and storage facility captured 5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the hydrogen produced at its Scotford complex between 2015 and 2019. [But] the hydrogen plant emitted 7.5 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in the same timeframe—including methane, which has 80 times the warming power of carbon during its first 20 years in the atmosphere, and accounts for about a quarter of man-made warming today. To put that in perspective, the “climate-forward” part of the Scotford plant alone has the same carbon footprint per year as 1.2 million fuel-powered cars.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kb43x/shell-quest-carbon-capture-plant-albertaUN report: The world’s farms stretched to ‘a breaking point’
Almost 10% of the 8 billion people on earth are already undernourished with 3 billion lacking healthy diets, and the land and water resources farmers rely on stressed to “a breaking point” ... farmers have been able to boost agricultural productivity by irrigating more land and applying heavier doses of fertilizer and pesticides. But the report says these practices are not sustainable: They have eroded and degraded soil while polluting and depleting water supplies and shrinking the world’s forests ... the report makes clear that climate change is further stressing agricultural systems and amplifying global food production challenges ... by making weather more extreme and less reliable. Extreme heat can stress crops and farm workers while increasing evaporation of water from soil and transpiration from plants.
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2022/01/un-report-the-worlds-farms-stretched-to-a-breaking-point/Chemical pollution has passed safe limit for humanity, say scientists
The cocktail of chemical pollution that pervades the planet now threatens the stability of global ecosystems upon which humanity depends, scientists have said. Plastics are of particularly high concern, they said, along with 350,000 synthetic chemicals ... Chemical pollution threatens Earth’s systems by damaging the biological and physical processes that underpin all life ... “There has been a fiftyfold increase in the production of chemicals since 1950 and this is projected to triple again by 2050,” said Patricia Villarrubia-Gómez, a PhD candidate and research assistant at the Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC) who was part of the study team ... The chemical pollution planetary boundary is the fifth of nine that scientists say have been crossed.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/18/chemical-pollution-has-passed-safe-limit-for-humanity-say-scientists
reporting on a study at https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c04158One of the world's wealthiest oil exporting nations is becoming unliveable
Kuwait — one of the hottest countries on the planet — is fast becoming unlivable ... Dead birds appear on rooftops in the brutal summer months, unable to find shade or water. Vets are inundated with stray cats, brought in by people who’ve found them near death from heat exhaustion and dehydration. Even wild foxes are abandoning a desert that no longer blooms after the rains for what small patches of green remain in the city, where they’re treated as pests ... Kuwait is OPEC’s number 4 oil-exporter. Home to the world’s third-largest sovereign wealth fund and just over 4.5 million people, it’s not a lack of resources that stands in the way of cutting greenhouse gases and adapting to a warmer planet.
https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/one-of-the-world-s-wealthiest-oil-exporting-nations-is-becoming-unliveable-122011601067_1.htmlBubbles of methane rising from seafloor in Puget Sound
A University of Washington team has discovered 349 plumes of methane gas bubbling up from the seafloor in Puget Sound, which holds more water than any other U.S. estuary. The columns of bubbles are especially pronounced off Alki Point in West Seattle and near the ferry terminal in Kingston, Washington, according to a study in the January issue of Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems. “There’s methane plumes all over Puget Sound,” said lead author Paul Johnson, a UW professor of oceanography. “Single plumes are all over the place, but the big clusters of plumes are at Kingston and at Alki Point.”
https://www.washington.edu/news/2022/01/19/bubbles-of-methane-rising-from-seafloor-in-puget-sound/Rising ground ozone pollution causes crop loss worth $63b in East Asia
Ground ozone, a greenhouse gas known for contributing massively to climate change, also impacts the growth of crops. A team of researchers studied the impact of the pollutant on three major crops of the region: wheat, rice and maize. Wheat suffers the highest production loss in East Asia, amounting to $22 billion, followed by rice around $33 billion and maize $7.8 billion, according to a study published in the journal Nature Food on Tuesday. But “the highest relative yield losses were found in China – namely 33 percent, 23 percent and 9 percent for wheat, rice and maize, respectively,” said the study.
https://china-environment-news.com/2022/01/19/rising-ground-ozone-pollution-causes-crop-loss-worth-63b-in-east-asia/The Great Siberian Thaw
Permafrost contains microbes, mammoths, and twice as much carbon as Earth’s atmosphere. What happens when it starts to melt?
“The problem is, you can’t just turn off, let alone reverse, permafrost thaw,” Natali said. At a certain point, nature takes over. Even the most forward-thinking legislature in the world can’t pass a law banning emissions from permafrost. As Natali put it, “It won’t be possible to refreeze the ground and have it go back to how it was.”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/17/the-great-siberian-thawGulf of Maine waters warmed to highest fall temperatures on record
The Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland announced its findings Wednesday in its seasonal warming report, which showed average sea surface temperatures in the gulf hit 59.9 degrees, or more than 4 degrees above the long-term average ... the Gulf of Maine [is] warming faster than 96 percent of the world’s oceans ... GMRI’s report noted the gulf experienced marine heatwave conditions for almost the entirety of 2021.
https://www.pressherald.com/2022/01/12/gulf-of-maine-waters-spiked-to-record-warm-levels-in-fall-2021/Last nine years all among 10 hottest-ever, says US
The nine years spanning 2013-2021 all rank among the 10 hottest on record ... "this is driven by increasing concentrations of heat trapping gases like carbon dioxide," Russell Vose, a senior climatologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) told reporters ... Climate scientists say it is crucial to hold end-of-century warming to within a 1.5C [but at] the present rate of heating, the planet might hit 1.5C in the 2030s ... Land heat records were broken in parts of northern Africa, southern Asia, and southern South America in 2021, while record-high sea surface temperatures were observed across parts of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. There were no cold records broken for land or ocean areas.
https://phys.org/news/2022-01-years-hottest-ever.htmlStrong evidence shows Sixth Mass Extinction of global biodiversity in progress
[E]xperts warn that a Sixth Mass Extinction crisis is underway, this time entirely caused by human activities. A comprehensive assessment of evidence of this ongoing extinction event was published recently in the journal Biological Reviews by biologists from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa and the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, France. "Drastically increased rates of species extinctions and declining abundances of many animal and plant populations are well documented, yet some deny that these phenomena amount to mass extinction," said Robert Cowie, lead author of the study and research professor at the UH Mānoa Pacific Biosciences Research Center in the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST).
https://phys.org/news/2022-01-strong-evidence-sixth-mass-extinction.html
reporting on a study at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/brv.12816The world's insatiable appetite for electricity is setting up a climate disaster
A report published Friday by the International Energy Agency found that global demand for electricity surged 6% in 2021 [and] drove both prices and carbon emissions to new records ... IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said the report contained a stark warning for the future ... "underscores the massive changes needed for the electricity sector to fulfill its critical role in decarbonizing the broader energy system," Birol said in a statement. In the United States, coal-fired electricity generation spiked by 19% in 2021 ... emissions will remain high. The IEA found that emissions from the power sector will "remain around the same level from 2021 to 2024," even though they need to decline "sharply" for the world to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/14/energy/iea-electricity-climate/index.htmlThe US 'megadrought' sets another stunning record
At least 40% of the Lower 48 has gone more than 17 months in drought conditions ... Almost all of the US drought is located west of the Mississippi River, with extraordinarily dry conditions in far Western states, which scientists warn is a consequence of the climate crisis. Much of the West's drought is actually a long-term phenomenon, persisting from year to year without enough precipitation to lead to a full recovery, said Brad Rippey, a meteorologist with the US Department of Agriculture. "The Southwest has been experiencing what many scientists have termed a 'megadrought' for about two decades ... Despite the promising start to the Western winter wet season, additional storminess will be needed in early 2022 to sustain the recovery from a multiyear drought ... Tremendous gains in precipitation only go so far when you're starting from such a low number", Rippey said.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/13/weather/us-west-california-drought-record-68-weeks-climate/index.htmlNearly quarter of world’s population had record hot year in 2021
There were record-high temperatures in parts of northern Africa, south Asia and parts of South America last year, Arctic sea ice continued its decline and the oceans recorded yet another record year for heat content. “The oceans are storing a heck of a lot of heat,” said Russell Vose, a senior climate scientist at NOAA. “If it weren’t for the large heat storage capacity of the oceans, the atmosphere would’ve warmed a lot more rapidly” ... scientists said last year was yet another demonstration of the long-term global heating that is being caused by human activity, such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is now at levels not seen on Earth in the past 4 million years.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/13/hot-year-temperatures-climate-crisis-2021Rivers speeding up Arctic ice melt at alarming rate, experts say
[T]he northern regions of the world are warming faster than the rest – a trend scientists refer to as Arctic amplification ... Freshwater flowing into the Arctic Ocean from the continent is thought to exacerbate Arctic amplification ... New research led by Panyushkina measures how the flow of the Yenisei River — the largest freshwater river that flows into the Arctic Ocean — has changed over the last few hundred years, and describes the impact freshwater has had on the Arctic ... recent research, including Panyushkina's study, suggests that the primary driver is actually degradation of permafrost ... "We found an unprecedented increase in the winter flow rate over the last 25 years," Panyushkina said ... In turn, melting sea ice also exacerbates global warming.
https://news.arizona.edu/story/rivers-speeding-arctic-ice-melt-alarming-rate-experts-say
reporting on a study at https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac3e20Thawing Permafrost Is Poised to Unleash Havoc in The Arctic, Scientists Warn
Thawing Arctic permafrost laden with billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases not only threatens the region's critical infrastructure but life across the planet, according to a comprehensive scientific review. Nearly 70 percent of the roads, pipelines, cities, and industry – mostly in Russia – built on the region's softening ground are highly vulnerable to acute damage by mid-century, according to one of half-a-dozen studies on permafrost published this week by Nature. Another study warns that methane and CO2 escaping from long-frozen soil could accelerate warming and overwhelm global efforts to cap the rise in Earth's temperature at livable levels. Exposure of highly combustible organic matter no longer locked away by ice is also fueling unprecedented wildfires, making permafrost a triple threat, the studies report. Blanketing a quarter of the northern hemisphere's land mass, permafrost contains twice the carbon currently in the atmosphere, and triple the amount emitted by human activity since 1850.
https://www.sciencealert.com/thawing-permafrost-is-putting-more-than-just-our-global-climate-at-riskProjection: $110 Billion in Repairs for Russian Pipelines on Permafrost
Russia produces 80% of its natural gas in the Arctic, where rising temperatures are thawing ground that has been frozen for tens [to] hundreds of thousands of years. “Natural gas pipelines appear to be particularly vulnerable,” said Meredydd Evans, an Earth scientist with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory ... Most Russian pipelines are underground, making them particularly vulnerable to shifting soil. Soil settling unevenly deflects and deforms pipelines, and water pooling around the pipes corrodes them ... “Sixty-five percent of Russia’s territory is located in the permafrost zone, but this is not mentioned in a single federal program document, despite the fact that the permafrost area is a vital component in the natural environment, of which the landscape, vegetation and coastline is dependent,” Aleksander Kozlov, Russian minister of natural resources and the environment, said in a statement. More than 40% of Russia’s northern buildings are starting to collapse, he said.
https://eos.org/articles/projection-110-billion-in-repairs-for-russian-pipelines-on-permafrostAnother Record: Ocean Warming Continues through 2021 despite La Niña Conditions
The world ocean, in 2021, was the hottest ever recorded by humans, and the 2021 annual OHC value is even higher than last year’s record value, [due] to an increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. The year-to-year variation of OHC is primarily tied to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). In the seven maritime domains of the Indian, Tropical Atlantic, North Atlantic, Northwest Pacific, North Pacific, Southern oceans, and the Mediterranean Sea, robust warming is observed ... Four out of seven domains showed record-high heat content in 2021.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-022-1461-3A Vivid View of Extreme Weather: Temperature Records in the U.S. in 2021
“We do not live in a stable climate now,” said Robert Rohde, the lead scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent organization focused on environmental data science. “We will expect to see more extremes and more all-time records being set” ... Numerous records set in 2021 were broken by double digits. To explain these extremes, Dr. Rohde made a comparison with world records in the 100-meter dash. Runners typically break world records by hundredths of a second. Among the new temperature records, Dr. Rohde said, “it’s like someone came in and seemed to be running an entirely different race because they just blew past everything we’ve come to expect” ... climate change has pushed the extremes of temperature ranges around the world. “What were hot days in the past are becoming more common,” Dr. Rohde said.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/01/11/climate/record-temperatures-map-2021.htmlHow the speed of climate change is unbalancing the insect world
Excerpted from The Insect Crisis: the fall of the tiny empires that run the world
At 3.2C of warming, which many scientists still fear the world will get close to [about] half of all insect species will lose more than half of their current habitable range. This is about double the proportion [for] vertebrates and higher even than for plants, which lack wings or legs to quickly relocate themselves. This huge contraction in livable space is being heaped on to the existing woes faced by insects from habitat loss and pesticide use ... “Climate change is tricky because it’s hard to combat,” says Matt Forister, a professor of biology at the University of Nevada. “Pesticides are relatively straightforward by comparison but climate change [is] multifaceted." Insects are under fire from the poles to the tropics ... “climate change is going to be the nail in the coffin for quite a lot of creatures which are already in much reduced numbers,” says Dave Goulson, a University of Sussex ecologist.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jan/11/climate-change-insect-world-global-heating-species
full book review at https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/14/the-insect-crisis-by-oliver-milman-review-strange-and-fragile-beautyEmissions roared back last year after pandemic drop, figures show
Planet-heating emissions roared back in the United States in 2021, dashing hopes that the pandemic would prove a watershed moment in greening American society to address the climate crisis, new figures have shown ... These forecasts may well have been baseless, however, with the new research showing that US emissions rose by 6.2% last year, compared to 2020.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/10/us-emissions-climate-crisis-global-heatingClimate Change Is Causing Europe's Largest Glacier Mass to Rapidly Melt
Iceland's third-largest glacier and the largest glacier mass in Europe is now dissolving at rates never before seen in human history. That's because of human-caused climate change. Ice all over the planet is rapidly melting. Scientists say all that water rushing into the world's oceans is not only making sea levels rise but could also be changing the ocean's circulation and fueling more extreme weather events like hurricanes and heatwaves. Glaciologist Dr. M Jackson and her fellow researchers are bringing attention to the very real possibility that Iceland could lose nearly all of its ice in the next 100 years. They produced a short film called "After Ice" using historical pictures and new drone footage to show how quickly the landscape has changed. [Note: the video to the right is the film "After Ice" in full. Watch it fullscreen. It is stunning.]
https://www.insideedition.com/climate-change-is-causing-europes-largest-glacier-mass-to-rapidly-melt-72287Last seven years the hottest on record, 2021 data shows
The last seven years were the world’s hottest on record ... The assessment of the year, by the European climate agency Copernicus, also found carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached record levels and that the potent greenhouse gas methane surged “very substantially”, also to a new record ... Europe suffered its hottest summer on record and broke its maximum temperature record ... Extreme heat also caused the “mother of all heatwaves” in the west of the US and Canada. Temperature records were smashed by 5C and scientists calculated the event was made at least 150 times more likely by global heating ... China’s meteorological agency recently announced that 2021 was the country’s hottest year on record ... Copernicus data shows 21 of the 22 hottest years have come since the year 2000 ... Vincent-Henri Peuch, at Copernicus, said: “CO2 and methane concentrations are continuing to increase year-on-year and without signs of slowing down” ... Other temperature datasets for 2021 will be published in coming weeks by the UK and Japanese Met Offices and NASA and NOAA in the US, with similar results expected.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/10/climate-crisis-last-seven-years-the-hottest-on-record-2021-data-showsRising atmospheric CO2 concentrations globally affect photosynthesis of peat-forming mosses
Although peatlands cover only three percent of the global land surface, they store a third of the global soil carbon. Thus, uptake of CO2 by peat mosses is important [so] researchers from five continents collected peat cores from ten locations worldwide ... century-old peat mosses were then compared [which] revealed that increasing CO2 during the last 100 years has reduced photorespiration, which has probably boosted carbon storage in peatlands to date and dampened climate change. However, increasing atmospheric CO2 only reduced photorespiration in peatlands when water levels were intermediate, not when conditions were too wet or too dry ... Although peatlands have dampened CO2-driven climate change so far, the changes have already had devastating effects ... The study has been published in Scientific Reports.
https://phys.org/news/2022-01-atmospheric-co2-globally-affect-photosynthesis.html'There's nothing here': Oregon's southernmost glacier has completely melted
In a shock to researchers, the Lathrop Glacier, a glacier in Southern Oregon that has been there for as long as anyone can remember, has disappeared. It was Oregon's southernmost glacier, located in the Cascade Range in Douglas County. "It was documented in 1966," said Anders Carlson, president of the Oregon Glaciers Institute. "It's been then there probably for hundreds, if not thousands, of years." When Carlson went to check on the glacier in August 2020, it was gone. "I was shocked by how many glaciers have retreated and disappeared," he said. "And this one was the first one we really saw and were just like, 'Wow, there's nothing here.'" What was a sheet of ice and snow was just bare bedrock.
https://www.kgw.com/article/tech/science/climate-change/theres-nothing-here-oregons-southernmost-glacier-has-completely-melted/283-5da2a0c3-47c8-4d2e-9988-50fc5e84e31eFor 25th year in a row, Greenland ice sheet shrinks
The data from the Danish Arctic monitoring service Polar Portal – which forms part of the UN weather agency WMO’s annual State of the Climate report - shows that early summer was cold and wet, with unusually heavy and late snowfall in June, which delayed the onset of the melting season. After that, however, a heatwave at the end of July, led to a considerable loss of ice. In terms of “total mass balance” (the sum of surface melting and loss of ice chunks from icebergs, in addition to the melting of glacier “tongues” in contact with seawater), the ice sheet lost around 166 billion tonnes during the 12-month period ending in August 2021.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/01/1109352Record levels of greenhouse gas methane are a ‘fire alarm moment’
According to data compiled by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), average atmospheric concentrations of methane reached a record 1900 parts per billion (ppb) in September 2021, the highest in nearly four decades of records ... methane levels have been climbing since 2007, thought to be driven primarily by changes in wetlands and agriculture in the tropics and – to a lesser degree – by leaks from oil and gas production. “The September data continues the exceptional trends that we’ve been seeing over the past few years,” says Keith Shine at the University of Reading, UK. However, the rate at which concentrations are rising is concerning researchers, with 2020 marking the biggest annual jump since records began in 1983.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2303743-record-levels-of-greenhouse-gas-methane-are-a-fire-alarm-moment/Severe Climate Risk Threatens 40% of World Fossil [Fuel] Reserves
Nearly half of the world’s fossil fuel reserves are vulnerable to extreme weather brought on by climate change, according to an assessment published last month by risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft ... “flooding, high temperatures, and rising sea levels are putting more than 600 billion barrels equivalent of recoverable oil and gas at risk, with reserves from the Middle East and North Africa—in particular Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq—at the greatest risk” ... a record 55 Gulf of Mexico oil spills triggered by Hurricane Ida last summer [are] an example of the risk. Rigzone says Ida shut down nearly all the oil production in the Gulf, while listing the deadly deep freeze in Texas last February and melting permafrost in Russia as additional examples of the climate impacts confronting the industry. “These types of events are going to become more frequent and more extreme.”
https://www.theenergymix.com/2022/01/03/40-of-world-fossil-reserves-face-severe-weather-risk-brought-on-by-climate-change/Algae blooms: “I never saw the ice as dark as this”
Professor Jason Box and two PROMICE colleagues landed on what could appear to be tarmac during a field trip to a glacier near Narsaq in the Southwest of Greenland. However, the dark surface was in fact glacier ice hit by a heavy bloom of algae adapted to ice surfaces, called ice algae ... Box explained how the algae blooms makes the ice darker causing it to absorb more sunlight and thus melt faster. “I never saw the ice as dark as this ... Ice algae have started to colonize larger parts of Greenland. They’ve become an x-factor in the melting process,” Box said.
https://promice.org/2022/01/05/algae-blooms-i-never-saw-the-ice-as-dark-as-this/This Isn’t the California I Married
In hindsight, it’s clear that this romance between California and her citizens was fundamentally unstable, built on a lousy foundation and crumbling for years ... Living in California now meant accepting that fire was no longer an episodic hazard, like earthquakes ... Our lives are going to become — or, really, they already are (the desire to keep talking about the present as the future is intense) — defined by “constant engagement with ecological realities” ... I asked Zeke Lunder, the best wildfire analyst that I knew, who should be worried. He rejected the whole premise of the question. Worried? Ha. We’ve passed that stage ... “We need to accept that there’s going to be a fire,” he said. “It’s going to burn the whole town down” ... It’s a real, grown-up, look-mortality-in-the-eye moment we face ... [But] we’re not used to thinking about the world that way.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/magazine/california-widfires.htmlWildfires Are Digging Carbon-Spewing Holes in the Arctic
Permafrost is now thawing so rapidly that it’s creating massive sinkholes in the earth, up to 100 feet wide and 10 feet deep, a process known as thermokarst [which] creates pits of melted ice and organic matter, which absorb far more solar energy ... Permafrost is basically a refrigerator for organic matter—and if it warms and thaws, microbes start to proliferate within it, just as they would on your food if you unplugged your fridge. Only these tundra microbes are chewing through millennia-old organic matter, releasing methane, a greenhouse gas that’s 80 times as potent as carbon dioxide. (If there isn’t standing water in the thawed permafrost and the plant material is drier, the microbes will release CO2 instead, but that’s less likely because the craters tend to create little ponds.) “With thermokarst you expose deeper and deeper layers of permafrost to the thawing, much more efficiently than without thermokarst,” says University of Alaska Fairbanks permafrost geophysicist Vladimir Romanovsky, who wasn’t involved in the work. “The thermokarst process can turn a surface which was relatively dry into some sort of wetland, and wetlands are producers of of methane” ... So a landscape that was once fairly dry, with carbon locked in the ground, is now much more actively belching emissions ... climate models just aren’t equipped to consider such complexity. “Presently, most studies—especially modeling works—are focused on gradual permafrost thaw, which releases carbon from ground surface,” says Chen. “However, thermokarst formation will expose ancient carbon deep in the soil column to active decomposition. Once initiated, the carbon loss from these horizons may never recover.” According to one study from a separate international team of scientists, without taking this kind of abrupt thaw into account, scientists may be underestimating the climate effect of thawing permafrost by 50 percent ... while the team’s modeling only looked at northern Alaska, Lara says that this tundra system is similar to others around the world, particularly in Siberia ... “A lot of the implications for the amount of thermokarst could be applicable to what they're seeing over there as well.”
https://www.wired.com/story/wildfires-are-digging-carbon-spewing-holes-in-the-arctic/
reporting on a study at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S259033222100659XThe Lancet: Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: a global survey
Climate change has important implications for the health and futures of children and young people, yet they have little power to limit its harm, making them vulnerable to climate anxiety. This is the first large-scale investigation of climate anxiety in children and young people globally and its relationship with perceived government response. We surveyed 10 000 children and young people (aged 16–25 years) in ten countries (Australia, Brazil, Finland, France, India, Nigeria, Philippines, Portugal, the UK, and the USA; 1000 participants per country) ... Respondents across all countries were worried about climate change (59% were very or extremely worried and 84% were at least moderately worried). More than 45% of respondents said their feelings about climate change negatively affected their daily life and functioning, and many reported a high number of negative thoughts about climate change (eg, 75% said that they think the future is frightening and 83% said that they think people have failed to take care of the planet). Respondents rated governmental responses to climate change negatively and reported greater feelings of betrayal than of reassurance.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00278-3/fulltextIt Keeps on Raining Too Much Too Fast
On the Gulf Coast and in the mid-Atlantic, the wettest days keep getting wetter. This is one of climate change’s twisted bits of logic: Where it was dry, it was too dry. But where it was wet, it was way too wet. In New York City, nearly 15 years after the mayor’s office began announcing bold strategies for climate mitigation and adaptation, the rain made a mockery of those plans [when] more than six inches of rain on New York City in a few hours. Roughly half of that rainfall—3.15 inches—fell within the first hour. An inch or two of rain might not sound like much [but] an inch of water in a more expansive container, say one the size of Central Park, works out to be more than 20 million gallons of water. On that scale, it’s easy to grasp how what feels like a small amount of rain can flood a city, especially when that rain falls quickly ... experts warn that across the country, including parts of the East Coast, the North and Midwest, and the Caribbean, climate change is making this kind of extreme precipitation happen more frequently ... the rate at which the city is adapting to these threats is lagging behind the speed at which rain is drowning it ... This kind of extreme rainfall is not going away ... It is going to get worse.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/12/new-york-city-rain-sewage-system-flood/621129/Accelerated mass loss of Himalayan glaciers since the Little Ice Age
Himalayan glaciers are undergoing rapid mass loss ... Here, we reconstruct the extent and surfaces of 14,798 Himalayan glaciers during the Little Ice Age (LIA) [and] show that they have lost at least 40 % of their LIA area ... The LIA was a period of pronounced climate cooling that culminated between 400 and 700 years ago across the Himalaya13. It represents the last period of widespread glacier expansion in the Himalaya and is therefore the benchmark position from which modern glaciers are currently receding ... the mass balance of glaciers across the Himalaya has become dramatically more negative in recent decades in response to climatic forcing.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-03805-8How the loss of Bering Sea ice is triggering cascading effects for the ecosystem
In 2018, the Bering Sea held the least amount of winter ice in any winter in the past 5,500 years [and] is thinner, weaker and more ephemeral ... ice loss is feeding into a self-perpetuating spiral ... [Rick Thoman of the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks] started his Alaska career working for the National Weather Service in Nome in the 1980s, and he well knows how the ice used to be. In his Nome days, he said, he would walk with his dogs onto the ice pack, where there were tall rafts of ice reaching well above his head. Those conditions are history, he said.
https://www.arctictoday.com/how-the-loss-of-bering-sea-ice-is-triggering-cascading-effects-for-the-ecosystem-and-the-people-and-wildlife-that-depend-on-it/‘Extraordinary is no longer extraordinary’: US scientists on a year of climate disasters
"The extraordinary and unprecedented is no longer extraordinary or unprecedented because it’s starting to happen so often ... a lot of these impacts of climate change are outpacing our efforts to deal with them. Emergency management systems, transportation infrastructure and water conveyance infrastructure is failing" (Daniel Swain, Climate scientist, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California, Los Angeles) ... "Everything that happened has followed the trend that has been predicted 10, 20 years ago" (Simon Wang, Professor of climate dynamics at Utah State University) ... "These supersized disasters just keep coming and coming ... it’s not only that individual events themselves are getting more dangerous and more damaging. It’s that there’s no respite. It’s like being knocked over by a wave. You’re struggling to your feet, when another one comes ... there’s no time to recover" (Katharine Hayhoe, Climate scientist and chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/30/climate-crisis-emergency-climate-disasterThe Next Disaster Coming to the Great Plains
Acute [water] scarcity drives the search for water underground
The signs are subtle but unequivocal: dry riverbeds, fields of sand, the sound of irrigation motors straining to pump from dwindling aquifers ... It is no secret that one of the worst droughts in 1,000 years is intensifying heat waves and megafires; that historic drops in surface-water levels coincide with historic spikes in demand as the region grows hotter, drier, and more populated; or that conflicts are escalating over who gets to use how much of what remains. Acute scarcity drives the search for water underground. But the West’s major aquifers are in trouble, too.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/kansas-aquifer-ogallala-water-crisis-drought/621007/Himalayan glaciers are melting at an extraordinary rate, research finds
Glaciers in the Himalayas are melting at an “exceptional” rate, according to new research that shows the massive ice sheets in the region have shrunk 10 times faster in the past four decades than during the previous seven centuries. The research, published Monday in the journal Scientific Reports, found that mass ice loss from nearly 15,000 ice sheets in the Himalayas is especially rapid compared with other parts of the world ... The ice melt threatens agriculture and water supply for millions of people in South Asia, the report said, and will contribute to rising sea levels that threaten coastal communities across the world.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/20/himalayan-glaciers-melting-at-extraordinary-rate-research-finds-.htmlPacific Northwest National Laboratory: The Puzzling Link Between Western Wildfires and Arctic Sea Ice
Presented today at the 2021 AGU Fall Meeting in New Orleans [is] a link between dwindling sea ice and worsening wildfires in the western United States ... researchers describe this relationship—its existence previously known, but its underlying mechanism now described for the first time ... as Arctic sea ice melts and the surrounding land and sea surfaces warm, a vortex strengthens in the atmosphere above the heated area. This vortex, spinning counterclockwise like a cyclone, is spawned by differences in air pressure. The powerful vortex constantly pushes the polar jet stream out of its typical pattern, diverting moist air away from the western United States. With the now wavier jet stream nudged off its usual course, a second vortex, spinning clockwise, forms under the ridge of the polar jet above the western United States. This second vortex—similar to the vortex responsible for the Pacific Northwest’s extreme heat earlier this summer—brings with it clear skies, dry conditions and other fire-favorable weather ... “This dynamics-driven connection warms and dries out the western United States region,” said Yufei Zou, lead author and data scientist ... Arctic sea ice is projected to continue declining.
https://www.pnnl.gov/news-media/fire-and-ice-puzzling-link-between-western-wildfires-and-arctic-sea-ice
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26232-9Global coal use to hit record high despite climate fight
Global coal-fired power generation is expected to rise 9% and hit an all-time high by the end of 2021, despite efforts to slash carbon emissions, the International Energy Agency said Friday. Overall coal demand — including its use in steelmaking, cement and other industrial activities — is expected to grow by 6% in 2021 to 8.11 billion tonnes, the Paris-based group said in its annual report. That puts demand on track to reach a new record high in early 2022 and to remain at that level for the following two years, it said.
https://www.mining.com/global-coal-use-to-hit-record-high-despite-climate-fight/Current coal phaseout pledges ‘absolutely not enough’, warn experts
[C]oal-fired power is not being phased out quickly enough to meet climate goals and avoid catastrophic global heating [says] a new report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air ... the International Energy Agency has made clear that if [coal] is not rapidly retired the world has no hope of staying within 1.5C of global heating ... still a long way to go, says Flora Champenois, a research analyst at Global Energy Monitor ... “it’s slow and difficult to change the status quo.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2021/dec/23/why-cop26-coal-power-pledges-dont-go-far-enough-visualisedRainfall in Arctic Will Soon Be More Common Than Snowfall – Decades Earlier Than Thought
More rain than snow will fall in the Arctic and this transition will occur decades earlier than previously predicted, a new study led by the University of Manitoba (UM) and co-authored by scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at CU Boulder reports. Projections from the latest models, published by an international team of researchers led by UM in the journal Nature Communications, show a steep increase in the rate and range of precipitation expected to fall in the Arctic, and that most of these future events will be rain. This shift is occurring due to rapid warming, sea ice loss, and poleward heat transport in the Arctic. “There are huge ramifications of these changes, which we note in the paper, such as a reduction of snow cover, increased permafrost melt, more rain-on-snow events, and greater flooding events from increased river discharge, all of which have implications on wildlife populations and human livelihoods,” says lead researcher Michelle McCrystall, a postdoctoral fellow in UM’s Centre for Earth Observation Science in the Clayton H. Riddell Faculty of Environment, Earth, and Resources.
https://scitechdaily.com/rainfall-in-arctic-will-soon-be-more-common-than-snowfall-decades-earlier-than-thought/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27031-yArctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the world
It’s almost a mantra in climate science: The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. But that figure, found in scientific studies, advocacy reports, the popular press, and even the 2021 U.N. climate assessment, is incorrect, obscuring the true toll of global warming on the north, a team of climate scientists reports this week. In fact, the researchers say, the Arctic is warming four times faster than the global average. “Everybody knows [the Arctic] is a canary when it comes to climate change,” says Peter Jacobs, a climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, who presented the work on 13 December at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union. “Yet we’re misreporting it by a factor of two.”
https://www.science.org/content/article/arctic-warming-four-times-faster-rest-worldWinter without snow is coming
Across the Central Rockies, it’s been an unseasonably warm, dry year. Denver smashed the record for its latest first measurable winter snow. Colorado ski resorts delayed opening because temperatures were too high to even produce fake snow. And Salt Lake City was entirely snowless through November, for only the second time since 1976. These snowless scenarios, while still an exception, are set to become much more common as early as 2040, according to a paper published in Nature Reviews Earth and Environment ... The Mountain West has already lost 20% percent of its snowpack since the 1950s ... in April 2015, the Sierra Nevada’s peak snowpack was only 5% of normal, something the researchers describe as an “extreme” event. And while extreme events will continue to happen with greater frequency, what will also start to become common are “episodic low-to-no snow” events, when at least half of a mountain basin experiences low-to-no snow for five consecutive years ... About 75% of the water used in the Western U.S. comes from snowmelt. The Colorado River, for example, is fed by mountain snow and supplies drinking water for more than 40 million people. Western rivers also generate electricity and provide irrigation for millions of acres of farmland. “Every state in the West that is dry or uses Colorado River water is being impacted,” said Nolin. That includes Lake Mead, which is fed by the Colorado ... Other dry areas, like California’s San Joaquin Valley, are already facing a water crisis brought about by drought and shrinking aquifers.
https://www.hcn.org/articles/north-climate-change-winter-without-snow-is-coming
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-021-00219-y.epdfA frenzy of well drilling by California farmers leaves taps running dry
In the verdant San Joaquin Valley, one of the nation's most productive farming regions, domestic wells like McDowell's are drying up at an alarming pace as a frenzy of new well construction and heavy agricultural pumping sends the underground water supply to new lows during one of the most severe droughts on record ... The Los Angeles Times analyzed state groundwater data from the hard-hit San Joaquin Valley ... The sobering results show a region in which agriculture has vastly outgrown its water supply ... Michael Hagman, executive director of the East Kaweah Groundwater Sustainability Agency, calls the region the “poster child” for groundwater overuse. “We’re doing it wrong. We’re destroying our groundwater.”
https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-farms-water-wells-drought/Climate change is driving supply chain shortages — and your supermarkets are not prepared
As weather continues to warm, crops that depend on precise temperatures at specific times will be thrown off kilter or possibly wiped out. While moderate warming and carbon dioxide increases will help some plants grow faster, even they will ultimately be harmed by the droughts and floods that will harm so many other crops ... In addition to climate change, there is also the built-in structural problem of capitalism itself: Concentration of power, and the fact that supply chain disruptions also exist because the global economic system is built around what individual powerful corporations have decided will maximize their profits. A system that prioritizes profitability over everything else will make choices about who gets what first based on how they can make the most money, not on who needs it most or what will be most efficient. That means that supply chain disruptions, though not ideal, are also not viewed as a company's absolute worst case scenario.
https://www.salon.com/2021/12/19/climate-change-is-driving-supply-chain-shortages--and-your-supermarkets-are-not-prepared/Unprecedented die-offs, melting ice: Climate change is wreaking havoc in the Arctic and beyond
In the last five years, scientists have observed animal die-offs of unprecedented size, scope and duration in the waters of the Beaufort, Chukchi and northern Bering seas, while recording the displacement and disappearance of entire species of fish and ocean-dwelling invertebrates ... Historically long stretches of record-breaking ocean heat and loss of sea ice have fundamentally changed this ecosystem from bottom to top ... A team from The Times traveled to Alaska and spoke with dozens of scientists conducting field research in the Bering Sea and high Arctic to better understand these dramatic changes. Their findings suggest that this vast, near-polar ecosystem — stable for thousands for years and resilient to brief but dramatic swings in temperature — is undergoing an irreversible transition. “It’s like the gates of hell have been opened,” said Lorenzo Ciannelli, a fisheries oceanographer at Oregon State University ... “Globally, cold-water ecosystems support the world’s fisheries ... this is the majority of the food source for the world,” said NOAA’s Duffy-Anderson. The potential ripple effect could shut down fisheries and leave migrating animals starving for food ... “Alaska is a bellwether for what other systems can expect,” she added. “It’s really just a beginning” ... Due to atmospheric warming, the world’s oceans hold so much excess heat that it’s improbable the Chukchi Sea will ever be covered again with thick, multiyear ice ... A 2020 study published in the journal Science documented a reduction in ice extent unlike any other in the last 5,500 years: Its extent in 2018 and 2019 was 60% to 70% lower than the historical average ... Data from a Bering Sea mooring shows the average temperature throughout the water column has risen markedly in the last several years: in 2018, water temperatures were 9 degrees above the historical average ... “One of the things I’m really concerned about is that the whole food web dynamic kind of comes apart” [Duffy-Anderson] said. “And that is what we’re beginning to see.”
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2021-12-17/north-pacific-arctic-ecosystem-collapse-climate-changeNOAA Arctic Report Card: Climate change transforming Arctic into ‘dramatically different state’
NOAA’s 2021 Arctic Report Card documents the numerous ways that climate change continues to fundamentally alter this once reliably-frozen region, as increasing heat and the loss of ice drive its transformation into a warmer, less frozen and more uncertain future. This year’s Arctic Report Card is the 16th annual volume of original, peer-reviewed environmental observations and analysis that documents rapid and dramatic shifts in weather, climate, terrestrial and oceanic conditions in the circumpolar region ... October-December 2020 period was the warmest Arctic autumn on record dating back to 1900 ... Arctic continues to warm more than twice as fast as the rest of the globe ... Greenland ice sheet has now lost mass almost every year since 1998, with record ice loss in 2012 and 2019. In August, rainfall was observed at the Greenland ice sheet’s 10,500-foot summit for the first time ever ... Some of the fastest rates of ocean acidification around the world have been observed in the Arctic Ocean.
https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/arctic-report-card-climate-change-transforming-arctic-into-dramatically-different-stateBarrage of droughts weakens Amazon’s capacity to bounce back, study finds
Severe droughts over the past two decades have affected the resilience of the Amazon Rainforest, a new study shows, with stretches of affected forest taking between one and three years to recover their usual growth rate ... impacts were particularly severe during the droughts of 2005, 2010 and 2015, considered the worst of the century and a warning that events like these are becoming more frequent ... “The more intense and ample the drought, the greater the debt for the forest to recover ... Our work shows that the deficit in resilience can increase in two scenarios: due to a greater intensity of drought, as in 2010, when the drop was greater, or because of an extension in the recuperation process, as in 2015.” According to Machado-Silva, the results are concerning, especially because global warming threatens to hit the Amazon particularly hard ... the situation is even more critical considering the rising trend of deforestation in the region, a problem that is itself driving changes in precipitation levels and the forest’s capacity to retain carbon.
https://news.mongabay.com/2021/12/barrage-of-droughts-weakens-amazons-capacity-to-bounce-back-study-finds/
reporting on a study at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2021GB007004Melting permafrost could release potentially deadly ancient viruses and bacteria, Russian scientists fear
Nikolay Korchunov, a senior Russian diplomat who chairs the Arctic Council, said Monday that there is a risk of microbes trapped in the frost for tens of thousands of years 'waking up' as the ground thaws due to global warming. Korchunov said the Council has now established a 'biosafety' project to study the risks and possible effects posed by the reemergence of diseases which may have been frozen since at least the last ice age ... 65 per cent of Russian territory is classed as permafrost ... Jean Michel Claverie, a virologist at Aix-Marseille University, warned last year of 'extremely good' evidence that 'you can revive bacteria from deep permafrost.' Professor Claverie even discovered one such virus himself ... While the pithovirus, which had been frozen for some 30,000 years before the experiment, is harmless to humans, Professor Claverie said it demonstrates that long-frozen viruses can 'wake up' and begin re-infecting hosts.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10307853/Melting-permafrost-release-potentially-deadly-ancient-viruses-Russia-warns.htmlDisappearing Lake Tuz
Lake Tuz was once the second-largest lake in Turkey. Flamingos flocked there to feed and nest. People visited to witness the lake’s seasonal color changes and to steep in the mineral rich water, mud, and salt. Now, the lake rarely spans an area much larger than a puddle. In some summers it completely dries up ... Lake Tuz’s decline coincided with the “excessive use of groundwater and surface-water resources feeding the lake.” For example, some streams were rerouted to irrigate agriculture, and some were dammed to meet the water needs of the surrounding provinces. And as surface water dwindled during intense drought, people turned to the groundwater that historically fed the springs. “The future is quite uncertain for the lake.”
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/149211/disappearing-lake-tuzDeep-sea mining may push hundreds of species to extinction
Almost two-thirds of the hundreds of mollusc species that live in the deep sea are at risk of extinction, according to a new study that rings another alarm bell over the impact on biodiversity of mining the seabed. The research, led from Queen’s University in Belfast, has led to 184 mollusc species living around hydrothermal vents being added to the global red list of threatened species ... The paper was published in Frontiers in Marine Science and supported by Ireland’s Marine Institute.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/09/mining-may-push-hundreds-of-deep-sea-mollusc-species-to-extinctionClimate change is intensifying extremes, even in the oceans
A study led by ETH Zurich uses models to show for the first time that marine heatwaves, and extremes with high acidity or low oxygen can also occur conjointly—with difficult to foresee consequences for marine life ... It has long been known that global warming is causing not only longer and more intense heatwaves, but also, depending on the region, more severe droughts, rains and storms. Moreover, these kinds of extreme weather events increasingly occur in combination, compounding each other ... Probably the most prominent example of a marine heatwave is the "Blob," as it is known—a giant bubble of warm water that spread in the northeast Pacific Ocean and along the US West Coast from Alaska to the equator from 2013 to 2015. It killed millions of marine birds, fish and other creatures. Researchers at ETH Zurich, the University of Bern and the University of Tasmania used a high-resolution ocean model to analyze this extreme weather event from a new perspective [and] concluded that it was not solely the high water temperatures that caused the mass die-off, but probably a combination of extreme events that occurred simultaneously ... "When marine life is confronted with multiple stressors at once, it has difficulty acclimatizing," Gruber says. "For a fish species that's already living at the upper end of its optimal temperature range, an added oxygen deficiency can mean death." That's why, in their study—which was just published in the journal Nature—the researchers called on the scientific community to pay greater attention to compound extreme events in the ocean ... sudden occurrence of environmental changes makes many kinds of adaptation strategies impossible.
https://phys.org/news/2021-12-climate-extremes-oceans.htmlFall in fertility rates may be linked to fossil fuel pollution, finds study
Over the past 50 years childbirth has steadily decreased ... Falling birthrates are often chalked up to cultural and socioeconomic factors, such as the rise of access to planned parenthood, contraception and abortion, and the changing role of women in society, as education and participation in the workforce has delayed childbearing, for example. But data shows that pregnancies were already declining before the rollout of the contraceptive pill, overall abortion numbers are decreasing over the years, and unintended pregnancy loss has been increasing by 1-2% since 1990. Instead, a growing body of research has shown growing rates of human infertility due to biological reasons including 74,000 yearly cases of testicular cancer, insufficient sperm and egg quality, premature puberty in young women, and an increase in the number of congenital malformations in male infant genitalia ... Fossil fuels are ubiquitous and they have been found in people’s blood, urine, semen, placenta and breast milk, as well as their fatty tissue. Many fossil fuel pollutants are endocrine disruptors, meaning they interfere with the body’s hormonal systems and have a negative effect on reproductive health ... studies have shown that endocrine-disrupting chemicals might be substantially linked to male reproductive diseases.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/dec/15/fall-fertility-rates-may-be-linked-fossil-fuel-pollution-finds-study
reporting on a study at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41574-021-00598-8Climate change has destabilized the Earth’s poles, putting the rest of the planet in peril
Thwaites ice shelf could collapse within the next three to five years, unleashing a river of ice that could dramatically raise sea levels. Aerial surveys document how warmer conditions have allowed beavers to invade the Arctic tundra, flooding the landscape with their dams. Large commercial ships are increasingly infiltrating formerly frozen areas, disturbing wildlife and generating disastrous amounts of trash ... The rapid transformation of the Arctic and Antarctic creates ripple effects all over the planet. Sea levels will rise, weather patterns will shift and ecosystems will be altered ... This year’s edition of the [Arctic] report card, which was presented at the American Geophysical Union annual meeting Tuesday, describes a landscape that is transforming so fast scientists struggle to keep up. Temperatures in the Arctic are rising twice as fast as the global average. The period between October and December 2020 was the warmest on record, scientists say. Separately on Tuesday, the World Meteorological Organization confirmed a new temperature record for the Arctic: 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the Siberian town of Verkhoyansk on June 20, 2020. These warm conditions are catastrophic ... “It’s an ecosystem collapse situation,” said Kaare Sikuaq Erickson, whose business Ikaagun Engagement facilitates cooperation between scientists and Alaska Native communities. The consequences of this loss will be felt far beyond the Arctic.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/12/14/climate-change-arctic-antarctic-poles/Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier ice shelf could collapse within five years
[A]n ice shelf that’s holding [Thwaites Glacier] back from the sea could collapse within three to five years, scientists reported December 13 at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting in New Orleans. Thwaites Glacier is “one of the largest, highest glaciers in Antarctica — it’s huge,” Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the Boulder, Colo.–based Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, told reporters ... were the whole thing to fall into the ocean, it would raise sea levels by 65 centimeters, or more than two feet ... [the Thwaites ice shelf] is about to lose its tenuous grip on the seafloor [leading] to imminent collapse, within as little as three to five years.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/antarctica-thwaites-glacier-ice-shelf-collapse-climate-5-yearsAll coral reefs in western Indian Ocean ‘at high risk of collapse in next 50 years’
“But while we estimate 50 years into the future, whether we can meet the 1.5C [rise] future or not depends on what we do in the next 10 years. So, it’s really a 10-year horizon that we have to be concerned about,” [said David Obura, chair of the IUCN corals group, who led the study].
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/06/all-coral-reefs-in-western-indian-ocean-at-high-risk-of-collapse-next-50-years-global-heating-aoeIraq’s mighty rivers Tigris and Euphrates ‘will soon run dry’
Iraq’s two main rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, will run completely dry within two decades unless action is taken, a report by the country’s water ministry has warned. The two rivers, which originate in Turkey and run through Syria, are the source of up to 98 per cent of Iraq’s surface water supply. “Iraq will be a land without rivers by 2040,” headlines in local media read after the study was released this week. Within three years the impact of severe droughts will be “very clear” across the country and the Euphrates, the longest river in western Asia at nearly 3,000km, could be almost completely dry towards the south.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/iraqs-mighty-rivers-tigris-and-euphrates-will-soon-run-dry-q5h72g5skThe Lancet: Save our only planet
The climate crisis is the result of human activities (primarily the burning of fossil fuels) that have fundamentally increased the concentration of greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere. However, even with overwhelming evidence on the health impacts of climate change, countries are still not delivering responses proportionate to the rising risks their populations face ... We cannot waste our last chances to take strong measures to limit the damage caused by the climate crisis.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00720-9/fulltextRain to replace snow in the Arctic as climate heats, study finds
Climate models show switch will happen decades faster than previously thought, with ‘profound’ implications
Today, more snow falls in the Arctic than rain. But this will reverse, the study suggests, with all the region’s land and almost all its seas receiving more rain than snow ... Even if the global temperature rise is kept to 1.5C or 2C, the Greenland and Norwegian Sea areas will still become rain dominated. Scientists were shocked in August when rain fell on the summit of Greenland’s huge ice cap for the first time on record. The research used the latest climate models, which showed the switch from snow to rain will happen decades faster than previously estimated ... increasing extreme weather events such as floods and heatwaves in Europe, Asia and North America by changing the jet stream ... Scientists already agree that precipitation will increase significantly in the Arctic in future, as more water evaporates from increasingly warmer and ice-free seas. But the research, published in the journal Nature Communications, found this would be hugely dominated by rain.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/30/rain-replace-snow-arctic-climate-heats-study
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27031-yThe staggering scale of glacier melt demands swift climate action
267 billion metric tons of water is roughly half the volume of Lake Erie ... From 2000 to 2019, glaciers other than the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets lost an average of 267 billion metric tons of water each year, give or take 16 billion metric tons, according to research McNabb co-authored in the journal Nature. Melting accelerated over that span, from 227 billion metric tons a year in the early 2000s to 292 billion metric tons a year from 2015 to 2018 ... one study estimated that our greenhouse gases have caused practically all glacial loss since 1850, and possibly more than 100 percent because some glaciers might [otherwise] have grown.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/the-staggering-scale-of-glacier-melt-demands-swift-climate-actionClimate Impact of Decreasing Atmospheric Sulphate Aerosols and the Risk of a Termination Shock
Recent SOx emission reductions are realized for health and environmental regulation through conversion to low sulphur fuels ... the most immediate SOx reduction is of shipping with ~90% in Emission Control Areas (ECAs) from Jan 1st, 2015 and ~80% globally from Jan 1st, 2020, through sulphur fuel content regulation from the International Maritime Organization (IMO 2020) ... Aerosols have a cooling effect on the climate through increased scattering of solar radiation to space [the aerosol masking effect] and by acting as cloud condensation nuclei ...The SOx emission reduction provides a real-world research opportunity of the effects ... Here we show that the global and regional reduction in albedo and increase in EEI coincides with a significant reduction in anthropogenic SOx emissions and an increase in the net positive anthropogenic forcing on the Earth system. CERES TOA EEI trend in Absorbed Solar Radiation (ASR) shows a factor of 4 increase after 2014 compared to prior to 2014 ... Even stronger global forcing effects are expected from IMO 2020 ... The possibility of a termination shock, whereby rapid anthropogenic aerosol emission reductions cause rapid global warming, cannot be excluded.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/356378673_Climate_Impact_of_Decreasing_Atmospheric_Sulphate_Aerosols_and_the_Risk_of_a_Termination_ShockEight worst wildfire weather years on record happened in the last decade: study
The world's eight most extreme wildfire weather years have occurred in the last decade, according to a new study that suggests extreme fire weather is being driven by a decrease in atmospheric humidity coupled with rising temperatures ... the team examined extreme fire weather trends from 1979 to 2020 using common fire weather indexes that provide estimates for fire intensity and rate of fire spread, as well as changes in vapor pressure, or humidity. The results link trends in rising global temperatures and decreases in humidity to the likelihood that naturally occurring extreme fire events will happen more often, spread to new areas and burn more intensely than ever before in recorded history. Living with wildfire also means living with the consequences of fire ... "When you remove the vegetation, the rain is not being intercepted by the trees, the roots aren't picking up the moisture, there is nothing to give the soil stability—you're much more likely to see land- and mudslides in burnt areas. This has been documented in California for years." He noted even if global warming stopped tomorrow, the wildfire threat would continue to loom large for decades ... The research was published in Nature Climate Change.
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-worst-wildfire-weather-years-decade.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01224-1Wildfires are erasing [US] western forests. Climate change is making it permanent.
Kimberley Davis is a plant ecologist at the University of Montana and the lead author of an influential study on how climate change is altering forest regeneration after fire, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In her research, she found site after site where new climatic conditions no longer supported the growth of young pines. Adult trees can survive in conditions that kill their seedlings [but] when a fire eventually passes through that is strong enough to wipe out mature trees, it means the woods are gone for good ... The general trend: fewer forests, more shrublands. Examples of this ecological shift abound ... “It’s already happening, it’s not just something we are modeling in the future,” Davis said. “We are definitely at a point where we are all noticing significant impacts of climate change in terms of lack of forest regeneration across the West.”
https://grist.org/climate/climate-change-forest-loss/
reporting on a study at https://www.pnas.org/content/116/13/6193Marine Oxygen Levels are the Next Great Casualty of Climate Change
Last summer, more than 100 miles of Florida’s coastal waters became an oxygen-depleted dead zone, littered with fish ... Dungeness crabs were washing onto Oregon’s shoreline, unable to escape from water that has become seasonally depleted of oxygen over the past two decades. While much of the conversation around our climate crisis focuses on the emission of greenhouse gases and their effect on warming, precipitation, sea level rise and ocean acidification, little is said about the effect of climate change on oxygen levels ... warmer water holds less oxygen. This decrease in oxygen content, coupled with a large-scale die-off of oxygen-generating phytoplankton ... compromises ecosystems, asphyxiating marine life and leading to further die-offs. Large swaths of the oceans have lost 10–40 percent of their oxygen, and that loss is expected to accelerate with climate change ... compounding climate-related feedback mechanisms.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/marine-oxygen-levels-are-the-next-great-casualty-of-climate-change/Australia’s spy agency predicted the climate crisis 40 years ago - and fretted about coal exports
About 40 years ago this week, the spooks at Australia’s intelligence agency, the Office of National Assessments (ONA), delivered the 17-page report to prime minister Malcolm Fraser. The subject? “Fossil Fuels and the Greenhouse Effect”. Michael Cook, the agency’s director general, wrote in an introduction how his team had looked at the implications of rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere “with special reference to Australia as a producer and exporter of coal”. Cook wrote: “Scientists now agree that if such emissions continue it will some time in the next century lead to a discernible ‘greenhouse effect’ whereby the Earth’s atmosphere becomes measurably warmer with related climatic changes.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/28/australias-spy-agency-predicted-the-climate-crisis-40-years-ago-and-fretted-about-coal-exportsYes, it hasn’t snowed yet in Denver. But it’s Colorado’s meager snowpack that should worry you.
[T]he entire state is facing drought conditions and about 40% of Colorado is facing “severe to exceptional” drought levels, further depleting low reservoir levels. Snowpack is below average ... “it’s just been bone dry, we’ve been living basically in the desert for the last six months,” Bianchi said. “That, to me, is a classic sign that we are experiencing the effects of climate change.”
https://coloradosun.com/2021/12/02/no-snow-denver-bad-mountain-snowpack/Unrelenting drought leaves millions who rely on Colorado River facing an uncertain future
The Colorado River is a critical resource for the western U.S. But a megadrought, one significantly exacerbated by climate change, is jeopardizing the river's future and threatening to upend how its water is used and longstanding agreements between states ... around the year 2000, a drought took hold and has not let go. This means less snow on those peaks in the Rockies year after year, and thus a steady reduction of water to feed the river. The two largest reservoirs in the river basin, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, are now at all-time low levels.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/unrelenting-drought-leaves-millions-who-rely-on-colorado-river-facing-an-uncertain-futureIconic Mediterranean mussel, one of world's largest, faces ‘imminent extinction’
The fan mussel, an iconic Mediterranean Sea species, can grow 1.2 meters tall and live some 50 years. But the survey found not a single living specimen. “We were shocked,” recalls Vázquez-Luis, a marine ecologist at the Spanish Institute of Oceanography. “We couldn’t understand what was going on.” Studies soon revealed the animals had succumbed to a mysterious new parasite that may have arrived via ships. Since then, the parasite, perhaps abetted by other microbes, has erased fan mussel populations throughout the Mediterranean, raising fears that the storied mussel could be facing extinction.
https://www.science.org/content/article/iconic-mediterranean-mussel-faces-imminent-extinctionInsecticides can reduce bee fertility, causing lasting harm across generations
[O]ne of the most widely used agricultural chemicals, a neonic called imidacloprid, does not just harm blue orchard bees immediately, but [also] has negative effects that can be seen across generations. As described in a study published November 22 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, descendants of wild-caught bees exposed to small amounts of imidacloprid as larvae—from tainted pollen and nectar given to them by their mothers—produced 20 percent fewer offspring than blue orchard bees not exposed to the insecticide. Some of the bees were exposed more than once throughout life, and each exposure additionally reduced their fertility ... That’s important, since bees often encounter the pesticides repeatedly throughout their lives in the environment ... The paper builds on abundant evidence that neonicotinoids play a role in the decline of bees and other beneficial insects—but what is new here is the suggestion that effects can persist across generations.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/insecticide-exposure-harms-bees-across-generations
reporting on a study at https://www.pnas.org/content/118/48/e2109909118Wildfires torched up to a fifth of all giant sequoia trees
[W]ildfires killed thousands of giant sequoias this year, leading to a staggering two-year death toll that accounts for up to nearly a fifth of Earth's largest trees, officials said Friday. [Fires] tore through more than a third of groves in California and torched an estimated 2,261 to 3,637 sequoias, which are the largest trees by volume. Nearby wildfires last year killed an unprecedented 7,500 to 10,400 giant sequoias ... trees once considered nearly fire-proof ... In 2013, the park had done climate modeling that predicted extreme fires wouldn't jeopardize sequoias for another 50 years, Brigham said. But that was at the start of what became a punishing five-year drought that essentially broke the model.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Thousands-of-giant-sequoias-killed-in-California-16635506.phpConnecting the dots between B.C.’s floods, landslides and the clearcut logging of old forests
The combination of climate change, clearcut logging and poor forestry practices are being blamed as contributing factors ... the hydrology of an area changes as soon as the forest cover is removed, whether by logging or fire, and that contributes to floods and landslides ... “you go past a certain threshold and you are in danger of the whole hillside collapsing ... pressure on the system has been increasing with climate (change).”
https://thenarwhal.ca/bc-floods-clearcut-loggingStorms at Canada’s Biggest Port Leave Grain Stuck in Prairies
Mountains of wheat and canola are stranded in Canada after storms blocked access to the Port of Vancouver during peak shipping season. There’s no rail access to Canada’a biggest port after days of torrential rain and landslides ... it will take an “extended period of time” before some other roads open ... Canada is one of the world’s largest grain exporters and about half of its shipments go through Vancouver. “This is disastrous,” Quorum President Mark Hemmes said. “You’ve got rail lines that run into the terminal from Canadian origins cut off. All of the highways are cut off. And it’s Canada’s biggest port.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-18/storms-at-canada-s-biggest-port-leaves-grain-stuck-in-prairiesHow locust swarms ‘the size of Luxembourg’ are plaguing East Africa
When the locusts settled on trees, there were “so many of them that branches broke under the weight”. Locust swarms can vary from less than one square kilometre to several hundred square kilometres. There can be at least 40 million and sometimes as many as 80 million locust adults in each square kilometre. One swarm ... was reported to have reached 2,400 square kilometres in size – an area the size of Luxembourg. Locusts eat their body weight in food every day; a small swarm covering one square kilometre can eat the same amount as 35,000 people.
https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/science-health/954861/east-africa-locust-plaguesSouth Africa’s next big crisis is water
South Africa’s next crisis will be water and that could be far worse than rolling power blackouts we’ve endured for about 14 years now. The emerging reality for many residents in small towns, rural areas and cities, is that their own Day Zero is looming — or is already here.
https://mg.co.za/editorial/2021-11-18-editorial-south-africas-next-big-crisis-is-water/Brazil: Amazon sees worst deforestation levels in 15 years
Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest has hit its highest level in over 15 years, official data shows. A report by Brazil's space research agency (Inpe) found that deforestation increased by 22% in a year. Brazil was among a number of nations who promised to end and reverse deforestation by 2030 during the COP26 climate summit [but] according to the latest data, some 13,235 sq km (5110 sq miles) was lost during the 2020-21 period, the highest amount since 2006.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-59341770Antarctic ice sheet destabilized within a decade
After the natural warming that followed the last Ice Age, there were repeated periods when masses of icebergs broke off from Antarctica into the Southern Ocean. A new data-model study led by the University of Bonn (Germany) now shows that it took only a decade to initiate this tipping point in the climate system [and] that today's accelerating Antarctic ice mass loss also represents such a tipping point ... "the acceleration of Antarctic ice-mass loss in recent decades may mark the beginning of a self-sustaining and irreversible period of ice sheet retreat and substantial global sea level rise," says study leader Dr. Michael Weber from the University of Bonn.
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-antarctic-ice-sheet-destabilized-decade.html
see also https://www.sciencealert.com/warming-events-could-destabilize-the-antarctic-ice-sheet-in-just-10-years
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27053-6Ice on the edge of survival: Warming is changing the Arctic
Arctic ice sheets and glaciers are shrinking, with some glaciers already gone. Permafrost, the icy soil that traps the potent greenhouse gas methane, is thawing. Wildfires have broken out in the Arctic. Siberia even hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) ... What's happening in the Arctic is a runaway effect ... “The Arctic isn’t just changing in temperature,” Abdalati said. “It’s changing in state. It’s becoming a different place” ... those changes, scientists say, can contribute to more extreme weather events, such as floods, drought, the February Texas freeze, or more severe wildfires.
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/ice-edge-survival-warming-changing-arctic-81006330Global warming speeds up the frequency of extreme hot weather and rainfall
The frequency of extreme hot weather and record temperatures and rainfall has increased around the world as a result of global warming, according to an international research project headed up by Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) and involving the participation of the Geoscience Institute (CSIC-UCM). The study, published in npj Climate and Atmosphere Science estimates that the occurrence of record temperatures is eight times higher than what would have been expected without global warming.
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-global-frequency-extreme-hot-weather.htmlThe 2021 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change
Code red for a healthy future
The Lancet Countdown is an international collaboration that independently monitors the health consequences of a changing climate [and] represents the consensus of leading researchers from 43 academic institutions and UN agencies. The 44 indicators of this report expose an unabated rise in the health impacts of climate change and the current health consequences of the delayed and inconsistent response of countries around the globe—providing a clear imperative for accelerated action that puts the health of people and planet above all else.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01787-6/fulltextThe forgotten oil ads that told us climate change was nothing
The fossil fuel industry has perpetrated a multi-decade, multibillion dollar disinformation, propaganda and lobbying campaign to delay climate action by confusing the public and policymakers about the climate crisis and its solutions ... with headlines ranging from “Lies they tell our children” to “Oil pumps life” – seeking to convince the public that the climate crisis is not real, not human-made, not serious and not solvable. The campaign continues to this day ... 30-plus year evolution of fossil fuel industry propaganda.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/18/the-forgotten-oil-ads-that-told-us-climate-change-was-nothing
reporting on a study at https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab89d5Drought, overpumping cut Morocco river link to sea
"It's the first time ever that the Moulouya has stopped flowing into the sea," said Benata, a retired agronomist. "The flow has been weakened by over-pumping of the water. It's pretty dramatic." And as the fresh water of the river recedes, salty seawater is creeping up the groundwaters around the riverbed, spelling ruin for farmers as much as 15 kilometres inland ... "Everything's dead because there's hardly any rain and the river is salty" ... What was the mouth of the river is now also filling up with rubbish, spoiling one of the richest natural reserves in the area ... "the situation is getting worse and worse ... all the region's young people are thinking of emigrating."
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-drought-overpumping-morocco-river-link.htmlCop26 targets too weak to stop disaster, say Paris agreement architects
[T]he proposed targets agreed at the Cop26 summit are too weak to prevent disastrous levels of global heating, the three architects of the Paris agreement have warned ... The last-ditch intervention by such senior figures, with the Glasgow talks reaching their final hours, reveals the heightened alarm among many experts over the chasm between carbon targets and the deep cuts necessary to limit temperature rises ... Current national plans – known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – would lead to 2.4C of heating, according to an influential analysis this week by Climate Action Tracker.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/11/cop26-targets-too-weak-to-stop-disaster-say-paris-agreement-architectsNew source of the strong greenhouse gas nitrous oxide found in Siberian permafrost
A previously unknown source of the strong greenhouse gas nitrous oxide has been found in East Siberian Yedoma permafrost. Published in Nature Communications today, the observation was made by an international group of researchers, with the lead of researchers from the University of Eastern Finland. Nitrous oxide (N2O) is the third-most important greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide and methane, and per unit mass an almost 300 times stronger warming agent than carbon dioxide. It is produced in soils as a result of microbial activity. The discovery of nitrous oxide release from the late-Pleistocene-aged Yedoma permafrost is important due to the large area of the Yedoma region, and its large carbon and nitrogen stocks and high ice content, which makes it vulnerable for abrupt thaw ... [release] increased within less than a decade to high rates, exceeding typical emissions from permafrost-affected soils by one to two orders of magnitude (10–100 times). The increase in nitrous oxide emissions was related to drying and stabilization of the Yedoma sediments after thaw, and to associated changes in the microbial community participating in soil nitrogen cycle
https://phys.org/news/2021-12-source-strong-greenhouse-gas-nitrous.htmlCoastal States In Mumbai, Kolkata & Four Other Indian Cities Will Be Underwater By 2030 Finds Report
A new study shows that [by 2030] parts of Mumbai, almost the entirety of Navi Mumbai, the coastal areas of Sunderbans, and the surrounding areas of West Bengal’s capital, Kolkata, along with Cuttack in Odisha, may be below tide-level ... For Kerala too, the area surrounding Kochi and other coastal cities, the threat of being below tide-level is drastically high.
https://www.firstpost.com/tech/science/coastal-states-in-mumbai-kolkata-four-other-indian-cities-will-be-underwater-by-2030-finds-report-10122571.htmlExtreme Greenland ice melt raised global flood risk: study
Writing in the journal Nature Communications, researchers said that Greenland's meltwater runoff had risen by 21 percent over the past four decades. More strikingly, the data provided by the European Space Agency showed that the ice sheet had lost 3.5 trillion tonnes of ice since 2011, producing enough water to raise oceans globally and put coastal communities at higher risk of flood events. One-third of the ice lost in the past decade came in just two hot summers -- 2012 and 2019 -- the research showed ... "As we've seen with other parts of the world, Greenland is also vulnerable to an increase in extreme weather events," said Thomas Slater, from the University of Leeds Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling and lead author. "As our climate warms, it's reasonable to expect that the instances of extreme melting in Greenland will happen more often."
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20211101-extreme-greenland-ice-melt-raised-global-flood-risk-study‘Rapid and concerning’: Chesapeake Bay is getting warmer, researchers say
In the course of 30 years, the Chesapeake Bay warmed up by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s according to researchers at William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science ... “We’re really concerned about this elevated summer warming because warmer waters can help expand and worsen the annually occurring dead zone that happens in the bay when oxygen levels are low,” he said. Lower oxygen levels can impact crab habitat and fisheries ... “There’s not a lot of mitigation that can be done, besides limiting greenhouse gas emissions, which would reduce future warming in the atmosphere, which is what’s ultimately driving most of these trends,” Hinson said ... The study’s findings are based on data stored by the Chesapeake Bay Program, which is an office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The readings were collected by Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality and Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources.
https://wtop.com/science/2021/11/how-much-water-temperatures-have-been-rising-in-the-chesapeake-bay-over-30-years/U.S. Power Grid Is Becoming Less Reliable, Thanks to Extreme Weather
The U.S. power grid is becoming less resilient and reliable, with extreme weather leaving more Americans without electricity more often over the past several years, analysts for Fitch Ratings said. Weather accounted for 25% of utility company downgrades from 2017 to 2021, analysts said during a presentation Monday at the Edison Electric Institute Financial Conference in Hollywood, Florida. U.S. power networks are also less reliable than those in other industrialized countries, they said. “Climate change is expected to continue to challenge electric reliability,” said Fitch analyst Barbara Chapman.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-08/u-s-power-grid-becoming-less-reliable-due-to-extreme-weather2021 was a bad year for glaciers in western North America — and it’s about to get much worse
In late June, the so-called heat dome settled over the west, creating exceptional warming that melted snow cover on the glaciers and exposed ice in a matter of days. The timing was especially bad, as it coincided with days when energy from sunlight is at its maximum. The hot weather also helped spark wildfires in British Columbia, Oregon and California that spread through the mountains. When soot, dust and debris from wildfires settle on snow and ice, it darkens the surface, causing them to absorb more solar energy and melt more ... glacier mass loss over the past two decades in western North America has accelerated, with losses in the past decade that were four times greater than the decade before ... recent study [projects] nearly complete deglaciation in mid- to southern areas of British Columbia and Alberta even under moderate future emission scenarios.
https://theconversation.com/2021-was-a-bad-year-for-glaciers-in-western-north-america-and-its-about-to-get-much-worse-170847Business-as-usual will lead to super and ultra-extreme heatwaves in the Middle East and North Africa
Global climate projections suggest a significant intensification of summer heat extremes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) ... Our results, for a business-as-usual pathway, indicate that in the second half of this century unprecedented super- and ultra-extreme heatwave conditions will emerge ... Peak temperatures during future heatwaves could exceed 56C in some locations in the Middle East, and our analysis indicates that this is a conservative estimate. This will be life-threatening for humans, and even high-temperature tolerant animals such as camels cannot survive in such conditions ... we anticipate that the maximum temperature during “super-extreme” and “ultra-extreme” heatwaves in some urban centers and megacities in the MENA could reach or even exceed 60C ... the MENA countries need to prepare for exceedingly hot summers.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-021-00178-7One Billion People to Face Deadly Heat Stress If World Warms 2C
A study by the Met Office, the U.K.’s national meteorological service, warned that a 2C rise could lead to a 15-fold increase of a potentially fatal cocktail of heat and humidity across the planet. A 4°C rise would mean that nearly half of the world’s population could be living in affected areas, according to the research, released at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. The Met Office used an indicator which combines warmth and humidity, known as wet-bulb temperature, to assess heat stress risk. Once this measure passes 32°C, people are at extreme risk of adverse health effects, particularly those with physical outdoor jobs, according to Andy Hartley, climate impacts lead at the Met Office. The study was derived from the EU-funded Helix project ... Richard Betts, leader of the Helix project, warned that most regions of the world are likely to suffer from the impacts of climate change.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-09/cop26-climate-change-puts-1-billion-people-at-risk-of-heat-stress-at-2cCountries’ climate pledges built on flawed data, Post investigation finds
Across the world, many countries underreport their greenhouse gas emissions in their reports to the United Nations, a Washington Post investigation has found. An examination of 196 country reports reveals a giant gap between what nations declare their emissions to be vs. the greenhouse gases they are sending into the atmosphere ... At the low end, the gap is larger than the yearly emissions of the United States. At the high end, it approaches the emissions of China and comprises 23 percent of humanity’s total contribution to the planet’s warming ... That means the challenge is even larger than world leaders have acknowledged. “In the end, everything becomes a bit of a fantasy,” said Philippe Ciais, a scientist with France’s Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences ... The gap comprises vast amounts of missing carbon dioxide and methane emissions as well as smaller volumes of powerful synthetic gases. It is the result of questionably drawn rules, incomplete reporting in some countries and apparently willful mistakes in others.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2021/greenhouse-gas-emissions-pledges-data/Global Climate Change Impact on Crops Expected Within 10 Years, NASA Study Finds
Global Climate Change Impact on Crops Expected Within 10 Years, NASA Study Finds NASA study published in the journal, Nature Food [projects that] crop yields are projected to decline 24%, while wheat could potentially see growth of about 17% ... the change in yields is due to projected increases in temperature, shifts in rainfall patterns, and elevated surface carbon dioxide concentrations from human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3124/global-climate-change-impact-on-crops-expected-within-10-years-nasa-study-finds/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-021-00400-y‘Reality check’: Global CO2 emissions shooting back to record levels
Global carbon emissions are shooting back to the record level seen before the coronavirus pandemic levels, new analysis has shown. Scientists said the finding is a “reality check” ... emissions driving the climate crisis reached their highest ever levels in 2019, before global coronavirus lockdowns saw them fall by 5.4%. However, fossil fuel burning has surged faster than expected in 2021 ... data shows world leaders have failed to build back greener, with just a small proportion of pandemic spending going to sustainable sectors ... scientists said 2022 could set a new record for global emissions.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/04/reality-check-global-co2-emissions-shooting-back-to-record-levelsScientists extend and straighten iconic climate “hockey stick”
24,000 years of climate history, refined with increased accuracy
The climate “hockey stick” refers to a reconstruction of temperatures over the past 1,000 years [and] became famous after appearing in a UN climate report ... in a paper published by Nature, scientists show that the "handle" of the "hockey stick" extends back 9,500 years, while its "blade" is taller - the last decade was 1.5° C hotter than the average temperature over the last 11,700 years. "Human-caused global temperature change during the last century was likely faster than any changes during the last 24,000 years," said lead author Dr. Matt Osman of the University of Arizona. These findings refine the details but match the broad outline revealed in earlier work ... Dr. Shaun Marcott of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who led a proxy reconstruction of Holocene climate in 2013, [said] the new work is a significant step forward. "The full field surface temperature reanalysis ... is well beyond prior papers and has taken this team of scientists close to a decade to build," he said, adding, "It is a triumph."
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/11/scientists-extend-and-straighten-iconic-climate-hockey-stick/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03984-4Top climate scientists are sceptical that nations will rein in global warming
Nature conducted an anonymous survey of the 233 living IPCC authors last month and received responses from 92 scientists — about 40% of the group. Their answers suggest strong scepticism that governments will markedly slow the pace of global warming, despite political promises made by international leaders as part of the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Six in ten of the respondents said that they expect the world to warm by at least 3C by the end of the century, compared with what conditions were like before the Industrial Revolution. That is far beyond the Paris agreement’s goal to limit warming to 1.5–2C. Most of the survey’s respondents - 88% - said they think global warming constitutes a ‘crisis’, and nearly as many said they expect to see catastrophic impacts of climate change in their lifetimes.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02990-wTwenty-four trillion pieces of microplastics in the ocean and counting
The team found 24.4 trillion pieces (82,000--578,000 tons) of microplastics in the world's oceans, but the actual amount is likely to be much greater ... To create the new dataset, which was published in the journal
Microplastics and Nanoplastics, the researchers collected, calibrated, and gridded data from a total of 8,218 pelagic microplastic samples taken from oceans around the world between 2000 and 2019 [however] "the total amount of microplastics is still likely to be much greater since this is just what we can estimate on the surface."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211027122120.htmClimate threats: living in the shadow of a crumbling mountain
The climate crisis is slowly transforming the Swiss Alps. Temperatures are rising, glaciers are melting, and thawing permafrost is undermining the stability of mountain slopes ... measurements paint a bleak picture: permafrost temperatures have reached record levels in many high-altitude locations ... Higher temperatures have melted ice, allowing water to penetrate the underlying rock and contribute to the instability. “Over the past three years we have really observed that the whole mountain is slowly melting,” says Robert Kenner, a permafrost expert at the Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research (WSL).
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/cop26-slpine-climate-threats-living-in-the-shadow-of-the-spitzer-stein-mountain-switzerland/47011992Get Ready for More Volcanic Eruptions as the Planet Warms
Scientists have noted volcanic eruptions tended to increase as glaciers melted. In a recent study published in Geology researchers ... found the number of eruptions indeed dropped significantly as the climate cooled and ice expanded ... when glaciers retreat, the pressure lifts and volcanic activity surges.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/get-ready-for-more-volcanic-eruptions-as-the-planet-warms/World is failing to make changes needed to avoid climate breakdown, report finds
Every corner of society is failing to take the “transformational change” needed to avert the most disastrous consequences of the climate crisis, with trends either too slow or in some cases even regressing, according to a major new global analysis. Across 40 different areas spanning the power sector, heavy industry, agriculture, transportation, finance and technology, not one is changing quickly enough to avoid 1.5C in global heating beyond pre-industrial times, a critical target of the Paris climate agreement, according to the new Systems Change Lab report ... Atmospheric levels of planet-heating gases hit a new record high last year, and the UN has warned the amount of fossil fuel extraction planned by countries “vastly exceeds” the limit needed to keep below the 1.5C threshold ... the report found that no indicator was showing the required progress to cut emissions in half this decade before eliminating greenhouse gases completely by 2050, which would give the world a chance to keep below 1.5C.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/28/world-failing-make-changes-avoid-climate-breakdown-reportClimate change damage becoming increasingly uninsurable, AFM warns
Many damages resulting from climate change cannot be insured, while the cost of claims will increase sharply in the coming years. The Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) warns ... Climate change is increasing the risk of extreme weather. The damage caused by floods in the first ten years of this century in the European Union averaged 4 billion euros per year. According to estimates, this will rise to 24 billion euros per year by 2050. The AFM cites subsidence as an example. In 2016, four insurers still covered this risk. Since last year, none did so anymore, while the Netherlands is increasingly faced with prolonged periods of drought and subsidence risks.
https://nltimes.nl/2021/10/28/climate-change-damage-becoming-increasingly-uninsurable-afm-warnsChanging ocean currents are driving extreme winter weather
A pair of researchers studied the Atlantic portion of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, and found that winter weather in the United States critically depends on this conveyor belt-like system. As the AMOC slows because of climate change, the U.S. will experience more extreme cold winter weather. The study, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment was led by Jianjun Yin, an associate professor in the University of Arizona Department of Geosciences and co-authored by Ming Zhao, a physical scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory ... "This circulation transports an enormous amount of heat northward in the ocean," Yin said. "The magnitude is on the order of 1 petawatts, or 10 to the 15 power watts. Right now, the energy consumption by the entire world is about 20 terawatts, or 10 to the 12 power watts. So, 1 petawatt is enough to run about 50 civilizations." But as the climate warms, so does the ocean surface. At the same time, the Greenland ice sheet experiences melting, which dumps more freshwater into the ocean. Both warming and freshening of the water can reduce surface water density and inhibit the sinking of the water, slowing the AMOC. If the AMOC slows, so does the northward heat transport ... "So, if the ocean heat transport slows or shuts down, the weather becomes more extreme."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211020140042.htmUnprecedented rise of heat and rainfall extremes in observational data
Observation data analysis reveals a 90-fold increase in the frequency of monthly heat extremes, so-called 3-sigma-events that deviate strongly from what is normal in a given region, in the past ten years compared to 1951-1980. Record daily rainfall events also increased in a non-linear way -- on average, 1 in 4 rainfall records in the last decade can be attributed to climate change. Seemingly small amounts of additional warming push up extreme events substantially.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211007122218.htmIncreasing large wildfires over the western United States linked to diminishing sea ice in the Arctic
Here we show that increasing large wildfires during autumn over the western U.S. are fueled by more fire-favorable weather associated with declines in Arctic sea ice during preceding months on both interannual and interdecadal time scales. Our analysis demonstrates and explains the Arctic-driven teleconnection through regional circulation changes with the poleward-shifted polar jet stream and enhanced fire-favorable surface weather conditions.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26232-9‘Receding before our eyes:’ [Vancouver Island] glaciers likely to be all gone by mid-century
“They are receding before our eyes,” says Brian Menounos, a professor of Earth sciences at the University of Northern B.C. who has extensively studied glaciers on B.C.’s coast. Menounos estimates all of the Island’s ice packs will be gone by mid-century ... “human-induced climate change” is the real culprit, said Menounos, as increased amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere alter weather patterns and temperatures ... There are 17,000 glaciers across British Columbia, and most are facing demise. Glaciologists estimate 22 billion cubic metres of water are lost from the province’s glaciers every year.
https://www.coastreporter.net/bc-news/receding-before-our-eyes-island-glaciers-likely-to-be-all-gone-by-mid-century-4546405Permafrost: a ticking carbon time bomb
Carbon stores, long locked in the permafrost, are now seeping out. Between carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane, permafrost contains some 1,700 billion tonnes of organic carbon, almost twice the amount of carbon already present in the atmosphere. Methane lingers in the atmosphere for only 12 years compared to centuries for CO2 but is about 25 times more potent as a greenhouse gas over a 100-year period. Thawing permafrost is a carbon "time bomb", scientists have warned [and] the thawing and accompanying carbon release will continue even if human emissions are cut ... humanity cannot emit more than 400 billion tonnes of CO2, the IPCC recently concluded. At current rates of emissions, our "carbon budget" would be exhausted within a decade. But carbon budgets do "not fully account for" the wild card of a rapid discharge in greenhouse gases from natural sources in the Arctic, warned a study this year, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States.
https://phys.org/news/2021-10-permafrost-carbon.htmlClimate scientists fear tipping points (maybe you should too)
Anyone who has leaned back in a chair balancing on two legs knows there is a threshold beyond which you irrevocably crash to the floor. That portal between two stable states -- in this case, an upright versus a fallen-over chair -- is a tipping point, and Earth's complex, interlocking climate system is full of them ... Accelerating melt-off from the Greenland ice sheet, for example, is almost certainly slowing down the conveyor belt of ocean currents known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). This, in turn, could push Earth's tropical rain belt southward and weaken the African and Asian monsoons, upon which hundreds of millions depend for rain-fed crops. Scientists cannot rule out the possibility that the AMOC will stall altogether, as it has in the past. If this happened, European winters would become much harsher and sea levels in the North Atlantic basin could rise substantially. There are dozens of other ways in which facets of the climate system are intertwined ... the ultimate tipping point [is] "hothouse Earth". The last time atmospheric concentrations of CO2 matched today's levels, some three million years ago, temperatures were at least 3C more and sea levels five-to-25 metres higher ... In Antarctica, more than half the ice shelves that prevent glaciers from sliding into the ocean and lifting sea levels are at risk of crumbling due to climate change.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20211025-climate-scientists-fear-tipping-points-maybe-you-should-tooGreenhouse Gas Bulletin: Another Year Another Record
The abundance of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere once again reached a new record last year, with the annual rate of increase above the 2011-2020 average. That trend has continued in 2021, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Greenhouse Gas Bulletin. Concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2), the most important greenhouse gas, reached 413.2 parts per million in 2020 and is 149% of the pre-industrial level. Methane (CH4) is 262% and nitrous oxide (N2O) is 123% of the levels in 1750 when human activities started disrupting Earth’s natural equilibrium. The economic slowdown from COVID-19 did not have any discernible impact on the atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases and their growth rates, although there was a temporary decline in new emissions. As long as emissions continue, global temperature will continue to rise. Given the long life of CO2, the temperature level already observed will persist for several decades even if emissions are rapidly reduced to net zero.
https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/greenhouse-gas-bulletin-another-year-another-recordRising Arctic Temperatures Mean Migrating North No Longer Worth It for Many Species, Study Finds
As temperatures rise in northern regions, migrating species are seeing less benefit from heading north for the summer months, according to scientists who reviewed 25 recent studies. In the warm months, birds, mammals, and insects head north to access food, escape predators, and avoid diseases made worse by summer heat. But with climate change, many species are seeing shrinking food supplies and encountering new parasites and pathogens in the Arctic. This has stunted reproduction and increased mortality among migrating species, the scientists write in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution.
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/rising-arctic-temperatures-mean-migrating-north-no-longer-worth-it-for-many-species-study-findsShell Not Meeting Own Sustainability Goals: Report
Shell will not meet their emission targets, a climate report showed. The Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company was also far behind in a court judgment ... emissions will increase until 2030, instead of a mandatory reduction of 45 percent determined by the Dutch court ... Shell said they will make new plans in due time. The company has said that it will gradually reduce its emissions to become carbon neutral by 2050. According to the research report, the company does not seem to be able to achieve its targets after 2022 ... The report stated that fuel emissions will increase by 66 percent, which means net greenhouse emissions will rise by 4.4 percent. At the end of May, the court in The Hague ruled that the oil and gas company is obliged to reduce their CO2 emissions drastically. The judges determined that by 2030 emissions need to be reduced by 45 percent compared to 2019.
https://nltimes.nl/2021/10/23/shell-meeting-sustainability-goals-reportTotalEnergies accused of downplaying climate risks
French oil company TotalEnergies knew at least 50 years ago about a link between burning fossil fuels and global warming ... An article from 1971 in the company's magazine, Total Information, mentioned partial melting of ice caps [and] also predicted the rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere ... The research, which follows similar studies about US oil giant ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch [Shell], was carried out by three historians and published on Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal Global Environment Change ... by the late 1980s Total "began promoting doubt regarding the scientific basis for global warming", moving from "denial to delay," the researchers said ... Professor Andy Shepherd, director of the Centre for Polar Observation & Modelling, said the evidence is "pretty clear cut. Total can claim they weren't aware of the dangers, but few people will believe that. In fact the article was remarkably prescient."
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58989374Climate change: Fossil fuel production set to soar over next decade
Plans by governments to extract fossil fuels up to 2030 are incompatible with keeping global temperatures to safe levels, says the UN. The UNEP production gap report says countries will drill or mine more than double the levels needed to keep the 1.5C threshold alive. Oil and gas recovery is set to rise sharply with only a modest decrease in coal. There has been little change since the first report was published in 2019 [and] despite the flurry of net zero emission goals and the increased pledges of many countries, some of the biggest oil, gas and coal producers have not set out plans for the rapid reductions in fossil fuels that scientists say are necessary to limit temperatures in coming years ... instead of curbing carbon, many of the biggest emitting countries are also planning to significantly increase their production of fossil fuels, according to the UN.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58971131
see also https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/20/planned-fossil-fuel-output-vastly-exceeds-climate-limits-says-unWhite House, intelligence agencies, Pentagon issue reports warning that climate change threatens global security
The Pentagon report in particular marks a shift in how the U.S. military establishment is incorporating climate issues into its security strategy, analysts said. Until now, when the Defense Department has considered climate change, it has tended to focus on how floods and extreme heat can affect military readiness rather than the broader geopolitical consequences of a warming world. Now it is worried that climate change could lead to state failure ... builds on other grim warnings from national security officials about how a changing climate could upend societies and topple governments. “We assess that climate change will increasingly exacerbate risks to U.S. national security interests as the physical impacts increase and geopolitical tensions mount about how to respond to the challenge,” the document states. It also concludes that while momentum to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases is growing, “current policies and pledges are insufficient” to meet the goals that countries laid out in the landmark Paris climate accord [and] offers a dim assessment of the prospects for unified international action. “Countries are arguing about who should act sooner and competing to control the growing clean energy transition,” it states, concluding that “most countries will face difficult economic choices and probably will count on technological breakthroughs to rapidly reduce their net emissions later” ... The report’s warnings build on years of intelligence analysis that also painted a bleak picture. Just six months ago, in its quadrennial “Global Trends” report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence forecast that climate change could spawn social upheaval and political instability.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/intelligence-pentagon-climate-change-warnings/2021/10/21/ea3a2c84-31d3-11ec-a1e5-07223c50280a_story.htmlWhere civilization emerged between the Tigris and Euphrates climate change is poisoning the land and emptying the villages
Iraq’s climate woes have exacerbated shortages in everything from food to electricity generation. Fisheries have been depleted. In the country’s north, wheat production is expected to decline by 70 percent, aid groups say. In provinces without access to rivers, families are spending ever larger portions of their monthly income on drinking water. The result, increasingly, is migration. According to the International Organization of Migration, more than 20,000 Iraqis were displaced by lack of access to clean water in 2019, most of them in the country’s south. But as they flee to towns and cities, they’re further straining services already hollowed out by widespread corruption and weak job markets where unemployment is high ... Climate scientists warn that the extreme temperatures facing places like southern Iraq are a small taste of what will follow elsewhere. Iraq’s climate woes have exacerbated shortages in everything from food to electricity generation. Temperatures in Iraq topped a record 125 degrees this summer.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2021/iraq-climate-change-tigris-euphrates/Report: Plastic May Soon Overtake Coal as a Climate Killer
A new report from Beyond Plastics, an initiative at Bennington College to reduce plastic pollution [is] the first to look at the full climate impacts of plastic, analyzing publicly available data of 10 stages of plastics production, usage, and disposal. The results are startling. Among the findings: The U.S. plastics industry releases at least 232 million tons of greenhouse gases each year, the equivalent of 116 average-sized coal-fired power plants; In 2020, the plastics industry’s reported emissions increased by 10 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions over 2019; Construction is currently underway in the U.S. on another 12 plastics facilities, and 15 more are planned. Altogether these expansions may emit more than 40 million more tons of greenhouse gases annually by 2025; Plastics are on track to contribute more climate change emissions than coal plants by 2030. Oil and gas companies like ExxonMobil have a huge presence in the plastics business and it’s getting bigger ... expanding into plastics is the plan B for a fossil fuel industry that sees its future being squeezed by a shift to cleaner, cheaper forms of energy and an increasingly broad social mandate to reduce carbon pollution. “They are losing money on power, on electrification, on the rise of electric cars,” says Enck. “So under the radar, they are investing billions in a petrochemical build-out that few people know about, except impacted communities” ... report also blows up industry claims about recycling. Regular recycling has in fact stagnated at less than 9 percent. Now the plastics industry is touting “chemical recycling,” a term used to describe the processing of plastic waste into fuel. There are only a few chemical recycling plants in operation now, but by 2025, new capacity may cause the release of 18 million tons of greenhouse gases each year — equivalent to nine coal-fired power plants.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/plastic-pollution-climate-change-1245402/
reporting on a study at https://www.beyondplastics.org/plastics-and-climateExtreme rain over California's burn scars causes mudslides: This is what cascading climate disasters look like
Wildfires strip away vegetation and leave the soil less able to absorb water. A downpour on these vulnerable landscapes can quickly erode the ground as fast-moving water carries debris and mud with it ... communities and government agencies aren't prepared. Big-time precipitation is expected for the West Coast over the next 10 days. An atmospheric river will dump inches of rain and feet of snow across California, Oregon, and Washington as numerous storm systems roll in off the Pacific ... Several research studies have shown that compound events with both drought and heat waves have become more severe and frequent in recent years. One study attributed the increase in the risk of these dry-warm events in California to human-caused global warming and projected that the increased risk of dry-warm conditions will continue in the future ... At the same time, extreme rainfall events are expected to intensify in a warming climate. A warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, leading to wetter storms. This means there will likely be more burned acres exposed to potentially extreme rainfall events in a warmer world.
https://phys.org/news/2021-10-extreme-california-scars-mudslides-cascading.htmlVapor Storms Are Threatening People and Property
More moisture in a warmer atmosphere is fueling intense hurricanes and flooding rains
In mid-July, storms in western Germany and Belgium dropped up to eight inches of rain in two days. Floodwaters ripped buildings apart and propelled them through village streets. A week later a year’s worth of rain—more than two feet—fell in China’s Henan province in just three days [and] mid-August a sharp kink in the jet stream brought torrential storms to Tennessee that dropped an incredible 17 inches of rain in just 24 hours ... None of these storm systems were hurricanes or tropical depressions. Soon enough, though, Hurricane Ida swirled into the Gulf of Mexico, the ninth named tropical storm in the year’s busy North Atlantic season. On August 28 it was a Category 1 storm with sustained winds of 85 miles per hour. Less than 24 hours later Ida exploded to Category 4 ... As the oceans and atmosphere warm, additional water evaporates into the air. Warmer air, in turn, can hold more of that vapor before it condenses into cloud droplets that can create flooding rains [and] a juicier atmosphere provides extra energy and moisture ... fueling what might be called “vapor storms” that are unleashing more rain and snow than storms did only a few decades ago. Measurements confirm that heavy-precipitation events are hitting harder and occurring more often ... water vapor is also making global warming worse. Even though carbon dioxide gets most of the attention, water vapor is by far the most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. It absorbs much more of the infrared energy radiated upward by Earth’s surface than do other greenhouse gases, thereby trapping more heat ... As human activities continue to produce more heat-trapping gases, the oceans and atmosphere will continue to warm, and additional water will evaporate, leading to more frequent vapor storms and debilitating steam waves. Hurricanes in the strongest categories will occur more often, as will storms that intensify rapidly.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vapor-storms-are-threatening-people-and-propertyGaping hole opened up in 'Last Ice Area' of the Arctic, NASA images show
Arctic sea ice has starkly declined over the last 40 years, though polar scientists believed a region dubbed the "Last Ice Area" was largely resistant to melting as the planet warmed. Yet new research published in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters shows a hole nearly the size of Rhode Island opened up there in 2020, meaning even places with robust ice some 15-feet thick (or more) is increasingly susceptible in today's warming climate. "The scary thing is this area might not be as resilient as we think it is," Arctic scientist Kent Moore told Mashable. Moore is a professor of physics at the University of Toronto Mississauga who led the research.
https://mashable.com/article/arctic-climate-changeOne in five of Europe’s bird species slipping towards extinction
From the Azores in the west to the Ural mountains in the east, birds that have been the cornerstones of European ecosystems are disappearing ... 30% of species assessed are showing population decline ... 13% of birds are threatened with extinction and a further 6% are near threatened.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/14/one-in-five-of-europes-bird-species-slipping-towards-extinction-aoeCalifornia records driest year in a century
[A] total of 11.87 inches of rain and snow fell in California in the 2021 water year. That’s half of what experts deem average during a water year in California ... California’s major reservoirs are below their average storage level ... drought effects have been worsened by accelerated climate change ... California recorded its hottest summer this year, and the extreme heat has parched the landscape. And as the newest water year begins, the state could be in for more of the same. La Niña conditions that typically bring dry winters to California and the Southwest have emerged in the Pacific Ocean, NOAA reported Thursday. “We’ve already had this dry year, we’re in a drought situation, and then trends are that it potentially could be below the low rainfall season again this winter,” said Jayme Laber, senior hydrologist with the National Weather Service’s office in Oxnard. “All those things add up to not looking good.” NOAA climatologists forecast the present drought to last into 2022 and potentially longer.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-10-18/california-records-driest-year-in-a-centuryIncreasing heat and rainfall extremes now far outside the historical climate
Over the last decade, the world warmed by 0.25 °C, in-line with the roughly linear trend since the 1970s. Here we present updated analyses showing that this seemingly small shift has led to the emergence of heat extremes that would be virtually impossible without anthropogenic global warming. Also, record rainfall extremes have continued to increase worldwide and, on average, 1 in 4 rainfall records in the last decade can be attributed to climate change.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-021-00202-wGlobal emissions plans will fall 60% short of 2050 net zero target
In its annual World Energy Outlook ... IEA predicted that carbon emissions would decrease by just 40% by the middle of the century if countries stick to their climate pledges. The organisation said the difference between current plans and the change necessary to reach the net zero target was “stark.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/13/carbon-emissions-will-drop-just-40-by-2050-with-countries-current-pledgesClimate Change Is Melting Russia’s Permafrost—and Challenging Its Oil Economy
The melting of the thick layer of the earth known as permafrost is a result of climate change, according to scientists and Russia government research. Two-thirds of the country sits on such soil, including much of its oil and gas infrastructure ... Mines and plants are experiencing increasing corrosion leaks and cracks, stemming in large part from defrosting ground. In the pipeline industry, braces and other mechanisms, previously anchored into permafrost, often corrode, twist and bend when the earth below changes ... “In the near past, everybody believed that permafrost would have an impact on infrastructure by the end of the century. Now we know we don’t have much time,” said Vladimir Romanovsky, professor of geophysics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “Oil, gas, villages—it’s all on the line.” Russian economic officials and scientists estimate that thawing permafrost could affect more than a fifth of Russian infrastructure. The economy stands to lose more than $68 billion by 2050, a government minister said in May. The government says that 40% of buildings and infrastructure facilities in permafrost-covered areas have already been damaged.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-permafrost-oil-gas-economy-russia-11633443474
see also https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2021-10-18/russias-remote-permafrost-thaws-threatening-homes-and-infrastructureUS Department of Defense Climate Risk Analysis
Department of Defense Report Submitted to National Security Council
Across the globe, climate change is contributing to an array of hazards including higher temperatures; changing precipitation patterns; and more frequent, intense, and unpredictable extreme weather conditions ... Some security implications may result directly from climate change, but many result from direct or indirect impacts of climate change ... when climate hazards converge and compound, there will likely be unprecedented challenges for governments to respond. For example, drought increases the chance of wildfires, which, in turn, contribute to more frequent and severe flooding; combined, these hazards can compound exponentially on populations. As the frequency and intensity of these hazards increase, impacts are likely to expand competition over regions and resources, affect the demands on and functionality of military operations, and increase the number and severity of humanitarian crises, at times threatening stability and security ... climate change related impacts could stress economic and social conditions that contribute to mass migration events or political crises, civil unrest, shifts in the regional balance of power, or even state failure.
https://media.defense.gov/2021/Oct/21/2002877353/-1/-1/0/DOD-CLIMATE-RISK-ANALYSIS-FINAL.PDFWhy the American west’s ‘wildfire season’ is a thing of the past
What the US Forest Service once characterized as a four-month-long fire season starting in late summer and early autumn now stretches into six to eight months of the year ... More than half of the 20 largest fires in California history burned in just the last four years. Eight of the top 20 fires in Oregon occurred in that time frame too. Last year, Arizona saw the most acres burned in its history ... the climate emergency is a leading culprit. [It] has amplified drought and heat, two factors that have always been natural parts of western landscape, but play crucial roles in driving bigger blazes ... the highest danger for fire may not yet have passed. More than 95% of the west remains mired in drought, with more than half of the region classified in extreme or exceptional. It’s the most “expansive and intense” drought seen in this century, according to the US Drought Monitor.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/10/wildfire-climate-emergency-us-west[US] Defense Department warns climate change will increase conflicts over water and food
Climate change poses a serious threat to U.S. military operations and will lead to new sources of global political conflict, the Department of Defense wrote in its new climate adaptation plan ... Water shortages could become a primary source of friction or conflict between U.S. military overseas and the countries where troops are based, it warned ... The DOD was among 20 federal agencies unveiling the plans, which reveal the biggest threats global warming poses to their operations and suggest how they could handle them.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/08/defense-department-warns-climate-change-will-increase-conflicts.htmlSaltwater Intrusion Intensifies Coastal Permafrost Thaw
Along coastlines globally, sea-level rise is causing saltwater to intrude into terrestrial environments and freshwater reservoirs (i.e., saltwater intrusion) ... Results show that sea-level rise causes saltwater to intrude into the unfrozen pore space of permafrost. With a lower freezing temperature than freshwater, saltwater intrusion triggers permafrost thaw and lateral retreat. The combination of atmospheric and oceanic warming and sea-level rise has the potential to drive extensive permafrost loss along Arctic coastlines.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2021GL094776The American Bumblebee Has Vanished From Eight States
In two decades, the insect’s population has declined by nearly 90 percent
The American bumblebee (Bombus pensylvanicus)—once abundant and found lazily floating around in grasslands, open prairies, and some urban areas throughout the United States—now face a rapidly declining population ... the species' population has dropped nearly 90 percent [but] despite dwindling population numbers, the American bumblebee is not protected in any state or by federal law. American bumblebees are a vital pollinator for wildflowers and crops, and their decline could have severe consequences for the environment. The species has completely vanished from eight states ... Researchers can trace the bee's plummeting population numbers back to multiple threats, including pesticides, habitat loss, climate change, diseases and competition from non-native honeybees. States with the most significant dip in bee numbers have the largest increase in the use of pesticides like neonicotinoids, insecticides, and fungicides, per Live Science.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/american-bumblebee-has-vanished-from-eight-us-states-180978817/U.N. weather agency says world ill-prepared for ‘looming water crisis’
Floods, droughts and other water-related disasters are on the rise due to global warming, the World Meteorological Organization said in a new report published Tuesday. At the same time, swelling populations and dwindling resources around the globe have led to increased water scarcity in multiple regions, the U.N. agency said ... more than 2 billion people live in "water-stressed countries” where they lack access to safe drinking water and sanitation, according to the report “The State of Climate Services 2021: Water” ... The WMO and other agencies said that “urgent action” is needed to ramp up sustainable investment in drought and flood early warning systems, improve water management and integrate water and climate policies. “Time is not on our side.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/10/05/united-nations-world-meteorological-organization-water-crisis/Andrew Forrest criticises use of carbon capture and storage saying it fails ‘19 out of 20 times’
‘It’s a good soundbite but it doesn’t work’
As the [Australian] government moves to award carbon credits to fossil fuel projects that promise to capture and store carbon dioxide, the mining billionaire has told a podcast such projects had failed “19 out of 20 times” ... “in my own home state of Western Australia, we have some of the biggest gas developments in the world who’ve been granted permission to develop on carbon sequestration. And it failed. And that’s quite normal around the world. So to suddenly say, well, carbon sequestration, we’re going to wave a wand, it’s going to work reliably. Well, you know that, actually – if you’re a realist – is a bridge way too far. It’s good in a soundbite, but it doesn’t work in reality.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/oct/04/andrew-forrest-criticises-use-of-carbon-capture-storage-saying-it-fails-19-out-of-20-timesThe Ground Is Literally Exploding Due to Climate Change in Siberia, and It’s Going to Get Worse
Huge gas explosions are erupting in the icy soils of Siberia, a recent phenomenon that is linked to climate change ... a team led by Evgeny Chuvilin, a leading research scientist at the Skoltech Center for Hydrocarbon Recovery in Moscow, has proposed a new formation model [that is] published in the journal Geosciences ... the surface permafrost “caps” become weakened by this thawing process, which makes them more vulnerable to pressure from pools of methane gas that build up deep underground [and] the pressure from the gas pools reaches a tipping point that triggers the immense explosions. Given the direct link to climate change, Chuvilin and his colleagues expect these blowouts to continue in the future.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/wx5mmq/the-ground-is-literally-exploding-due-to-climate-change-in-siberia-and-its-going-to-get-worseCritical groundwater supplies may never recover from drought
In the largest study of its kind, scientists found that this recovery time only applies to aquifers that aren’t touched by human activity, and the recovery time might be even longer in regions with excessive pumping. For groundwater levels to recover after a drought, new precipitation requires time to percolate through the soil and recharge the depleted aquifer. The researchers show that this process can take several years longer in areas with deeper groundwater levels. “If people pump groundwater without first letting it recharge, groundwater levels keep going down, the cost of pumping goes up, and the land sinks,” explained Hoori Ajami, UCR groundwater hydrologist and study co-author and principal investigator on this project. Published in the Journal of Hydrology, the new study is the first to examine groundwater response to droughts on a continental scale ... “Excessive pumping lowers the groundwater level, creating a downward spiral in which restoring the aquifer becomes harder and harder,” added study co-author Adam Schreiner-McGraw.
https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2021/09/30/critical-groundwater-supplies-may-never-recover-droughtU.S. military consumes more hydrocarbons than most countries -- massive hidden impact on climate
[T]he US military is one of the largest climate polluters in history, consuming more liquid fuels and emitting more CO2e (carbon-dioxide equivalent) than most countries. The majority of greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting routinely focuses on civilian energy use and fuel consumption, not on the US military. This new study, published in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, calculates part of the US military's impact on climate change through critical analysis of its global logistical supply chains [and] reports that if the US military were a nation state, it would be the 47th largest emitter of GHG in the world.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190620100005.htm
reporting on a study at https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/tran.12319Triple jeopardy: Children face dark future of climate disasters
The outlook is troubling if the pace of global warming continues unchecked, said Wim Thiery, a climate scientist at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium, who led the research. "We found that everyone under 40 today will live an unprecedented life in terms of their lifetime exposure to heat waves, droughts and floods," Thiery said. "This is true even under the most conservative scenarios" ... Thiery said it's likely that impacts on people's lives will be even greater than the study estimates. That's because the researchers focused only on the frequency of extreme events, which doesn't take into account how long and severe they are. Studies have shown that climate change is making events like heat waves, droughts and wildfires not only more likely to occur, but also more intense.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/triple-jeopardy-children-face-dark-future-climate-disasters-rcna2304
reporting on a study at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abi7339A major Pacific current system is poised to heat up — with potentially devastating repercussions
Just as the Gulf Stream controls the motion of the ocean along North America's east coast, the Kuroshio Current and Extension form the main western boundary current as part of the North Pacific ocean gyre (meaning a large system of circulating currents) that spans from the North American Pacific Coast to Polynesia. The KCE helps move heat from the tropics to colder regions in the north Pacific ... the KCE may be in danger of heating extensively and/or altering its flow because of climate change. That is the conclusion of this new study, co-authored by Lam and recently published in the journal Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology ... the Kuroshio Current has warmed by between 1° and 2.5° degrees Celsius between 1900 and 2008, which would amount to a heating rate twice or three times faster than the global mean surface ocean temperature.
https://www.salon.com/2021/09/30/kuroshio-current-extension-heating/
reporting on a study at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021PA004318US to declare ivory-billed woodpecker and 22 more species extinct
The ivory-billed woodpecker and 22 more birds, fish and other species are expected to be declared extinct by the US Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday. It’s a rare move for wildlife officials to give up hope on a plant or animal, but government scientists have exhausted efforts to find these 23 species and warned that the climate crisis, on top of other pressures, could make such disappearances more common ... “it’s a sobering reminder that extinction is a consequence of human-caused environmental change,” Fahey said.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/29/us-bird-species-ivory-billed-woodpecker-extinctIn the Arctic, Less Sea Ice and More Snow on Land Are Pushing Cold Extremes to Eastern North America
Arctic sea ice this year is once again near a record low, and medium range forecasts call for relatively cold and snowy conditions in Siberia ... Disruptions of the polar vortex—a belt of strong, high altitude winds usually circling the central Arctic—have become more frequent in the last 40 years, the new research found. In the study, the researchers write that the lack of sea ice in the Barents-Kara Seas and heavier snowfall over Siberia combine to build a wave of high pressure in the atmosphere between Northern Europe and the Ural Mountains, along with low pressure over East Asia ... the new pattern, shaped by global warming, intensifies the waves [and] if that energy bounces downward off the polar vortex it distorts the vortex, pushing one end of the cold dumbbell over Siberia and the other toward the eastern half of the United States.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02092021/arctic-polar-vortex-ice-snow-extreme-freeze/The world's biggest carbon-removal plant just opened. In a year, it'll negate just 3 seconds worth of global emissions.
This carbon capture and storage facility, named Orca, turned on two weeks ago after more than 18 months of construction. The fans are embedded in shipping container-sized boxes ... Orca can trap and sequester 4,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year — making it the largest facility of its kind in the world (though there are currently only two running) ... "Nothing else can do what this tech does." According to the latest report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), carbon capture and storage is a necessary part of our best-case climate scenarios. [But] climate scientist Peter Kalmus has done the math: "If it works, in one year it will capture three seconds worth of humanity's CO2 emissions."
https://www.businessinsider.com/carbon-capture-storage-expensive-climate-change-2021-9Rice feeds half the world. Climate change’s droughts and floods put it at risk
California is the second-largest U.S. producer of rice [and] climate change is expected to worsen the state’s extreme swings in precipitation, researchers reported in 2018 in Nature Climate Change ... “If we lose our rice crop, we’re not going to be eating,” says plant geneticist Pamela Ronald of the University of California, Davis. Climate change is already threatening rice-growing regions around the world, says Ronald, who identifies genes in rice that help the plant withstand disease and floods. “This is not a future problem. This is happening now.”
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/rice-agriculture-feeds-world-climate-change-drought-flood-risk‘Out of control’ durum wheat market expected to cause pasta shortage
Inclement weather in Canada and Europe is resulting in a spike in the price of raw material, which – along with increases in freight – is spiralling the durum wheat market ‘completely out of control’ ... Canada – the world’s leading durum wheat producer – has experienced extreme heat and scarce rainfall since seeding ... Poor weather in Europe is also affecting the harvest, with French wheat, in particular, experiencing a poor year due to excessive rain. Durum is the second most cultivated species of wheat after common wheat ... “The market is completely out of control and as a result there has been an approximately 90% increase in raw material prices as well as increases in freight,” said Jason Bull, director of Eurostar Commodities. “This is a dire situation hitting all semolina producers and all buyers of durum wheat across the globe. Companies are buying at record high prices and farmers are holding onto wheat and driving the price up. “We expect to see shortages on supermarket shelves and increasing prices.”
https://www.bakeryandsnacks.com/Article/2021/09/10/Out-of-control-durum-wheat-market-expected-to-cause-pasta-shortageParaguay on the brink as historic drought depletes river, its life-giving artery
“Twelve barges had to leave today, but only six will make it out: there’s no time, the water’s dropping too fast,” said Krivenchuk, general manager of the Trociuk private port in southern Paraguay. “It’s the first time that any have left in two months.” The Paraná River, which winds through Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, has dropped to its lowest levels in 77 years as a severe drought that began in late 2019 continues to punish the region ... levels are rapidly falling. The drought has threatened water supplies in Argentina, driven up energy prices in Brazil, and helped drive rampant wildfires across the region. Paraguay, which has no coast and relies on its rivers for countless social, environmental, and commercial services, faces dire strain ... The world’s third-largest river fleet moves 96% of Paraguay’s international imports and exports along two great waterways, the Paraná and the Paraguay ... The CAF–Development Bank of Latin America lists Paraguay as the country most vulnerable to the climate emergency in South America. It has also seen enormous deforestation. Only 7% of the Atlantic forest that until recent decades covered the country’s east remains, and the western Chaco forest faces some of the world’s highest deforestation rates ... no end to the drought in sight.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/sep/27/paraguay-severe-drought-depletes-riverDying crops, spiking energy bills, showers once a week. In South America, the climate future has arrived.
From the frigid peaks of Patagonia to the tropical wetlands of Brazil, worsening droughts this year are slamming farmers, shutting down ski slopes, upending transit and spiking prices for everything ... So low are levels of the Paraná running through Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina that some ranchers are herding cattle across dried-up riverbeds typically lined with cargo-toting barges ... droughts this year are extensions of multiyear water shortages ... offering a taste of the challenges ahead in securing an increasingly precious commodity: water. “[This] is not a coincidence,” said Lisa Viscidi, energy and climate expert with the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue. “It’s definitely because we’re seeing the effects of climate change” ... spots severe enough to cause widespread crop losses, water shortages and elevated fire risk are now present in every continent outside Antarctica [and] disasters, scientists say, will worsen as the planet warms ... In a country long known as a global breadbasket, where 70 percent of exports are food commodities such as soybeans and corn, the drought is slamming farmers — and the broader economy ... Analysts fear the droughts are a harbinger of a new normal.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/09/24/argentina-brazil-south-america-drought/Lake Powell Reaches New Low
As North America approaches the end of the 2021 water year, the two largest reservoirs in the United States stand at their lowest levels since they were first filled ... Lake Powell is the second largest reservoir by capacity in the United States [and on] September 20, 2021 [the] lake held just 30 percent of its capacity ... Downstream in the Colorado River water management system, Lake Mead is filled to just 35 percent of capacity. More than 94 percent of the land area across nine western states is now affected by some level of drought, according to the September 23 report from the U.S. Drought Monitor ... NOAA Drought Task Force offered some context for the low water levels across the region. “Successive dry winter seasons in 2019-2020 and 2020-2021, together with a failed 2020 summer southwestern monsoon, led precipitation totals since January 2020 to be the lowest on record since at least 1895 over the entirety of the Southwest. At the same time, temperatures across the six states considered in the report (Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah) were at their third highest on record. Together, the exceptionally low precipitation and warm temperatures reduced snowpack and increased evaporation of soil moisture, leading to a persistent and widespread drought over most of the American West.“
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/148861/lake-powell-reaches-new-lowFires in the Amazon have already impacted 90% of plant and animal species
Since 2019, deforestation and fires have caused the Brazilian Amazon to lose about 10,000 square kilometers of forest cover per year – a high and alarming increase over the previous decade, when the annual reduction in forest area was close to 6,500 square kilometers, according to data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE). However, until very recently, experts had measured only the vegetation in areas destroyed; never had the biodiversity loss caused by fires been assessed. A new scientific study published in Nature – “How deregulation, drought and increasing fire impact Amazonian biodiversity” – translates this impact into numbers: to a greater or lesser extent, 93 to 95% of 14,000 species of plants and animals have already suffered some kind of consequence of the Amazon’s fires. The study, which involved researchers from universities and institutions in the U.S., Brazil and the Netherlands, analyzed data on the distribution of fires in the Amazon between 2001 and 2019, when the region saw record rates of major fires, despite high rainfall.
https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/fires-in-the-amazon-have-already-impacted-more-than-90-of-animal-and-plant-species-in-the-biome/Climate change: EU-backed study shows alarming state of oceans
Ocean temperatures and water levels are continuing to rise as a result of human intervention.
The state of the world's oceans is worsening, according to an environmental report released on Wednesday by a European Commission-funded marine monitoring service ... The Copernicus Marine Environmental Monitoring Service report highlighted the speed of change in oceans due to human intervention ... "Climate change, pollution and overexploitation have caused unprecedented stress on the ocean," Karina von Schuckmann, chair of the Ocean State Report, said in a statement accompanying the report.
https://www.dw.com/en/climate-change-eu-backed-study-shows-alarming-state-of-oceans/a-59261525Study: Increased heat-drought combinations could damage crops globally
Heat and drought events may coincide more often due to climate change, with negative consequences for agriculture, according to a new study. Crop yields often drop during hot growing seasons, and combined heat and drought can magnify the effect, say the authors. The study was just published in the journal Nature Food ... "Our study uncovers a new risk to crop production from climate warming that we believe is overlooked in current assessments. As the planet continues to warm, water and heat may get more strongly interrelated in many regions, making droughts hotter and heat waves drier," said lead author Corey Lesk, a researcher at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
https://phys.org/news/2021-09-heat-drought-combinations-crops-globally.htmlSouthwest U.S. drought, worst in a century, linked by NOAA to climate change
Human-caused climate change has intensified the withering drought gripping the Southwestern United States, the region's most severe on record, with precipitation at the lowest 20-month level documented since 1895, a U.S. government report said on Tuesday. Over the same period, from January 2020 through August 2021, the region also experienced the third-highest daily average temperatures measured since record-keeping began near the end of the 19th century, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) drought task force. The study warned that extreme drought conditions are likely to worsen and repeat themselves "until stringent climate mitigation is pursued and regional warming trends are reversed" ... The report focuses on drought in six states comprising the American Southwest, home more than 60 million people, but its implications stretch beyond that region, the authors said. "Half of the United States is in an unprecedented drought."
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/southwest-us-drought-worst-century-linked-by-noaa-climate-change-2021-09-21/With Climate Change, There May Be No Best Place to Live
If you’re looking to move somewhere in the U.S. to ride out the climate apocalypse, bad news: The list is growing shorter.
The heat wave of 2021 may eventually be viewed as a dividing line between the Before and After Times in the Northwest. “The problem with calling this a once-in-a-1000-year event is that the climate system is not in a balanced state,” the Oregon Climate Office tweeted in June. “The past is no longer a reliable guide for the future. These events are becoming more frequent and intense, a trend projected to continue.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-09-19/neither-portland-maine-or-oregon-is-refuge-from-climate-changeAs climate pledges fall short, U.N. predicts globe could warm by catastrophic 2.7 degrees Celsius
The United Nations warned Friday that based on the most recent action plans submitted by 191 countries to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the planet is on track to warm by more than 2.7 degrees Celsius by the end of the century — far above what world leaders have said is the acceptable upper limit of global warming ... U.N. Secretary General António Guterres in a statement said, “The world is on a catastrophic pathway to 2.7-degrees of heating.” He warned that “there is high risk of failure” at the coming climate summit.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/09/17/un-climate-2030-biden/The Rate of Global Warming During Next 25 Years Could Be Double What it Was in the Previous 50
Former NASA climate scientist James Hansen ... expects reduced aerosol pollution to lead to a steep temperature rise
Plunging [aerosol masking] emissions from industrial sources, particularly shipping, could lead global temperatures to surge well beyond the levels prescribed by the Paris Climate Agreement as soon as 2040 ... doubling of the rate of global warming would put the planet in the fast lane of glacial melting, sea level rise and coral reef ecosystem die-offs, as well as escalating heatwaves, droughts and floods ... In Hansen’s latest warning, he said scientists are dangerously underestimating the climate impact of reducing sulfate aerosol pollution ... IPCC report also highlighted that declining aerosol pollution will speed warming.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15092021/global-warming-james-hansen-aerosols/What Is ‘Fire Weather,’ and Why Is It Getting Worse?
A new study of the American West shows that climate change is driving more days that are hot, dry, and windy
"It's not just that it's hot. It's not just that it's dry. It's that all these conditions are happening at the same time ... there's very clearly an increase in these fire weather days that's been happening since the early 1970s across most of the western United States." Weber analyzed data from 225 weather stations from 17 western states going back to 1973, looking at temperature, humidity, and wind speeds, the three main variables that drive catastrophic fires ... the Southwest, in particular, has gotten much hotter and drier [plus] the region is seeing far more windy days, when an ignition is liable to turn into a speedy, intense blaze.
https://www.wired.com/story/what-is-fire-weather-and-why-is-it-getting-worse/
reporting on a study at https://medialibrary.climatecentral.org/uploads/general/FireWeatherReport2021.pdfThe amount of energy required by direct air carbon capture [DAC] proves it is an exercise in futility
Removing CO2 directly from the air requires almost as many joules as those produced by burning the fossil fuel in the first place
In 2020, the world used 462 exajoules (EJ) of energy from fossil fuels, which resulted in 32 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions. Capturing that carbon dioxide through DAC — which sucks the greenhouse gas out of the air — would require 448EJ, according to calculations by Australian maths-as-a-service company Keynumbers. That 448EJ is the equivalent of 124,444TWh — more than five times the annual global electricity consumption in 2020 (23,177TWh, according to Enerdata). And that doesn’t even include the energy that would be required to then transport and store the captured CO2 ... The world’s largest DAC facility, Climeworks’ $10m-15m Orca plant, was opened in Iceland last week, and is due to capture 4,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the air every year — the equivalent to the emissions from about 870 cars. The captured CO2 is then mixed with water and injected into basalt rock 1km underground, where it slowly turns into a solid carbonate mineral over a two-year [period]. So, theoretically, eight million such plants would be needed to capture the world’s annual carbon emissions, at a cost of $80trn-120trn.
https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/the-amount-of-energy-required-by-direct-air-carbon-capture-proves-it-is-an-exercise-in-futility/2-1-1067588Coral Reef Cover, Biodiversity, and Fish Catches Have Declined by Half Since the 1950s
[G]lobal coverage of living corals has declined by about half since the 1950s. So, too, has the capacity of coral reefs to provide ecosystem services ... catches of fishes on the coral reef reached its peak nearly two decades ago and has been in decline ever since despite an increase in fishing effort. The catch per unit effort (CPUE), often used as an indication of changes in biomass, is now 60% lower than it was in 1950.
https://scitechdaily.com/coral-reef-cover-biodiversity-and-fish-catches-have-declined-by-half-since-the-1950s/Stunning photos show drought’s impact on huge California reservoir
The California drought has been brutal over the past few years, but to see just how devastating it has been, you need to see before-and-after pictures side by side. Bay Area News Group photojournalist Nhat V. Meyer went out to the San Luis Reservoir in Merced County this week and took pictures in approximately the same places that he did in January 2019. The reservoir is one of the largest in California. The results are startling.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/09/17/before-and-after-see-the-impact-of-the-california-drought-on-san-luis-reservoir/Not a single G20 country is in line with the Paris Agreement
None of the world's major economies -- including the entire G20 -- have a climate plan that meets their obligations under the 2015 Paris Agreement, according to an analysis published Wednesday ... While many governments have committed to net zero, Hare said that without a real action soon, achieving net zero will be "virtually impossible."
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/15/world/climate-pledges-insufficient-cat-intl/index.html
see also https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/sep/15/governments-falling-short-paris-climate-pledges-studyAnimals died in 'toxic soup' during Earth's worst mass extinction: A warning for today
A recent study published by an international team of researchers including Professor and Head of the Department of Geosciences Tracy Frank and Professor Chris Fielding, both newly arrived at UConn, has identified a new cause of extinction during extreme warming events: toxic microbial blooms. In a healthy ecosystem, microscopic algae and cyanobacteria provide oxygen to aquatic animals as a waste product of their photosynthesis. But when their numbers get out of control, these microbes deplete free oxygen, and even release toxins into the water ... systems then seethed with algae and bacteria, delaying the recovery of animals for perhaps millions of years ... Today, humans have been following this recipe, and freshwater microbial blooms have been on the rise ... "The other big parallel is that the increase in temperature at the end of the Permian coincided with massive increases in forest fires. One of the things that that destroyed whole ecosystems was fire, and we're seeing that right now ... we are used to thinking in terms of timescales of years, maybe tens of years [but] the end-Permian mass extinction event took four million years to recover from. That's sobering," says Fielding.
https://phys.org/news/2021-09-animals-died-toxic-soup-earth.htmlClimate Scientists Forecast High Temperatures Into the Fall
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center said during a news conference that the forecast for October called for above-normal temperatures across much of the country ... the withering drought that currently ranges from the West Coast through the Southwest, the Rockies, the Northern Plains and into Central Minnesota will likely expand eastward ... spreading to nearly all of Texas, Oklahoma and Nebraska.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/16/climate/climate-change-drought-temperature.htmlReport: Climate change could see 200 million move by 2050
World Bank report published Monday examined how the impacts of slow-onset climate change such as water scarcity, decreasing crop productivity and rising sea levels could lead to millions of what it describes as “climate migrants” by 2050 ... Under the most pessimistic scenario, with a high level of emissions and unequal development, the report forecasts up to 216 million people moving ... regions are Latin America; North Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Eastern Europe and Central Asia; South Asia; and East Asia and the Pacific ... worst-case scenario is still plausible if collective action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and invest in development isn’t taken soon.
https://apnews.com/article/africa-climate-environment-and-nature-immigration-europe-69cada32a7c13f80914a2a7b48fb5b9c
reporting on a study at https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/36248Why a Warming Arctic Has the U.S. Coast Guard Worried About the Rest of the Country
The Arctic is warming at roughly twice the rate as the rest of the world, and summer sea ice cover has declined to unprecedented lows [so] what would have been work for an icebreaker 40 years ago was largely smooth sailing this time around. [But] it’s likely to get a lot harder. “A warming Arctic means more work for the Coast Guard,” says Admiral Karl L. Schultz, commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard. And not just in the Arctic, but across the United States. “There is that old saying that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” he says. “Well, what happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic” ... could start seeing consistently ice-free Arctic summers as early as 2035 [because] the more the ocean absorbs the sun’s rays, the warmer it gets, which in turn melts even more ice in a continuous feedback loop. The effect stays through the winter, resulting in a decline of multi-year ice [so] at the beginning of the following summer, there is even less of an ice base to start from ... the heat wave in the Pacific Northwest earlier this summer as well as the droughts and subsequent wildfires that have plagued the Southwest and California can be attributed to this effect. So too can the rapid intensification of Hurricane Ida and unusually wet summers on the east coast. So even though those extremes seem like polar opposites, they are, in fact, two manifestations of the same phenomenon ... A warming Arctic means the Coast Guard will be navigating a more challenging route, both north of the Arctic Circle as well as further afield.
https://time.com/6095064/arctic-climate-change-coast-guard/Scientists scramble to harvest ice cores as glaciers melt
Late last year, German-born chemist Margit Schwikowski and a team of international scientists attempted to gather ice cores from the Grand Combin glacier, high on the Swiss-Italian border, for a United Nations-backed climate monitoring effort. In 2018, they had scouted the site by helicopter and drilled a shallow test core. The core was in good shape, said Schwikowski: It had well-preserved atmospheric gases and chemical evidence of past climates, and ground-penetrating radar showed a deep glacier. Not all glaciers in the Alps preserve both summer and winter snowfall; if all went as planned, these cores would have been the oldest to date that did, she said. But in the two years it took for the scientists to return with a full drilling set-up, some of the information that had been trapped in the ice had vanished. Freeze-thaw cycles had created icy layers and meltwater pools throughout the glacier, what another team member described as a water-laden sponge, rendering the core useless ... The mission on Grand Combin underscores the major challenge scientists face today in collecting ice cores: Some glaciers are disappearing faster than expected. The realization is prompting renewed urgency ... Almost all of the world’s glaciers are shrinking, according to the United Nations. In its most comprehensive climate report to date, published in August, the UN concluded that “human influence is very likely the main driver of the near-universal retreat of glaciers” ... The pace at which glaciers are losing mass is also increasing ... Another member of the Grand Combin expedition, Italian climate scientist Carlo Barbante, said the speed at which the ice on the Alpine massif had melted in the last few years was “much higher than it was before.”
https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/science/scientists-scramble-harvest-ice-cores-glaciers-melt-2021-09-13/Pune: Low pollution during lockdown linked to warmer seas, say studies
Three recent studies [of aerosol masking] have linked last year’s Covid-19 lockdown in March to an abnormal increase in the surface temperatures of both water bodies. The IIT Bhubaneswar and IISER Pune study, exploring the impact of lockdown, said a decline in pollution aerosols over the Bay of Bengal last year caused the sea surface temperatures (SSTs) to warm ... “With a reduction in these aerosols during lockdown because there were less industrial and transport activities, more solar radiation could reach the ocean surface, causing the warming,” Vinoj said. “Pre-existing high summer SSTs, climate change enhanced ocean heat content and lockdown induced decline in aerosols and clouds, can be the perfect ingredients for intensification of any cyclonic activity.” Cyclones are much more likely to gather intensity over warmer waters. Heating of the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal is deeply connected to the recent intense cyclones and extreme rainfall events in India ... Kunal Chakraborty, senior scientist from INCOIS, said less pollution aerosols can reduce the deflection of solar radiation which then could have increased the temperature of the Indian Ocean during the lockdown period.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/low-pollution-during-lockdown-linked-to-warmer-seas-studies/articleshow/86182276.cmsTo limit warming to 1.5°C, huge amounts of fossil fuels need to go unused
A massive amount of fossil fuels will need to stay in the ground if the world is to reach its goal of limiting temperature increase to 1.5ºC, a new study shows. A paper from faculty members at the University College London uses modeling to decipher what would need to happen for a 50 percent chance of reaching this climate goal ... The study builds on a piece of research from 2015 that looked at the possibility of hitting the 2ºC goal. The earlier work used modeling to suggest that, globally, one-third of all oil reserves, half of gas reserves, and more than 80 percent of coal reserves need to remain unused to reach the goal. The new UCL paper’s recommendations are even stricter [saying] nearly 60 percent of existing oil and fossil methane gas and 90 percent of global coal reserves need to go unused through at least 2050—and this action would only yield a 50 percent chance of limiting global warming to 1.5ºC. [But] the necessary emission cuts have yet to materialize. For example, a 2019 UN report stated that the world’s governments expect to produce 120 percent more fossil fuels by 2030. “[T]he current and indicated fossil fuel trajectories globally are moving us in the wrong direction,” Welsby said.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/09/to-limit-warming-to-1-5oc-huge-amounts-of-fossil-fuels-need-to-go-unused/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03821-8The United States Isn’t Ready for the New Phase of Climate Change
For decades, scientists have warned that climate change would unleash ferocious natural disasters unlike anything in recorded human history [but decision-makers] treated climate-fueled disasters as the stuff of a distant future ... In 2021, however, the natural disasters long foretold by scientists arrived with a vengeance. Extreme weather events ... pummeled the globe, leaving swaths of destruction that underscored the grave inadequacy of vital systems and infrastructure ... It is past time to finally heed these calls to action. Climate change is an all-hands-on-deck problem, and escalating crises will not wait for Washington to adapt. Although the United States must continue to cut harmful pollution, it must also begin to prepare for the inevitable impacts of climate change.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2021-09-08/united-states-isnt-ready-new-phase-climate-changeForget plans to lower emissions by 2050 – this is deadly procrastination
Dr. Peter Kalmus is a climate scientist at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and UCLA's Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science & Engineering
The world has by and large adopted “net zero by 2050” as its de facto climate goal, but two fatal flaws hide in plain sight within those 16 characters. One is “net zero.” The other is “by 2050”. These two flaws provide cover for big oil and politicians who wish to preserve the status quo. Together they comprise a deadly prescription for inaction and catastrophically high levels of irreversible climate and ecological breakdown ... To lower the odds of civilizational collapse, society must shift into emergency mode. It will be easy to tell when society has begun this shift: leaders will begin to take actions that actually inflict pain on big oil, such as ending fossil fuel subsidies and placing a moratorium on all new oil and gas infrastructure. Then rapid emissions descent could begin ... the speed and scale now required is staggering. There is no longer any incremental way out ... As a climate scientist, I am terrified by what I see coming. I want world leaders to stop hiding behind magical thinking and feel the same terror.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/10/net-zero-2050-deadly-procrastination-fossil-fuelsAuthorities race to contain deadly Nipah virus outbreak in India
Nipah is a zoonotic virus, or one that is transmitted from animals to humans. Transmission generally occurs when humans either come into direct contact with the animals, or through consumption of contaminated food. But a high number of human-to-human transmission cases of Nipah have also been reported. Fruit bats [are] the natural carriers of Nipah. They are known to transmit the virus to other animals including pigs, dogs, cats, goats, horses and sheep ... There is no cure or vaccine for Nipah ... up to 75% of Nipah infections prove fatal ... 2004 Bangladesh outbreak was traced back to humans consuming date palm sap that had been contaminated ... Nipah is considered less contagious than the coronavirus, but its much higher mortality rate, a longer incubation period of up to 45 days, and its ability to infect a much wider variety of animals all make Nipah a cause of significant concern for epidemiologists trying to predict and prevent the next pandemic ... as the climate warms and humans destroy more natural habitat of species like the fruit bats in Asia, opportunities for new zoonotic variants to emerge increase.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nipah-virus-outbreak-india-kerala/For Russians, climate change is taking the ground beneath their feet
[D]amage to houses, roads and other infrastructure such as gas pipelines is becoming more frequent. When permafrost thaws, buildings are more likely to collapse ... Almost two-thirds of the ground area in Russia is [permafrost]. A large amount of animal and plant remains that have not yet been decomposed by microbes are contained in the frost. But in many regions, temperatures are rising and the frost is thawing ... In Russia alone, 20 per cent of all buildings and 19 per cent of infrastructure could be affected by global warming's consequences.
https://nordot.app/807553790163288064Emergent biogeochemical risks from Arctic permafrost degradation
The Arctic cryosphere is collapsing, posing overlapping environmental risks. In particular, thawing permafrost threatens to release biological, chemical and radioactive materials that have been sequestered for tens to hundreds of thousands of years. As these constituents re-enter the environment, they have the potential to disrupt ecosystem function, reduce the populations of unique Arctic wildlife and endanger human health. Here, we review the current state of the science to identify potential hazards currently frozen in Arctic permafrost. We also consider the cascading natural and anthropogenic processes that may compound the impacts of these risks, as it is unclear whether the highly adapted Arctic ecosystems have the resilience to withstand new stresses.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01162-yEurope will miss its 2030 climate goal by 21 years at current pace
At the current pace, Europe will only reach its 2030 target for a 55 per cent reduction in greenhouse gases in 2051, a study by Enel Foundation and the European House-Ambrosetti said ... The study, presented on Saturday, said investments of around €3.6 trillion were needed across the bloc to reach 2030 goals ... at the current pace Europe would only reach its 2030 target of raising the share of renewable energy to 40 per cent of final consumption in 2043.
https://www.euronews.com/green/2021/09/06/europe-will-miss-its-2030-climate-goal-by-21-years-at-current-paceIda’s fatal power didn’t shock scientists who study how climate change primed the pump
”Ida fed on an extreme level of heat content in the Gulf of Mexico,” Michael Mann, a Penn State climate scientist and director of the school’s Earth System Science Center, said in an email. “That record heat is tied directly to human-caused warming. That heat favored the dramatic, rapid intensification of Ida. So in short, yeah — this is climate change” ... Scientists say the connection between warming and climate change is well understood. A warmer, moister atmosphere generates more energy for storms to feed on ... During Ida, the Schuylkill at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia rose to 16.28 feet. Flood stage is nine feet, and 14 feet is considered a major flood. The average flow at the location is 1,460 cubic feet per second. It reached a flow of 125,000 cubic feet per second on Thursday. Dozens of sewage and storm-water pipes overflowed, emptying untreated water directly into Philadelphia’s major waterways.
https://www.inquirer.com/science/climate/ida-climate-change-philadelphia-flooding-tornado-20210904.htmlExtreme sea levels at different global warming levels
Here, we use a multimethod approach to describe changes in extreme sea levels driven by changes in mean sea level associated with a wide range of global warming levels, from 1.5 to 5 °C, and for a large number of locations, providing uniform coverage over most of the world’s coastlines. We estimate that by 2100 ~50% of the 7,000+ locations considered will experience the present-day 100-yr extreme-sea-level event at least once a year, even under 1.5C of warming, and often well before the end of the century.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01127-1How easily the climate crisis can become global chaos
[O]ne of the greatest threats of climate change [is] extreme droughts and floods hitting multiple major grain-producing "breadbaskets" simultaneously. The scenario is similar to one outlined by insurance giant Lloyds of London in a "Food System Shock" report issued in 2015. Lloyds gave uncomfortably high odds of such an event occurring ... What’s more, these odds are steadily increasing as humans burn fossil fuels and pump more heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the air. A warming planet provides more energy to power stronger storms, and more energy to intensify droughts, heatwaves and wildfires when storms are not present ... If business-as-usual is allowed to continue, a civilization-threatening climate catastrophe will occur. Mother Nature’s primal fury of 2021 is just a preview of what is coming ... this year may well be the coolest year of the rest of our lives. Catastrophic extreme weather events will grow exponentially worse with 3 degrees Celsius of warming — the course we are currently on.
https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/570284-how-easily-the-climate-crisis-can-become-global-chaosPermafrost Thaw in Siberia Creates a Ticking 'Methane Bomb' of Greenhouse Gases, Scientists Warn
Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, the study of satellite photos of a previously unexplored site in Siberia detected large amounts of methane being released from exposed limestone ... Another report echoes these anxieties. Published by the Climate Crisis Advisory Group (CCAG), it calls for a “global state of emergency” as temperatures continue to climb in Siberia and other Arctic regions. Permafrost covers 65 percent of Russian lands, but it’s melting fast. “Scientists have been shocked that the warm weather conducive to permafrost thawing is occurring roughly 70 years ahead of model projections,” the CCAG warning states [and] cautions that warming temperatures could be pushing the Arctic toward an “irreversible” tipping point, causing the release of methane and other gases, as well as crumbling infrastructure in Siberia, including dams and a nuclear power plant. “The story is simple,” the report concludes. “Climate change is happening faster than anticipated.”
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ticking-timebomb-siberia-thawing-permafrost-releases-more-methane-180978381/Weather disasters jump fivefold and will get worse: UN
Disasters caused by extreme weather have become much more frequent and costly since the 1970s ... according to a report published by the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on Wednesday. The report looked at damages and loss of life incurred through extreme climate and weather incidents between 1970 and 2019. Counting some 11,000 events, it noted that such disasters have increased fivefold in the past 50 years, largely due to climate change. On average, that comes out to one climate- or weather-related disaster per day. "The number of weather, climate and water extremes are increasing and will become more frequent and severe in many parts of the world as a result of climate change," WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said.
https://www.dw.com/en/weather-disasters-jump-fivefold-and-will-get-worse-un/a-59048127The Middle East Is Becoming Literally Uninhabitable
As extreme temperatures and severe droughts ravaged the region, forests burned, and cities became islands of unbearable heat [but] this is just the start of a trend. The Middle East is warming at twice the global average and by 2050 will be 4 degrees Celsius warmer as compared with the 1.5 degree mark that scientists have prescribed to save humanity ... According to Germany’s Max Planck Institute, many cities in the Middle East may literally become uninhabitable ... the Middle East has overtaken the European Union in greenhouse gas emissions even though it is “particularly strongly affected” by climate change. “In several cities in the Middle East, temperatures have been soaring well in excess of 50 degrees Celsius,” Lelieveld said. “If nothing changes, cities may experience temperatures of 60 degrees Celsius in the future.”
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/08/24/the-middle-east-is-becoming-literally-uninhabitable/The Middle East is running out of water, and parts of it are becoming uninhabitable
The region has witnessed persistent drought and temperatures so high that they are barely fit for human life ... projections for the future of water here are grim ... "declining rainfall and increasing demand in these countries are causing many rivers, lakes, and wetlands to dry up" ... "The problem is, with this whole temperature rise, whatever rainfall will come will evaporate because it is so hot," Mansour Almazroui, director at the Center of Excellence for Climate Change Research at Saudi Arabia's King Abdulaziz University, told CNN. "The other thing is, this rain is not necessarily going to be usual rain. There's going to be extreme rainfall, meaning that floods like those happening in China, in Germany, in Belgium, these floods will be a big problem for the Middle East. This is really a big climate change issue."
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/22/middleeast/middle-east-climate-water-shortage-iran-urmia-intl/index.htmlWildfire smoke is transforming clouds, making rainfall less likely
[A]ccording to a study published recently in Geophysical Research Letters: Smoke particles make some clouds denser and more tightly packed with tiny droplets—a combination that means the water in them is less likely to fall as rain ... a feedback loop like this could make drought, and so fire cycles, worse ... smoke-induced drop in rainfall probably happens across much of the planet ... “Because of the extra heat the wildfires are more frequent. And because they’re more frequent, you get the drier [conditions], which means less precipitation.”
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/wildfire-smoke-is-transforming-clouds-making-rainfall-less-likelyRain has fallen on the summit of Greenland’s huge ice cap for the first time on record
Scientists at the US National Science Foundation’s summit station saw rain falling throughout 14 August but had no gauges to measure the fall because the precipitation was so unexpected. Across Greenland, an estimated 7bn tonnes of water was released from the clouds. The rain fell during an exceptionally hot three days in Greenland when temperatures were 18C higher than average in places. As a result, melting was seen in most of Greenland ... Ted Scambos, a scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado [said] “What is going on is not simply a warm decade or two in a wandering climate pattern. This is unprecedented. We are crossing thresholds not seen in millennia, and frankly this is not going to change until we adjust what we’re doing to the air.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/20/rain-falls-peak-greenland-ice-cap-first-time-on-record-climate-crisisOne in three trees face extinction in wild, says new report
Experts say 17,500 tree species are at risk - twice the number of threatened mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles combined. Conservation groups are calling for urgent protection efforts amid threats such as deforestation, logging and climate change. "We have nearly 60,000 tree species on the planet, and for the first time we now know which of these species are in need of conservation action, what are the greatest threats to them and where they are," said Dr Malin Rivers of the charity Botanic Gardens Conservation International in Kew, London.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58394215Tennessee floods show a pressing climate danger across America: ‘Walls of water’
There is no place in the United States where you shouldn’t be resetting your expectations about Mother Nature disrupting your life,” said Roy Wright, president of the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety and former head of FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program. “Climate change has come barging through the front doors of America. For years, scientists have warned that humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions, primarily from burning fossil fuels, would raise the risk of flooding around the country ... climate change makes it possible even during a regular rainstorm.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/08/23/tennessee-floods-show-pressing-climate-danger-across-america-wall-water/Wildfires Near Russia’s Nuclear Research Center Spark State of Emergency
Russian authorities have declared an interregional state of emergency as tough-to-contain forest fires threaten the country’s top-secret nuclear weapons research center ... the research center makes nuclear warheads and is believed to be developing Russia’s strategic missiles, including its highly touted hypersonic arsenal. Firefighters have struggled to contain the fires due to hard-to-reach terrain, dead wood that remained after the 2010 wildfires and poor weather conditions.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/08/24/wildfires-near-russias-nuclear-research-center-spark-state-of-emergency-a74878Drought worsens in Southern California, with Ventura County in worst category
As sweltering drought conditions continue to worsen throughout California, Ventura and other Southern California counties have shifted from “extreme” to “exceptional” drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor Report ... Almost all of California is facing detrimental drought conditions, with 50 of the state’s 58 counties under a state of emergency amid excessive drought conditions ... Last week, the MWD issued a supply alert, calling on all of Southern California to conserve water amid the continued drought, a move that brings the state’s largest population center closer to tough water restrictions that have been imposed on communities elsewhere. The alert came one day after U.S. officials declared the first-ever water shortage on the Colorado River.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-08-23/parts-of-southern-california-now-in-exceptional-droughtClimate crisis made deadly floods ‘up to nine times more likely’
The record-shattering rainfall that caused deadly flooding across Germany and Belgium in July was made up to nine times more likely by the climate crisis, according to research. The study also showed that human-caused global heating has made downpours in the region up to 20% heavier. The work reinforces the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s landmark report this month that there is “unequivocal” evidence that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are the main cause of worsening extreme weather.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/23/climate-crisis-made-deadly-german-floods-up-to-nine-times-more-likelyA billion children at ‘extreme risk’, says Unicef
Almost half the world’s 2.2 billion children are already at “extremely high risk” from the impacts of the climate crisis and pollution, according to a report from Unicef. The UN agency’s head called the situation “unimaginably dire”. Nearly every child around the world was at risk from at least one of these impacts today, including heatwaves, floods, cyclones, disease, drought, and air pollution, the report said. But 1 billion children live in 33 countries facing three or four impacts simultaneously. The countries include India, Nigeria and the Philippines, and much of sub-Saharan Africa.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/20/a-billion-children-at-extreme-risk-from-climate-impacts-unicefClimate change is driving the North Water Polynya toward collapse, study finds
The North Water Polynya [NOW] ... an area of year-round open water wedged between Greenland and Canada’s Ellesmere and Devon islands [is] heading toward another collapse — this time driven by human-caused climate warming, concludes a new study published in Nature Communications. The “unprecedented speed” of changes, the study warns, poses serious threats ... “On our present climate trajectory, the NOW will likely cease to exist as a globally unique ice-bounded open-water ecosystem, and a winter refuge for keystone High Arctic species,” the study says ... Two signs of instability can be readily witnessed through satellite observations. “One is that the ice arches are breaking up earlier than they used to, due to sea ice being thinner and warming temperatures, and the other is that they are failing to form at all some years.”
https://www.arctictoday.com/climate-change-is-driving-the-north-water-polynya-toward-collapse-study-findsBiggest US reservoir declares historic shortage, forcing water cuts across west
Officials have declared a dire water shortage at Lake Mead, the US’s largest reservoir, triggering major water cuts in Arizona and other western states. The US Bureau of Reclamation’s first-ever declaration of a “tier 1” shortage represents an acknowledgment that after a 20-year drought, the reservoir that impounds the Colorado River has receded to its lowest levels since it was created in the 1930s. Already, the lake is at about 35% capacity [and] is projected to fall even lower by the end of the year, prompting cutbacks in January 2022, the Bureau of Reclamation announced Monday. Arizona will be hardest hit, losing nearly a fifth of the water it receives from the Colorado River. In Pinal county, farmers and ranchers will see the amount of water they get from the river drop by half next year, and disappear altogether by 2023 ... Lake Mead, which was formed after the construction of the Hoover Dam in the 1930s, has been declining faster than many experts predicted, amid a devastating drought and intense heatwaves ... the Colorado River system overall is now at half its capacity, according to the US interior department. The past 16 years have been the driest period the basin has seen in 1,200 years.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/16/lake-mead-drought-reservoir-water-level-cutsProperty insurers update risk modelling as Canada braces for climate impacts
The average annual cost of claims for property damage or losses due to severe weather has more than quadrupled over the last decade to about $2 billion, said Craig Stewart, the bureau's vice-president of federal affairs ... climate crisis is fuelling "more frequent, but also more severe weather events," Stewart said, pointing to flooding across Eastern Canada in recent years, higher-intensity tornadoes and dangerous wildfires on a nearly seasonal basis ... "Reinsurers have lost billions of dollars in this country over the last decade," Stewart said. "So they are upping their rates, insurers are paying more. And of course, that gets passed down in terms of increased premiums to customers."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/property-insurance-climate-change-1.6141901Turns Out a Wild Geoengineering Plan to Refreeze Arctic Sea Ice Isn't the Best Idea
As the world spins closer to climate catastrophe, fringe ideas are inching toward the mainstream ... including ones focused on saving polar ice by pumping massive amounts of seawater onto the surface of ice, where it will refreeze quicker and strengthen all icepack against melting. The refreezing idea has been proposed for both poles and would be massively expensive. But a new study shows that, in the Arctic, saving sea ice would do little to slow the climate crisis elsewhere. And it would unleash shocking and unintended consequences in the Arctic itself. The paper, published in Earth’s Futures on Thursday, takes its inspiration from a previous study that first raised the prospect of an Arctic geoengineering project. That study outlined a proposal to install wind turbines across the Arctic that would power pumps to draw water to the surface of the remaining sea ice ... the new paper picks up at that point [concluding] that the process would radically alter the climate in the Arctic while doing very little to fix the global climate overall.
https://gizmodo.com/turns-out-a-wild-geoengineering-plan-to-refreeze-arctic-1840270787It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record
July 2021 has earned the unenviable distinction as the world’s hottest month ever recorded, according to new global data released today by NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. “In this case, first place is the worst place to be,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, Ph.D. “July is typically the world’s warmest month of the year, but July 2021 outdid itself as the hottest July and month ever recorded. This new record adds to the disturbing and disruptive path that climate change has set for the globe.” With last month’s data, it remains very likely that 2021 will rank among the world’s 10-warmest years on record, according to NCEI’s Global Annual Temperature Rankings Outlook. Extreme heat detailed in NOAA’s monthly NCEI reports is also a reflection of the long-term changes outlined in a major report released this week by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changeoffsite link. “Scientists from across the globe delivered the most up-to-date assessment of the ways in which the climate is changing,” Spinrad said in a statement. “It is a sobering IPCC report that finds that human influence is, unequivocally, causing climate change, and it confirms the impacts are widespread and rapidly intensifying.”
https://www.noaa.gov/news/its-official-july-2021-was-earths-hottest-month-on-recordThe World’s Biggest Fires May Reach Moscow
The fires, which started in May in Yakutia, are now larger than all wildfires around the planet combined ... For months, Russian authorities have been saying that the situation was under control. Finally, on Thursday, the minister of Emergency Situations, Yevgeny Zinichev, traveled to the epicenter of the disaster in Yakutia and concluded: the fires will reach Moscow, if nobody stops them. There are more than 3,000 miles between Moscow and Yakutia ... Bagdan Bakaleiko, a Rain TV journalist covering the crisis in Yakutia, [said] “Firefighters tell us that everything that has never burnt before is burning now” ... this summer has been unusually hot, with unprecedented droughts and strong winds fueling the disaster ... other Russian regions are suffering from wildfires in the Urals, Far East and in the central parts of Russia. Earlier this month, wildfires spread in the national park of Republic of Mordovia, 352 miles from Moscow.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-worlds-biggest-fires-may-reach-moscow-thanks-to-vladimir-putinCalifornia’s Dry Season Is Turning Into a Permanent State of Being
The Climate Prediction Center just issued a forecast water managers in the Western U.S. didn't want to hear. The latest report, released Thursday, puts the odds in favor of a second straight year of La Nina conditions in the Pacific Ocean. La Nina tends to steer the storm track north of California, leaving most of the state and the Southwest parched. Last year's La Nina is one of the reasons for the current drought ... "If we want to see improvement of the drought across the West, the last thing you want to see is a back-to-back La Nina,'' said Tom Di Liberto, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ... California has already suffered through two dry years, leaving the soil so parched that what little snow fell in the Sierra Nevada Mountains last winter either evaporated into the air this spring or sunk straight into the dirt, leaving little runoff for rivers and reservoirs. Even with average winter rain and snowfall, runoff would remain low just because the land is so dry ... most climate models don't predict more rain. To make matters worse, his tree-ring study showed that the 20th century was actually an unusually wet period. Our expectations of "normal" rainfall, in other words, have always been a little skewed ... "there aren't any models saying that water availability in the Southwest will get better with climate change," he said. "It's a case of less bad or more bad."
https://phys.org/news/2021-08-california-season-permanent-state.htmlHeatwave Scorches Mediterranean in Latest Sign of Climate Change Impacts
A dangerous heatwave is sweeping across the Mediterranean, the latest in a series of recent extreme weather events that underscore the real-world impacts of climate change ... authorities across the Mediterranean are warning their populations to take precautions as temperatures soar ... comes just days after the world’s top climate scientists said in a landmark report that the past decade was most likely hotter than any period in the last 125,000 years and that global temperatures will only keep rising without drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Researchers found that climate change has caused heatwaves to become more frequent and intense across the world, leading to the deaths of vulnerable people ... “It’s a taste of things to come.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-12/mediterranean-heatwave-linked-to-climate-changeDead zones spread along Oregon coast and Gulf of Mexico, study shows
Scientists recently surveyed the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico around Louisiana and Texas and what they discovered was a larger-than-average area of oxygen-depleted water – a “dead zone” where nothing can live. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists announced their findings this week: about 4m acres of habitat in the Gulf are unusable for fish and bottom-dwelling species ... this was a record year in Oregon as well: the dead zone emerged earlier this year than in the past 35 years. Dead zones develop when fertilizers and nutrients from farmland drain into oceans or lakes, creating an algae bonanza that eventually dies and decomposes. As the algae decomposes, it depletes the waters of oxygen, suffocating species that live in the area.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/06/dead-zones-oregon-coast-gulf-mexico-studyGreenhouse gas emissions must peak within 4 years, says leaked UN report
Global greenhouse gas emissions must peak in the next four years, coal and gas-fired power plants must close in the next decade and lifestyle and behavioural changes will be needed to avoid climate breakdown, according to the leaked draft [of] the forthcoming third part of the landmark report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the first part of which was published on Monday, warning of unprecedented changes to the climate, some of them irreversible ... the leak reflected the concern of some of those involved in drawing up the document that their conclusions could be watered down before publication in 2022. Governments have the right to make changes to the “summary for policymakers”.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/12/greenhouse-gas-emissions-must-peak-within-4-years-says-leaked-un-reportEarth is warming faster than previously thought, scientists say, and the window is closing to avoid catastrophic outcomes
"Bottom line is that we have zero years left to avoid dangerous climate change, because it's here," Michael E. Mann, a lead author of the IPCC's 2001 report, told CNN. Unlike previous assessments, Monday's report concludes it is "unequivocal" that humans have caused the climate crisis and confirms that "widespread and rapid changes" have already occurred, some of them irreversibly ... due in part to the breakneck pace at which the planet has been recently warming, faster than scientists have previously observed ... Dave Reay, the director of the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute, said world leaders "must have the findings of this report seared into their minds" at the November conference and take urgent action. "This is not just another scientific report," Reay said. "This is hell and highwater writ large" ... Michael Byrne, a climate researcher at the University of Oxford, said that's what's different about this report is "the effects of global warming are no longer in the distant future ... it's here."
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/09/world/global-climate-change-report-un-ipcc/index.htmlClimate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'
Human activity is changing the climate in unprecedented and sometimes irreversible ways, a major UN scientific report has said. The landmark study warns of increasingly extreme heatwaves, droughts and flooding, and a key temperature limit being broken in just over a decade. The report "is a code red for humanity", says the UN chief ... warming we've experienced to date has made changes to many of our planetary support systems that are irreversible on timescales of centuries to millennia. The oceans will continue to warm and become more acidic. Mountain and polar glaciers will continue melting for decades or centuries. "The consequences will continue to get worse ... for many of these consequences, there's no going back" ... pact aims to keep the rise in global temperatures well below 2C this century and to pursue efforts to keep it under 1.5C [but] new report says that under all the emissions scenarios considered by the scientists, both targets will be broken this century unless huge cuts in carbon take place.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58130705Farm Bureau Survey: Drought Forces 85% Reduction
Nearly 80% of the [US] West, including North and South Dakota, is in severe drought. That percentage is even more staggering when compared to the 20% of the region that fell into the severe drought range this time last year ... In California, where 50 of the state’s 58 counties are under a drought state of emergency, Gov. Gavin Newsom has issued an executive order asking all Californians to voluntarily reduce water use ... water supplies for one-quarter of the state’s irrigated farmland has already been reduced by 95%, and more than half of that farmland is getting no surface water at all.
https://www.drovers.com/news/industry/farm-bureau-survey-drought-forces-85-reductionAgriculture Is Killing Way More Bees Than We Realized, Huge Study Reveals
A new meta-analysis of dozens of published studies over the last 20 years looked at the interaction between agrochemicals, parasites and malnutrition on bee behaviors and health. Researchers found that when these different stressors interacted they had a negative effect on bees, greatly increasing the likelihood of death. The study published in Nature also found that pesticide interaction was likely to be "synergistic", meaning that their combined impact was greater than the sum of their individual effects. These "interactions between multiple agrochemicals significantly increase bee mortality," said co-author Harry Siviter, of the University of Texas at Austin.
https://www.sciencealert.com/huge-metastudy-says-pesticide-threat-to-bees-likely-underestimatedGlobal economic policies driving toward a climate crisis
The study, carried out by leading international academics and published in Nature Energy, shows that existing growth-driven economic scenarios rely heavily on increased energy use in the future, and the use of carbon capture and storage technologies which are as-yet untested on a commercial scale ... Existing scenarios of climate mitigation rely on unproven technologies and improved efficiency of our economies, but do not consider the need for societal and economic transformations. "Take for example the question of negative emissions. Most scenarios assume it is perfectly feasible to transform the land of the size of India into a bioenergy plantation yet find it impossible to assume that rich countries could at some point stop growing their economies, even though growth is proven to be a major driver of environmental impacts," says Giorgos Kallis, ICTA-UAB researcher and co-author of the study. Other strategies—such as direct air carbon capture and storage—consume massive amounts of electricity, creating difficulties in decarbonising energy supply.
https://phys.org/news/2021-08-global-economic-policies-climate-crisis.htmlA critical ocean system may be heading for collapse due to climate change, study finds
Human-caused warming has led to an “almost complete loss of stability” in the system that drives Atlantic Ocean currents, a new study has found — raising the worrying prospect that this critical aquatic “conveyor belt” could be close to collapse. In recent years, scientists have warned about a weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which transports warm, salty water from the tropics to northern Europe and then sends colder water back south along the ocean floor ... the new analysis, published Thursday in the journal Nature Climate Change, draws on more than a century of ocean temperature and salinity data to ... suggest that the AMOC is running out of steam, making it more susceptible to disruptions that might knock it out of equilibrium ... If the circulation shuts down, it could bring extreme cold to Europe and parts of North America, raise sea levels along the U.S. East Coast and disrupt seasonal monsoons that provide water to much of the world. “This is an increase in understanding … of how close to a tipping point the AMOC might already be.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/08/05/change-ocean-collapse-atlantic-meridional
see also https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/05/climate-crisis-scientists-spot-warning-signs-of-gulf-stream-collapse
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01097-4As wildfires worsen, more California farms are deemed too risky to insure
Insurance companies in California have taken a staggering blow from wildfires — the industry’s losses in 2017 and 2018 eclipsed its total profits from the previous 25 years — and have started to drop customers by the thousands ... foreshadows a larger confrontation over so-called managed retreat in one of the country’s all-important breadbaskets ... An estimated 400,000 residential customers received nonrenewal notices in 2018 and 2019, with numbers spiking by more than 200 percent in the most vulnerable counties in California. Thousands of commercial businesses and farms have also been dropped ... If an insurance company is paying out more money in claims than it is taking in from premiums, the logical solution is to raise premiums to cover the difference. When an insurance company drops thousands of customers, though, it is saying that it cannot raise prices high enough to turn a profit off those customers — saying, in other words, that their farms are impossible to insure.
https://grist.org/agriculture/as-wildfires-worsen-more-california-farms-are-deemed-too-risky-to-insure/As drought worsens, regulators impose unprecedented water restrictions on California farms
Amid intensifying drought, state water regulators voted Tuesday to enact a drastic emergency order that will bar thousands of Californians — primarily farmers — from using stream and river water ... the scope of Tuesday’s order — which will apply to thousands of senior water rights across a wide swath of the state — is unprecedented, officials said. While the move has been protested by some farmers, irrigation districts and others, California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary Karen Ross called the decision “a necessary step,” saying the fact that senior water rights holders were included “speaks to the severity of the hydrology and what climate change has presented this year.”
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-08-03/water-regulators-impose-restrictions-on-california-farmersSiberian heatwave led to new methane emissions, study says
The Siberian heatwave of 2020 led to new methane emissions from the permafrost ... fossil methane gas leaked from rock formations known to be large hydrocarbon reservoirs ... Prof Nikolaus Froitzheim, at Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn, Germany, and who led the Siberian research, said: “We observed a significant increase in methane concentration starting last summer. This remained over the winter, so there must have been a steady steady flow of methane from the ground ... We don’t know how dangerous [methane releases] are, because we don’t know how fast the gas can be released. It’s very important to know more about it,” Froitzheim said. If, at some point in the future, large global temperature rises lead to a big volume being released, “this methane would be the difference between catastrophe and apocalypse” ... “We think that with this [heatwave], the surface became unstable, which released the methane,” Froitzheim said.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/02/climate-crisis-siberian-heatwave-led-to-new-methane-emissions-study-says
reporting on a study at https://www.pnas.org/content/118/32/e2107632118Yukon permafrost thaw reaching 'critical point' in some areas, says researcher
Permafrost in Canada's northwest is thawing much faster than researchers predicted 20 years ago, according to the president of the International Permafrost Association ... "In some places, the ground is reaching a critical point where it's very close to thawing out completely" ... Burn, a professor at Carleton University, has been studying permafrost in Yukon for four decades. In 2018, he was awarded the governor general's Polar Medal for his ongoing research work. He's become increasingly alarmed by what he's seen in recent years. It's not just that permafrost is thawing faster, but also that new things are happening as a result ... Burn thinks it's too late to turn things around. He says there's already too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and so it's impossible to "go back to some wonderful land that was there 200 years ago."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/yukon-permafrost-thaw-infrastructure-chris-burn-1.6125023As China Boomed, It Didn’t Take Climate Change Into Account. Now It Must.
China’s breakneck growth over the last four decades erected soaring cities where there had been hamlets and farmland ... Now those cities face the daunting new challenge of adapting to extreme weather caused by climate change, a possibility that few gave much thought to when the country began its extraordinary economic transformation. China’s pell-mell, brisk urbanization has in some ways made the challenge harder to face ... reflects a global trend that has seen deadly flooding recently in Germany and Belgium, and extreme heat and wildfires in Siberia. The flooding in China also highlights the environmental vulnerabilities that accompanied the country’s economic boom and could yet undermine it ... [the] question is whether it is too late. Even if countries like China and the United States rapidly cut greenhouse gases, the warming from those already emitted is likely to have long-lasting consequences.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/26/world/asia/china-climate-change.htmlThe amount of Greenland ice that melted on Tuesday could cover Florida in 2 inches of water
It's the third instance of extreme melting in the past decade, during which time the melting has stretched farther inland than the entire satellite era, which began in the 1970s. Greenland lost more than 8.5 billion tons of surface mass on Tuesday, and 18.4 billion tons since Sunday, according to the Denmark Meteorological Institute ... "It's a significant melt," Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, told CNN. "July 27th saw most of the eastern half of Greenland from the northern tip all the way to the southern tip mostly melted, which is unusual." As human-caused climate change warms the planet, ice loss has increased rapidly ... "Overall, we're seeing that Greenland melts more often," said Scambos, who also authors the National Snow and Ice Data Center's Greenland updates. "In previous decades or centuries, it's extremely rare to get above freezing temperatures at the summit of Greenland" ... Scientists say the trends at which climate change is accelerating are quite clear, and that unless emissions are curbed, such extreme events will continue to occur more frequently.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/29/us/greenland-ice-melting-climate-change/index.htmlAdapt or die. That is the stark challenge to living in the new world we have made
David Wallace-Wells on the choices facing us now
From here, even an astonishing pace of decarbonisation will still deliver us a warmer world than we have today, full of more eye-opening extremes and more deeply disruptive disasters of the kind, we are learning this summer, that even the wealthiest and most climate-conscious countries are unprepared for. No one is. That is what Sadiq Khan, London’s mayor, meant when he wrote, with the capital inundated, that the city was now on the frontline of the climate emergency and it is the central lesson of the Met Office’s annual report on the state of the UK climate, which found that mild British weather was already a relic of a bygone era. The Climate Crisis Advisory Group, led by Sir David King, recently declared that greenhouse gas levels were already so high that they foreclosed a “manageable future for humanity”. “Nowhere is safe,” King said ... perhaps the most harrowing of this summer’s extreme weather events, even more than the model-breaking Pacific heat dome, was the devastating flooding in Henan province, China ... At the last count, 99 people died in the flooding, not to mention millions of chickens and other livestock. In Henan, all told, 2.59m acres of crops were damaged. The cost of the disaster, according to still-growing estimates, was more than $14bn (£10.7bn), of which only a small fraction would be covered by insurance ... even the world’s vanguard infrastructure – the built kind, the natural kind and the human kind – is failing the test of even today’s climate, which is the mildest and most benign we will ever see again.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/01/adapt-or-die-that-is-the-stark-challenge-to-living-in-the-new-world-we-have-madeEarth's energy imbalance removes almost all doubt from human-made climate change
Researchers studying Earth's absorption of the sun's energy found a less than 1 percent probability that the recent changes occurred naturally. Stability in Earth's climate hinges on a delicate balance between the amount of energy the planet absorbs from the sun and the amount of energy Earth emits back into space. But that equilibrium has been thrown off in recent years — and the imbalance is growing, according to a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications. The changes to Earth's energy system have major ramifications for the planet's future climate and humanity's understanding of climate change. The Princeton University researchers behind the paper found that there's a less than 1 percent probability that the changes occurred naturally. The findings undercut a key argument used by people who do not believe human activity is responsible for the bulk of climate change to explain trends in global warming, demonstrating that the planet's energy imbalance cannot be explained just by Earth's own natural variations.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/earths-energy-imbalance-removes-almost-doubt-human-made-climate-change-rcna1562
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24544-4Colorado River Basin Reservoirs Begin Emergency Releases To Prop Up A Troubled Lake Powell
Federal officials laid out details of how reservoirs upstream of Lake Powell will release water in an attempt to keep producing hydropower ... The releases will result in an additional drop of 4 feet in Flaming Gorge, 2 feet in Navajo and 8 feet in Blue Mesa. The water released from the upstream reservoirs is projected to raise Lake Powell by an additional 2.6 feet, according to Reclamation hydrologists. That should be enough of a buffer to maintain hydropower production in the short-term, said Christopher Cutler, manager for the agency’s water and power services division. If the basin’s dry conditions continue into 2022, the situation could become more dire. "There comes a point where we can't engineer our way out of this," Cutler said.
https://www.kunc.org/environment/2021-07-15/colorado-river-basin-reservoirs-begin-emergency-releases-to-prop-up-a-troubled-lake-powellNew climate models forecast a warming surge
A host of global climate models developed for the United Nations's next major assessment of global warming, due in 2021, are [now] running hotter than they have in the past. In earlier models, doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide over preindustrial levels led models to predict somewhere between 2°C and 4.5°C of warming once the planet came into balance. But in at least eight of the next-generation models, produced by leading centers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and France, that "equilibrium climate sensitivity" has come in at 5°C or warmer [in models] which in many cases simulate the Earth system better than ever before.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6437/222Critical measures of global heating reaching tipping point, study finds
Overall, the study found some 16 out of 31 tracked planetary vital signs, including greenhouse gas concentrations, ocean heat content and ice mass, set worrying new records. “There is growing evidence we are getting close to or have already gone beyond tipping points associated with important parts of the Earth system,” said William Ripple, an ecologist at Oregon State University who co-authored the new research, in a statement ... “Policies to alleviate the climate crisis or any of the other threatened planetary boundary transgressions should not be focused on symptom relief but on addressing their root cause: the overexploitation of the Earth,” the report says.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/27/global-heating-critical-measures-tipping-point-studyClimate Migration Is Already Here And It's Going To Get Worse
A migration crisis is already underway, and it's caused, at least in part, by climate change, according to modeling by ProPublica and the New York Times Magazine. Their expert analysis shows that without the proper preparation and political will, it will continue to worsen ... a certain level of climate change is already baked into the system ... governments must restructure their thinking around climate change to focus not just on emissions, but also extreme weather response ... long-standing migration networks exist between the United States, Mexico and Central America [so] to prevent a migratory crisis on our southern border we [must] provide Central American countries with the foreign aid they need to mitigate climate change there.
https://www.wgbh.org/news/science-and-technology/2021/07/19/climate-migration-is-already-here-and-its-going-to-get-worseEurope’s deadly floods leave scientists stunned
“We should not be seeing this number of people dying in 2021 from floods. It just should not be happening.” For years, scientists have warned climate change will mean more flooding in Europe and elsewhere. Warmer air holds more moisture, which can translate into heavier rainfall ... Some European rivers are already exhibiting climate-related changes, says Fred Hattermann, a hydrologist and flood expert at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research ... new research suggests such risks could grow if climate change slows the jet stream causing drenching rainstorms to linger longer over flood-prone landscapes. Storms that stall over Europe were once exceedingly rare. But according to a study published last month in Geophysical Research Letters, in a worst case scenario such storms could become as much as 14 times more common ... In the Netherlands, decades of preparation appear to have helped ... Dutch policies aimed at making “room for the river” have widened and deepened river channels, and set aside land where floodwaters can spread out. Those measures were projected to reduce flood peaks [and appear to be successful] “When we look at how bad the flooding is, it’s much less than what happened in the ’90s.”
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/07/europe-s-deadly-floods-leave-scientists-stunnedFlash floods will be more common as climate crisis worsens, say scientists
Dr Jess Neumann, a hydrologist at the University of Reading, said: “Flooding from intense summer rainfall is going happen more frequently. No city, town or village is immune to flooding and we all need to take hard action right now if we are to prevent impacts from getting worse in the future.” Climate policy in the UK has focused on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, which is a primary concern, to reduce the human impact on the climate and ensure global heating does not reach catastrophic levels. But the government has also been warned frequently that measures to cope with the impacts of extreme weather are urgently needed ... Insurers are among those most concerned about the impacts of climate breakdown, and have warned that UK households and businesses in some areas could find themselves uninsurable if stronger action is not taken.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/26/flash-floods-will-be-more-common-as-climate-crisis-worsens-say-scientists-london-floodsPermafrost is ablaze with hundreds of wildfires in world’s coldest region
Wildfires on permafrost are ravaging Yakutia - or the Sakha Republic, the largest and coldest entity of the Russian Federation. The scale is mesmerising. There are some separate 300 fires, now covering 12,140 square kilometres - but only around half of these are being tackled, because they pose a threat to people. The rest are burning unchecked, with some of the world’s most remote wilderness destroyed by uncontrolled fires [in] an area almost the same size as India ... this year’s summer fire season was worse than 2020 ... in a region where winter temperatures can drop below minus 60C.
https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/features/permafrost-is-ablaze-with-hundreds-of-wildfires-in-worlds-coldest-region/‘Record-shattering’ heat becoming much more likely, says climate study
The study is a stark new warning on the rapidly escalating risks the climate emergency poses to lives ... the world had yet to see anything close to the worst impacts possible, even under the global heating that had already happened. The research found that highly populated regions in North America, Europe and China were where the record-shattering extremes are most likely to occur.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/26/record-shattering-heat-becoming-much-more-likely-says-climate-studyWorld’s Food Supplies Get Slammed by Drought, Floods and Frost
Extreme weather is slamming crops across the globe ... Brazil’s worst frost in two decades brought a deadly blow to young coffee trees in the world’s biggest grower. Flooding in China’s key pork region inundated farms and raised the threat of animal disease. Scorching heat and drought crushed crops on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border. And in Europe, torrential rains sparked the risk of fungal diseases for grains and stalled tractors in soaked fields ... underscores what scientists have been warning about for years: Climate change and its associated weather volatility will make it increasingly harder to produce enough food for the world, with the poorest nations typically feeling the hardest blow ... “We’ve underestimated as a world is just how frequently” weather would start to have serious impacts. “Some communities are already living through the nightmares of climate change” ... extreme weather seems to be pounding almost every region of the globe.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-24/world-s-food-supplies-get-slammed-by-drought-floods-and-frostHow will the West solve a water crisis if climate change continues to get worse?
A study published in Science Magazine in 2020 warned that the West is exiting an unusually wet time in its history and heading toward an unusually dry time that could last years -- even centuries ... 42% of California's population is now under a drought emergency ... water levels in Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the country, hit historic lows [and] Lake Powell, the second-largest reservoir in the U.S., is seeing similar patterns. Lake Mead and Lake Powell will likely never refill to previously normal levels ... Farming uses the largest chunk of water supply, accounting for 80% of consumptive water use in the U.S. and more than 90% in many Western states ... "But if you don't have the water, then over the long term you just can't sustain it."
https://abcnews.go.com/US/west-solve-water-crisis-climate-change-continues-worse/story?id=78566068Apocalypse Right Now
Heat waves are getting hotter. Forests are ablaze. Floods are obliterating. An iceberg nearly half the size of Puerto Rico broke off from Antarctica. Florida’s red tide has become more toxic because of pollution and climate change. They are responsible for killing 600 tons of marine life, leaving beaches strewn with reeking dead fish ... The heat wave that stunned the Pacific Northwest was followed by a bolt of lightning igniting the dry earth in Oregon. The Bootleg Fire has now devoured 400,000 acres, with flames so intense, they are creating their own weather ... when it comes to climate, the fear has a basis in reality. We should be scared out of our minds watching the weather run amok. “Everything we worried about is happening, and it’s all happening at the high end of projections, even faster than the previous most pessimistic estimates,” John Holdren, a professor of environmental policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, contended.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/24/opinion/sunday/climate-change-floods-wildfires.htmlWhat Climate Scientists Are Saying About This Catastrophic Summer
By all accounts, the climate crisis is already here. No one should be surprised by this. For decades, scientists have been ringing the alarm bell about anthropogenic climate change. Over 30 years ago, NASA scientist James Hansen told the U.S. Congress that the “greenhouse effect is here.” And long before then, in the 1800s, scientists like Svante Arrhenius calculated that doubling the amount of CO2 that was in the atmosphere in 1895 would lead to global warming of 5 to 6 degrees Celsius in average global temperatures. “That wasn’t too far off,” said Peter Kalmus, a climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory ... I asked several climate scientists how the constant onslaught of tragedy affects where they put us on the climate timeline. What they had to say was not particularly reassuring. “It’s already worse than what I imagined. I feel like the heat dome event in the Pacific Northwest moved up my sense of where we are at by about a decade, or even more,” said Kalmus. “I think a lot of my colleagues probably feel the same.”
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/07/scientists-fast-climate-change-summer.htmlA water crisis is creating nightmare conditions across the Middle East
[W]ater has been become a worryingly scarce resource as wars, crumbling infrastructure and, in some instances, unprecedented economic collapse, have led to rolling power outrages that have become disastrous when coupled with record high temperatures [and] will only get worse as the summer and the miseries drag on ... [UNICEF] warned that Lebanon’s water supply system is on the verge of complete collapse. In just a few weeks four million people, including one million refugees, are at risk of losing access to safe water ... the country’s economic collapse [is] among the world’s worst in the past 150 years. It has bankrupted the state ... Iranians had taken to the streets across dozens of towns due to the escalating drought, which environmentalists say the state has failed to handle, as temperatures have pushed towards 50C. Across the border in Iraq, water shortages have also driven people to the streets, particularly in the south of the country.
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/opinion/water-crisis-iran-lebanon-climate-b1890133.htmlCO2 emissions set to hit record levels in 2023 and there’s ‘no clear peak in sight,’ IEA says
IEA’s analysis notes that, as of the second quarter of this year, the world’s governments had set aside roughly $380 billion for “energy-related sustainable recovery measures.” This represents approximately 2% of recovery spending, it said. In a statement issued alongside its analysis, the IEA laid out a stark picture of just how much work needed to be done in order for climate related targets to be met. “The sums of money, both public and private, being mobilised worldwide by recovery plans fall well short of what is needed to reach international climate goals,” it said.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/20/co2-emissions-will-hit-record-levels-in-2023-iea-says.htmlCarbon capture is expected to [but likely will not] play a pivotal role in the race to net zero emissions
A report published by CIEL earlier this month concluded that these technologies are not only “ineffective, uneconomic and unsafe,” but they also prolong reliance on the fossil fuel industry and distract from a much-needed pivot to renewable alternatives. “The unproven scalability of CCS technologies and their prohibitive costs mean they cannot play any significant role in the rapid reduction of global emissions necessary to limit warming to 1.5°C ... Despite the existence of the technology for decades and billions of dollars in government subsidies to date, deployment of CCS at scale still faces insurmountable challenges of feasibility, effectiveness, and expense ... and has a history of over-promising and under-delivering.” In short, the study said reliance on CCS is “not a solution” to confronting the world’s climate challenge
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/20/climate-crisis-and-carbon-capture-why-some-are-worried-about-its-role.htmlIndia: on the frontline of climate change
In the first seven months of this year alone the impoverished nation of 1.3 billion people has experienced two cyclones, a deadly glacier collapse in the Himalayas, a sweltering heatwave and killer floods ... 10,000 glaciers are receding ... Cyclones [are] becoming more frequent and severe as sea temperatures rise ... India's average temperature rose around 0.7C between the beginning of the 20th century and 2018 [and] will rise another 4.4C by 2100, according to a recent government report [yet] just five percent of Indian households have air conditioning ... already the world's third-largest carbon emitter ... climate change is making the monsoon stronger, according to a report from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in April [which] warned of potentially severe consequences for food, farming and the economy affecting nearly a fifth of the world's population.
https://phys.org/news/2021-07-india-frontline-climate.htmlGlacier Ice Reveals Previously Unknown Viruses
Scientists who study glacier ice have found viruses nearly 15,000 years old ... at least 28 of them are novel. About half of them seemed to have survived at the time they were frozen not in spite of the ice, but because of it ... two previous studies have identified viruses in ancient glacier ice. In 2015, a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the 30,000 year old virus Mollivirus sibericum could still infect modern amoeba. In 2020, a preprint study of ice cores taken from a Tibetan glacier described ancient viruses in a melting glacier. "We know very little about viruses and microbes in these extreme environments, and what is actually there," senior author of the study glaciologist Lonnie Thompson clarifies. "The documentation and understanding of that is extremely important: How do bacteria and viruses respond to climate change?" In the worst-case scenario, meltwater from glaciers and ice caps could release harmful pathogens into the environment. Researchers have found still intact smallpox and the Spanish flu viruses in 100-year-old frozen tissue samples.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbressan/2021/07/21/melting-glaciers-reveal-previously-unknown-virusesWestern Drought Has Lasted Longer than the Dust Bowl
Half of the U.S. population lives in a drought-stricken area ... “In Oregon, a wildfire the size of Los Angeles is burning now,” NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said, referring to the Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon, which started July 6 and has burned an area that is actually about 20% larger than L.A.’s 503 square miles. “And this is only the start of the wildfire season out West” ... conditions have been building for over 20 years due to above-average temperatures and below-average precipitation. Drought conditions now afflict 96% of seven Western states — Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington — the highest percentage since record keeping began in 2000. “Starting around 2000 or the late 1990s, we’ve seen many years of below-normal precipitation,” said climatologist David Simeral of the Desert Research Institute.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/western-drought-has-lasted-longer-than-the-dust-bowl/Is any country installing renewables fast enough to reach climate goals?
The answer is a pretty clear "no." If we work backward from climate-stabilization scenarios, we'd need wind to roughly double its current rate, going from 0.6 percent to 1.2 percent. Based on the experience of several large countries, that would be the equivalent of reaching their maximum growth rate and then staying there. Solar would need to see its current global rate triple, with capacity additions equal to 1 percent of the electric supply every year. And both of those examples are based on the numbers for limiting climate change to 2ºC, when countries have agreed that 1.5ºC is a preferable goal ... As the authors of the paper put it, current scenarios that meet our climate goals require decades of growth in renewables at rates higher than those observed during the peak growth periods of most countries ... if countries aren't in the process of improving their policy situation, they either need to start pursuing alternatives (like efficiency and carbon capture [CCS]) or acknowledge that they don't actually intend to reach their commitments.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/07/renewable-growth-rates-arent-high-enough-to-reach-climate-goals/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-021-00863-0‘No One Is Safe’: Extreme Weather Batters the Wealthy World
The week’s events have now ravaged some of the world’s wealthiest nations, whose affluence has been enabled by more than a century of burning coal, oil and gas — activities that pumped the greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that are warming the world ... “We’ve got to adapt to the change we’ve already baked into the system and also avoid further change by reducing our emissions, by reducing our influence on the climate,” said Richard Betts, a climate scientist at the Met Office in Britain and a professor at the University of Exeter. That message clearly hasn’t sunk in among policymakers, and perhaps the public as well, particularly in the developed world, which has maintained a sense of invulnerability ... because there aren’t political incentives to spend money on adaptation. “By the time they build new flood infrastructure in their community, they’re probably not going to be in office anymore,” said Samantha Montano, a professor of emergency management at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. “But they are going to have to justify millions, billions of dollars being spent.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/17/climate/heatwave-weather-hot.htmlTop US scientist on melting glaciers: ‘I’ve gone from being an ecologist to a coroner’
Now an entomologist at the University of Montana, [Dr. Diana Six] has spent the last 30 years researching how bark beetles are decimating pine forests. But a constant, haunting depression has taken over her life. A recent trip to Glacier National Park spurred her to vent some of this emotion in a tweet that went viral and resonated with many: “Glacier National Park. 97F in June. Little snow left. 75F degree water. Glaciers disappearing. That is what we hear. But the worst is what most never see” ... the climate crisis isn’t just decimating glaciers ... “The ice is really just the canary in the coalmine. To have 97, 98 degrees in Glacier National Park for days on end is insane. This is not just some fluke ... When I went up Glacier with my students a few weeks ago, the flowers were curling up. At some of the lower elevations, glacier lilies were shriveled, lupins didn’t even open ... Any insects or birds that depend upon them, like bees or hummingbirds, are in trouble, their food is gone ... There have been total losses of a lot of baby birds this year. You see these ospreys and eagles sitting on top of the trees in their nests and those young, they just can’t take the heat ... People seem to think of extinctions as some silent, painless statistic. It’s not. You look at birds that can no longer find fish because they’ve moved too far off shore. They’re emaciated, they’re starving to death. We are at the point that there’s nothing untouched ... My whole life has been documenting how life works, how we can conserve species that are in trouble. I was no longer cataloging life and finding ways to prevent ecosystems from reaching tipping points. I had actually hit my own tipping point. Somewhere along the way, I had gone from being an ecologist to a coroner. I am no longer documenting life. I’m describing loss, decline, death.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/21/climate-crisis-glacier-diana-six-ecologistGlobal satellite data shows clouds will amplify global heating
The research, by scientists at Imperial College London and the University of East Anglia, is the strongest evidence yet that clouds will amplify global heating over the long term, further exacerbating climate change. The results [are] published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ... found it was very likely (more than 97.5% probability) that clouds will amplify global heating, by both reflecting less solar radiation and enhancing the greenhouse effect. These results also suggest that a doubling of CO2 concentrations will lead to around 3.2°C of warming. This is the highest confidence of any study so far, and is based on data from global observations, rather than local regions or specific cloud types.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210719153522.htm
reporting on a study at https://www.pnas.org/content/118/30/e2026290118Australia’s giant carbon capture project fails to meet key targets
The world’s largest carbon capture and storage [CCS] project has failed to meet a crucial target of capturing and burying an average of 80 per cent of the carbon dioxide produced from gas wells in Western Australia over five years. The energy giant Chevron agreed to the target with the West Australian government when developing its $54 billion Gorgon project to extract and export gas from fields off the WA coast ... the oil and gas industry and the federal government [declared] the success of carbon capture and storage to be crucial in tackling climate change while making use of fossil fuels ... project has been marked by delays, cost overruns [and] has never operated at full capacity ... Tim Baxter, a senior researcher with the Climate Council, said he was not aware of a single large carbon capture and storage project linked to fossil fuels in the world that had delivered on time, on budget, and capturing the agreed amount of carbon.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/australia-s-giant-carbon-capture-project-fails-to-meet-key-targets-20210719-p58b3i.html
see also https://reneweconomy.com.au/chevron-concedes-ccs-failures-at-gorgon-seeks-deal-with-wa-regulators/‘It Is All Connected’: Extreme Weather in the Age of Climate Change
The images from Germany are startling and horrifying ... But in an era of climate change, extreme weather events are becoming more common ... “all major weather these days is being affected by the changes in climate,” said Donald J. Wuebbles, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois ... warmer air holds more moisture, making it more likely that a specific storm will produce more precipitation. The world has warmed by a little more than 1 degree Celsius since the 19th century, when societies began pumping huge amounts of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. For every 1 Celsius degree of warming, air can hold 7 percent more moisture. As a result, said Hayley Fowler, a professor of climate change impacts at Newcastle University in England, “These kinds of storm events will increase in intensity” ... One effect in summer and fall, Dr. Fowler said, is that the high-altitude, globe-circling air current is weakening and slowing down. “That means the storms have to move more slowly,” Dr. Fowler said. The storm that caused the recent flooding was practically stationary, she noted. The combination of more moisture and a stalled storm system can lead to extra-heavy rains over a given area [so] extreme events like heat waves and pounding rains are likely to go on and on.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/16/climate/europe-floods-climate-change.htmlMethane Seeps Out as Arctic Permafrost Starts to Resemble Swiss Cheese
Deeply thawed pockets of permafrost, the research suggests, are releasing 17 percent of all the methane measured in the region, even though the emissions hotspots only make up 1 percent of the surface area ... peak concentrations of methane emissions were found to be 13 times higher than levels usually caused by bacterial decomposition—a well-known source of methane emissions from permafrost—which suggests the methane is likely [from geologic deposits and] will “increase emissions of geologic methane that is currently still trapped under thick, continuous permafrost, as new emission pathways open due to thawing permafrost,” the authors wrote in the journal Scientific Reports ... A 2012 [Alaska] study made similar findings near the edge of permafrost areas and around melting glaciers ... “Together, these studies suggest that the geologic methane sources will likely increase in the future as permafrost warms and becomes more permeable ... you do not have to completely thaw thick permafrost to increase these geologic methane emissions ... It is enough to warm permafrost and accelerate its thaw.”
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19072017/arctic-permafrost-melting-methane-emissions-geologic-sources-study/
reporting on a study at https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/42/eabb6546As Frozen Land Burns, Siberia Fears: ‘If We Don’t Have the Forest, We Don’t Have Life’
Last year, wildfires scorched more than 60,000 square miles of forest and tundra, an area the size of Florida. That is more than four times the area that burned in the United States during its devastating 2020 fire season. This year, more than 30,000 square miles have already burned in Russia, with the region only two weeks into its peak fire season. Scientists say that the huge fires have been made possible by the extraordinary summer heat in recent years in northern Siberia, which has been warming faster than just about any other part of the world [and] may potentially accelerate climate change by releasing enormous quantities of greenhouse gases ... Last year, the record-setting fires in the remote Siberian region of Yakutia released roughly as much carbon dioxide as did all the fuel consumption in Mexico in 2018 ... [Russia is] uniquely vulnerable, with two-thirds of its territory composed of permafrost.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/17/world/europe/siberia-fires.htmlCollapse Raises New Fears About Florida’s Shaky Insurance Market
The Surfside collapse ... adds to growing concern among economists about a new issue in the climate crisis: whether some parts of the United States are becoming too risky to insure, at least at a cost that most people can afford. That shift has already started. Days after the collapse, insurance companies sent letters threatening to cut off coverage to older buildings that did not pass mandatory safety inspections. In California, insurers have begun fleeing fire-prone areas; in other parts of the West, officials say they are seeing similar reports of insurers refusing to renew policies ... “It all comes down to profitability for the insurance companies” [who] have been losing money for years, and those losses were growing. Many insurers started dropping customers in high-risk areas, and refusing to take on new ones. In some parts of the state, it has become all but impossible for homeowners to buy private insurance ... Jim Gorman, CEO of American Property Insurance, said that since the building in Surfside collapsed, his company has started getting more calls from insurance brokers trying to find new coverage for clients that have either had their insurance canceled or seen their rates go up.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/17/us/miami-building-collapse-condo-surfside.htmlMIT Predicted in 1972 That Society Will Collapse [Middle Of] This Century. New Research Shows We’re on Schedule.
A remarkable new study by a director at one of the largest accounting firms in the world has found that [the 1972 Limits to Growth study] from MIT about the risk of industrial civilization collapsing appears to be accurate ... The controversial MIT analysis generated heated debate, and was widely derided at the time by pundits who misrepresented its findings and methods. But the analysis has [again] received stunning vindication [this time] from a study written by a senior director at professional services giant KPMG ... published in the Yale Journal of Industrial Ecology in November 2020 and is available on the KPMG website. It concludes that the current business-as-usual trajectory of global civilization is heading toward the terminal decline of economic growth within the coming decade - and at worst, could trigger societal collapse by around 2040 ... Previous studies [also showed] the model’s worst-case scenarios accurately reflected real-world developments. However, the last study of this nature was completed in 2014. Herrington’s new analysis ... found that the latest data most closely aligns with [BAU2 and CT] scenarios [which] “show a halt in growth within a decade or so from now,” the study concludes. “Both scenarios thus indicate that continuing business as usual, that is, pursuing continuous growth, is not possible.”
https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xw3x/new-research-vindicates-1972-mit-prediction-that-society-will-collapse-soon
reporting on a study at https://advisory.kpmg.us/articles/2021/limits-to-growth.html
see also 'Limits to Growth' entries elsewhere on this pageAmazon rainforest now emitting more CO2 than it absorbs
The Amazon rainforest is now emitting more carbon dioxide than it is able to absorb, scientists have confirmed for the first time. The emissions amount to a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, according to a study. The giant forest had previously been a carbon sink, absorbing the emissions driving the climate crisis, but is now causing its acceleration, researchers said. Most of the emissions are caused by fires, many deliberately set to clear land ... “Imagine if we could prohibit fires in the Amazon – it could be a carbon sink,” said Gatti. “But we are doing the opposite – we are accelerating climate change.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/14/amazon-rainforest-now-emitting-more-co2-than-it-absorbs
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03629-6Desert plant life in California disappearing due to climate change, UC Irvine study says
The steady decline of plants in Southern California’s portion of the Sonoran Desert ... is caused by climate change-driven heat increases, according to a new UC Irvine study. That area grew hotter by 3 degrees over the study period, 1984 to 2017, with vegetation decreasing an average of about 1% a year ... growing body of evidence that manmade climate change is reducing the amount of vegetation in drylands — primarily desert areas — worldwide, [and] 41% of the Earth’s land mass is drylands, according to the UCI report.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/07/13/desert-plant-life-disappearing-due-to-climate-change-uc-irvine-study-says/Greenland could lose more ice this century than it has in 12,000 years
Greenland is on track to lose more ice this century than it has at any other point in the Holocene, the 12,000-year period in which human civilization has flourished, an alarming new study has found. The study, published today in the journal Nature, offers the latest evidence that Earth’s northernmost ice sheet, which contains enough frozen water to raise global sea levels by 24 feet, has entered a period of rapid decline and may melt away entirely if humanity continues burning fossil fuels at current levels. The research also puts to rest the notion that Greenland’s recent deterioration might be part of a natural cycle, by showing just how fast the current meltdown is compared with the ups and downs of the geologic past.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/greenland-could-lose-more-ice-this-century-than-it-has-in-12000-yearsScorched, Parched, and Now Uninsurable: Climate Change Hits [California] Wine Country
If the heat and drought trends worsen, “we’re probably out of business,” said Cyril Chappellet, president of Chappellet Winery, which has been operating for more than half a century. “All of us are out business” ... [After the 2020 Glass Fire, the Green & Red winery’s] insurer wrote to the owners, Raymond Hannigan and Tobin Heminway, listing the changes needed to reduce its fire risk ... “We spent thousands and thousands of dollars upgrading the property,” Mr. Hannigan said. A month later, Philadelphia Insurance Companies sent the couple another letter, canceling their insurance anyway. The explanation was brief: “Ineligible risk — wildfire exposure does not meet current underwriting guidelines.” [They] have been unable to find coverage from any other carrier ... [Chappellet Winery] is one of the lucky ones — he still has insurance. It just costs five times as much as it did last year. His winery now pays more than $1 million a year, up from $200,000 before the [Glass] fire. At the same time, his insurers cut by half the amount of coverage they were willing to provide. “It’s insane,” Mr. Chappellet said. “It’s not something that we can withstand for the long term.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/18/climate/napa-wine-heat-hot-weather.htmlAs California wineries lose insurance, some fear this fire season will be their last
[Winemakers] are discovering that the one fallback they’d counted on — insurance in case their properties are damaged or destroyed by flames — is either impossible to get or exorbitantly expensive ... With a severe drought and a fire already sparking in early July, the insurance difficulties underscore a challenging reality: California wineries have very few ways to prepare for a worst-case wildfire scenario this year ... some carriers that cover wineries have simply withdrawn from the market ... The implications for an uninsured winery are far-reaching. Anyone with a mortgage on their property may be in violation of that agreement, because mortgages usually require insurance. And if a vintner decides to sell a property, the inability to insure the parcel may make it tough to find a buyer. Wineries are hardly the only entities facing wildfire-insurance woes in California. Many homeowners, too, have had trouble finding coverage through traditional insurance companies.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/wine/article/winery-fire-insurance-california-16304533.phpTrouble in Alaska? Massive oil pipeline is threatened by thawing permafrost
Thawing permafrost threatens to undermine the supports holding up an elevated section of the [Trans-Alaska] pipeline, jeopardizing its structural integrity and raising the potential of an oil spill in a delicate and remote landscape ... “This is a wake-up call,” said Carl Weimer, a special projects adviser for Pipeline Safety Trust, a nonprofit watchdog organization based in Bellingham, Washington. “The implications of this speak to the pipeline’s integrity and the effect climate change is having on pipeline safety in general” ... Richard Kuprewicz, president of Accufacts Inc., a pipeline consulting firm, said it wouldn’t be wise for pipeline operators to count on permafrost remaining solid in the same way as in the past. Assessing pipelines to determine if years-old structural designs can withstand the changing conditions and accelerated rate of permafrost thaw is prudent, he said. “Operators need to understand this new world being brought about by climate change,” he said. “What was true in the past may not be true today.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trouble-alaska-massive-oil-pipeline-threatened-thawing-permafrost-n1273589Combating ecosystem collapse from the tropics to the Antarctic
Collapsing ecosystems are a dire warning that nations face urgent and enormous challenges ... With the advent of the Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations, 2019) and the undertakings of the Paris Climate Agreement from 2016, there is an increasing expectation that urgent action will occur, despite indications that current progress is falling well short of meeting targets ... study reveals the manifestation of widespread, pervasive environmental degradation, and highlights global climate and regional human pressures acting together to erode biodiversity. The pressures identified are individually recognisable and universal in nature and impact. Urgent global recognition is required of both collapsing ecosystems and their detrimental consequences, especially in political and decision-making domains ... For instance, major disruption of food production and shortages of safe drinking water pose challenges for health and well-being, and have serious security implications. Pivotal for the future of life on Earth is a reduction of pressures that lead to ecosystem collapse, some of which can only be achieved through significant change in our collective behaviours.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.15539India's poor can't afford to beat the heat
Many here - and elsewhere in India - don't even have running water ... Only a lucky few have air conditioning, with most people using fans and cheaper air coolers - in between power cuts - and thick green curtains called tarpals to block out the sun. "Us poor are hit the hardest," said local resident Kuldeep Kaur ... Along the city's irrigation canals, boys and men young and old - but not women in socially conservative Rajasthan - cool off in the muddy water ... India's average temperature rose around 0.7 Celsius between the beginning of the 20th century and 2018. It is set to rise another 4.4 degrees by 2100, according to a recent government report.
https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/india/indias-poor-cant-afford-to-beat-the-heat-1.1625901233257Thawing permafrost prompts Denali National Park to reimagine its future
In the 1950s, 75 percent of Denali had near-surface permafrost, which ... dropped to around 50 percent in the 2000s and is projected to drop to 6 percent by the 2050s ... mean annual air temperature increased by at least 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) from 2014 to 2019 in the study area when compared with the previous 30-year period, with a near 3.6°F (2°C) increase in Denali and most Arctic parks. The increase rose to around 5.4°F (3°C) in certain western coastal park areas ... “If the warm temperatures observed during 2014 to 2019 persist, there will be widespread degradation of permafrost in portions of these national parks and similar environments across Alaska,” the authors wrote. Projections show Denali temperatures will likely continue to rise.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/thawing-permafrost-forces-denali-national-park-to-reimagine-its-futureHow Bad Are U.S. Wildfires? Even Hawaii Is Battling a Surge.
Hawaii [is] increasingly vulnerable to wildfires. Heavy rains encourage unfettered growth of invasive species, like guinea grass, and dry, hot summers make them highly flammable. Similar to the American West, where dozens of large blazes have raged in recent weeks and fire seasons have grown worse over the years because of extreme weather patterns and climate change, about two-thirds of Hawaii faces unusually dry conditions this summer ... More than 60 percent of land across Hawaii is currently considered “abnormally dry” [and will likely] intensify this summer on the Big Island and some other parts of Hawaii.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/05/us/hawaii-wildfires.htmlReservoirs are drying up as consequences of the Western [US] drought worsen
Many reservoirs are at or approaching historic low levels due to lackluster rainy seasons combined with increasing temperatures due to climate change. The drought crisis is perhaps most apparent in the Colorado River basin, which saw one of its driest years on record, following two decades of less-than-adequate flows. The nation’s largest reservoir, Lake Mead near Las Vegas, is at its lowest level since the lake filled after the construction of the Hoover dam in the 1930s ... California’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Shasta and Lake Oroville, are on track for potential record lows this summer, now at 37 percent and 31 percent of their total capacities, respectively. Amid a warm spring and early-season heat, mountain snowpack never made it into rivers and reservoirs — it simply seeped into bone-dry soils ... As the summer progresses, the levels will continue their decline.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/07/09/western-reservoirs-drought-california-nevada/Scientists Studying Temperature at Which Humans Spontaneously Die With Increasing Urgency
Originally, conditions like this weren't expected until the mid 21st century, according to climate models. But they are actually already here. [A study] found over 7,000 instances of so-called "wet bulb" conditions, which can lead to human deaths. Wet bulb temperature is the point at which humidity and heat hit a point where evaporation due to sweat no longer works to cool a person. Most of these wet bulb conditions were concentrated in South Asia, the coastal Middle East, and southwest North America ... A growing number of other regions are nearing this point: The Southeast US, the Gulf of Mexico and Northern Australia.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/93ynm5/scientists-studying-temperature-at-which-humans-spontaneously-die-with-increasing-urgencyAs Arctic melt sets early July record, hard times lie ahead for ice: Studies
Sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean hit a record low on Monday for this time of year ... situation in the Laptev Sea, one of the large marginal seas of the Arctic Ocean, has been bad. The Laptev has experienced record sea ice lows since last year ... the town of Oymyakon, Russia, considered the coldest inhabited place on Earth, reached 31.6 degrees Celsius (88.8 degrees Fahrenheit) on June 29, the hottest it’s ever been at this time of year ... researchers at the Alfred Wegener Institute found that increasing air temperatures and the intrusion of warm water from the North Atlantic into the Barents and Kara Seas — a climate change-driven process known as Atlantification — are overpowering the ice’s ability to regrow in winter ... sea ice in coastal areas may be thinning at up to twice the pace as previously thought ... sea ice in these regions is not surviving the summer melt.
https://news.mongabay.com/2021/07/as-arctic-melt-sets-early-july-record-hard-times-lie-ahead-for-ice-studies/The Era of Megafires
[I]t’s going to get worse, warn climate scientists, much worse. Temperatures will rise. Wildfires will become larger, more unpredictable ... “We will be hotter and we will be drier,” says Stephen Saunders, a former undersecretary in the Department of the Interior who was the lead author of that study. “If you have increased temperature and the same amount of precipitation, you will indeed be drier.” That observation is borne out last week by a PowerPoint presentation by Russ Schumacher, the Colorado state climatologist. The first slide shows standardized precipitation index for Colorado since 1900. There are periods of wet and periods of dry—including during the 21st century. But the [data] tells a very different story during the 21st century. There are no peaks in the 21st century; only valleys of drought ... There’s no escaping the rising temperatures. If the atmospheric emissions ended tomorrow, temperatures will continue rising for decades. “That is baked into our system,” says Veblen.
https://www.aspentimes.com/news/the-era-of-megafires/‘We are entering uncharted territory’: Climate crisis made North America’s deadly heatwave ‘150 times more likely’
North America’s deadly heatwave, which smashed temperature records across Canada and the western US, was made at least 150 times more likely by the climate crisis ... new temperature records have left the scientists stunned. “It’s an extraordinary event,” Dr Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, a climate scientist and co-leader of the World Weather Attribution initiative, a group of researchers tracking the fingerprint of the climate crisis on extreme weather events, told a press briefing held on Wednesday. “Within our knowledge, this [heatwave] is basically impossible. It’s surprising and shaking that our theoretical picture of how heatwaves behave has been broken so [dramatically].” “We are entering uncharted territory,” added co-author Prof Sonia Seneviratne, a climate scientist at ETH Zurich in Switzerland.
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/north-america-heatwave-climate-crisis-b1879763.html‘Hanging on by a thread’: Canadian farmers hope for rain as canola, wheat wither
Hot, dry weather has swept through western North America, contributing to hundreds of deaths, igniting wildfires and roiling canola and wheat markets in one of the world’s most fertile regions ... Spring wheat, another major Canadian export, is also struggling on the Prairies and in North Dakota, the biggest U.S. producer of the crop. In that state, 50 percent of spring wheat is in poor or very poor condition as of July 4, according to the North Dakota Wheat Commission. Southwestern Manitoba is Canada’s ground zero for a drought that also stretches west across southern Saskatchewan and Alberta, according to the federal government’s Canadian Drought Monitor ... “We are right on the brink,” he said.
https://www.producer.com/news/hanging-on-by-a-thread-canadian-farmers-hope-for-rain-as-canola-wheat-wither/Farmers and experts anticipate worst wheat harvest in years after extreme heat and drought levels fields
“This is probably going to be the worst harvest we’ve had for the 35 years we’ve been doing this,” Green said. Experts hold little to no optimism about this year’s wheat harvest after droughts during the spring and summer, and the record heat wave, shriveled fields in the Inland Northwest ... “We have had complete crop failures in Benton and Yakima counties,” said Michelle Hennings, executive director of the Washington Association of Wheat Growers ... “Almost every Pacific Northwest farm is in some kind of trouble.”
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/jul/08/farmers-and-experts-anticipate-worst-wheat-harvest/Utah’s Great Salt Lake has been shrinking for years. Now it faces a drought
For years the largest natural lake west of the Mississippi River has been shrinking. And a drought gripping the American west could make this year the worst yet ... Sailboats have been hoisted out of the water to keep them from getting stuck in the mud. More dry lakebed getting exposed could send arsenic-laced dust into the air that millions breathe. “A lot us have been talking about the lake as flatlining,” said Lynn de Freitas, the executive director of Friends of the Great Salt Lake. The lake’s levels are expected to hit a 170-year low this year. It comes as the drought has the US west bracing for a brutal wildfire season and coping with already low reservoirs.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/06/utah-great-salt-lake-shrinking-droughtThirsty Iran faced with scorching summer
The head of the National Center for Drought and Crisis Management Ahad Vazifeh warned recently that precipitation has declined by over 40 percent so far this year compared with Iran’s long-term average. This is expected to put further pressure on already-strained groundwater resources in a country that has been digging deeper and deeper wells. With summer already here, there are now fears of water cuts and rationing. Iranian media are replete with pleas for people to economize on the water as demand is expected to surge dramatically in the usually dry season.
https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/462780/Thirsty-Iran-faced-with-scorching-summerNitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas, is on the rise from ocean dead zones
[S]ediments below oxygen-depleted waters are a significant source of nitrous oxide (N2O) ... a potent greenhouse gas, 300 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. Global emissions of N2O are increasing as a result of human activities that stimulate its production. The oceans currently account for around 25 percent of global N2O emissions, and scientists are working to improve estimates of marine contributions. Most research has focused on oxygen minimum zones, which are known as hotspots of N2O emissions. Warming of the ocean due to climate change is driving the expansion of marine oxygen minimum zones globally. This has led to speculation that N2O emissions from the oceans will continue to increase and further accelerate climate change.
https://phys.org/news/2021-07-nitrous-oxide-powerful-greenhouse-gas.htmlA hotter future is already here — and Canada is not ready
Two weeks ago, the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices released a report on the public health impacts of climate change and the need for action to adapt to a new reality of extreme threats ... "We are now committed to a certain degree of warming in the world because of the emissions of the past," Ryan Ness, the adaptation research director for the institute and co-author of the report, said in an interview on Friday. "So while, in the longer term, it's absolutely critical to reduce greenhouse gases as much as possible, as fast as possible, to keep things from getting even worse, there is a certain amount of climate change that we can no longer avoid. And the only way to really deal with that is to prepare, to adapt and to become more resilient to this change in climate" ... we no longer need to look to the future to imagine what that change could look and feel like. The climate crisis is here.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/climate-change-lytton-heat-wave-wildfires-1.6088767‘A scourge of the Earth’: grasshopper swarms overwhelm US west
A massive population of grasshoppers is proliferating in the sweltering American west, where a deep drought has made for ideal conditions for grasshopper eggs to hatch and survive into adulthood. “I can only describe grasshoppers in expletives,” said Richard Nicholson, a cattle rancher in Fort Klamath, a small community in southern Oregon, who once recalled seeing grasshopper bands eat 1,000 acres a day and cover the ground like snow ... Oregon and Montana have been the hardest hit by the insatiable eaters, particularly in the arid eastern flank of both states. Thirteen other states are also facing grasshopper damage ... “The biggest biomass consumer in the country are not cattle, are not bison. They are grasshoppers,” said Helmuth Rogg, an entomologist and agricultural scientist who works for the Oregon department of agriculture.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/04/grasshopper-swarms-us-west-droughtWorld must remove 1 billion tonnes CO2 by 2025 to meet climate goal - report
“Without action to deliver 1 Gigatonne (Gt) of negative emissions globally by 2025, keeping global warming within the Paris Agreement target of 1.5°C cannot be achieved,” said the report by the Coalition for Negative Emissions (CNE), and consultancy firm McKinsey. It said countries will need to remove a billion tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere by 2025, if the Paris target is to be met, and more than one billion tonnes annually thereafter. The current pipeline of projects in development could remove only around 150 million tonnes of CO2 by 2025, well short of what’s needed, the report said.
https://www.reuters.com/world/world-must-remove-1-bln-tonnes-co2-by-2025-meet-climate-goal-report-2021-06-29/Wild Weather Plagues North America Grain Crops as Demand Surges
The U.S. and Canada are seeing unusual variability in climate, with some crops withering from severe heat and drought while others see flooding. Meanwhile, demand is surging as economies recover from the coronavirus pandemic ... With output in major exporters like Brazil already diminished, the wild weather is contributing to more volatility in crop markets with canola prices hitting a record and spring wheat at multiyear highs. “Rain, hail, drought, we’ve had it all,” said April Hemmes, a fourth-generation farmer in north central Iowa. In the past, both drought and rainfall would normally be milder and more widespread. But the world’s climate is changing and getting more extreme.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-29/wild-weather-plagues-north-america-grain-crops-as-demand-surgesPower Grids Getting Fried by Heat in Preview of What’s to Come
Heat waves like the one hitting Oregon and Washington used to be rare, but extreme weather [is making them] more frequent ... “All your expectations about the conditions you’re going to face need to be adjusted, because of climate change,” Mike Jacobs, senior energy analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said ... “We saw our equipment get to its limits,” Heather Rosentrater, Avista’s senior vice president of energy delivery, said ... Nuclear reactors as well as sites that burn coal or natural gas all generate heat to produce electricity, and eventually must shed that heat. Many use water for cooling, but heat waves can drive up the water temperature ... these issues are going to be more common as climate change continues to disrupt weather patterns.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-29/power-grids-getting-fried-by-heat-in-preview-of-what-s-to-comeThe scientists hired by big oil who predicted the climate crisis long ago
As early as 1958, the oil industry was hiring scientists and engineers to research the role that burning fossil fuels plays in global warming. The goal at the time was to help the major oil conglomerates understand how changes in the Earth’s atmosphere may affect the industry – and their bottom line. But what top executives gained was an early preview of the climate crisis, decades before the issue reached public consciousness. What those scientists discovered – and what the oil companies did with that information – is at the heart of two dozen lawsuits attempting to hold the fossil fuel industry responsible for their role in climate change. Many of those cases hinge on the industry’s own internal documents that show how, 40 years ago, researchers predicted the rising global temperatures with stunning accuracy ... "I was invited to join a research group at Exxon and one of my conditions to join was that we would publish our scientific research in peer-reviewed journals. It was a bunch of geeks trying to figure out how the planetary atmosphere works. We were doing very good work at Exxon. We had eight scientific papers published in peer-reviewed journals, including a prediction of how much global warming from carbon dioxide buildup would be 40 years later. We made a prediction in 1980 of what the atmospheric warming would be from fossil fuel burning in 2020. We predicted that it would be about one degree celsius. And it is about one degree celsius." (Dr Martin Hoffert, physicist and Exxon consultant from 1981 to 1987) ... "Most of the scientists at the time accepted that these types of changes in CO2 emissions were going to affect temperature and precipitation. The public did not, of course, and the industries did not, and the governments generally did not. But most of the scientific community was close to unanimous. It was nothing really new to any of us." (Steve Lonergan, 71, Exxon consultant 1989-90)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/02/scientists-climate-crisis-big-oil-climate-crimesArctic’s ‘last refuge’ for polar bears may be more vulnerable to climate crisis than first thought, study says
Sea ice in the region has already declined dramatically ... last 14 years have seen the 14 lowest Arctic sea ice levels since satellite records began ... the region is expected to act as a critical last refuge for mammals such as polar bears and walruses as sea ice disappears across much of the Arctic Ocean. However, last summer scientists observed an episode of extreme melting in this region, with sea ice levels falling to a record low of 50 per cent on 14 August ... results fit with what is known about how the climate crisis is driving unprecedented change in the Arctic, adds Prof Jonathan Bamber, a leading polar scientist from the University of Bristol who was not involved in the study. “Parts of the Arctic experienced record temperatures and wildfires in 2020. These extreme events have been predicted by climate models for some time as the Arctic warms at a rate more than twice the global average.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/arctic-last-ice-climate-change-b1876309.htmlRunning out of water: how climate change fuels a crisis in the US west
The American west is drying out as the region faces an unprecedented drought ... “There’s not enough water to go around, and that is going to be the case for the indefinite future,” said Jeff Mount, senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California Water Policy Center ... “We would catch more fish in one day back when I was a child than we do in the whole season now,” said Ron Reed, cultural biologist for the Karuk tribe. “When I was growing up, you could practically walk across the river on salmon” ... Water scarcity is becoming the new normal in the west, with multiple watersheds coping with extreme drought this year and chronically dry conditions for decades.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/01/water-scarcity-climate-change-exacerbating-crisisArctic Circle land temperature reaches 48C during ‘persistent heatwave’ in Siberia
The European Union’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service said land surface temperature “widely exceeded” 35C across the Russian region on the first day of summer. Siberia has been hit by wildfires and hotter than usual temperatures in recent years. Scientists found the heatwave experienced by the far northeastern region last year would have “effectively impossible” without the man-made climate crisis. It appears parts of Siberia in the Arctic Circle are once again recording record-breaking temperatures this year ... Last month, scientists called the heatwave gripping the Arctic “mindboggling” as temperature records in Siberia were once again broken. Temperatures rose above 30C in areas of the Arctic in May, which is much higher than the average for the time of year. Rising temperatures are causing ice and permafrost to melt, which causes previously trapped methane to be released into the atmosphere - which contributes to global warming.
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/arctic-circle-summer-global-warming-b1875285.htmlClimate Change Could Destroy America's Roads
Many roads aren't built to withstand extreme heat, an increasingly common occurrence in many parts of the country. As the Earth's temperature rises and extreme heat waves become more common, all kinds of formerly rare and manageable issues are becoming bigger problems. One example: roads getting so hot they jump up from the Earth, or "buckle," causing delays at best and closures requiring major repairs at worst ... road buckling is just the beginning of the potential problems climate change will have on American roads ... greater temperature fluctuations with more extremes on either end of the scale will stress pavement and make maintaining roads more difficult, more expensive, and vulnerable to major flaws that cause delays, increase vehicle maintenance costs, reduce fuel or electric-propulsion efficiency, and generally make our infrastructure worse.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/3aqpxn/roads-buckling-heatwave-climate-changeNowhere is safe, say scientists as extreme heat causes chaos in US and Canada
Climate scientists have said nowhere is safe from the kind of extreme heat events that have hit the western US and Canada in recent days and urged governments to dramatically ramp up their efforts to tackle the escalating climate emergency. The devastating “heat dome” has caused temperatures to rise to almost 50C in Canada and has been linked to hundreds of deaths, melted power lines, buckled roads and wildfires. Experts say that as the climate crisis pushes global temperatures higher, all societies – from northern Siberia to Europe, Asia to Australia – must prepare for more extreme weather events ... the climate was being destabilised in part by the dramatic warming of the Arctic and said existing climate models were failing to capture the scale of what was happening. “Climate models are actually underestimating the impact that climate change is having on events like the unprecedented heatwave we are witnessing out west right now.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/01/nowhere-is-safe-say-scientists-as-extreme-heat-causes-chaos-in-us-and-canadaWhat’s causing the drought in the West — and why it’s so bad
Several Western states, including Arizona, California, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada and parts of Oregon and Colorado, are in the grips of a historic drought that has depleted key water sources to a frightening level as temperatures rise and wildfire risk increases. Many scientists are ringing alarm bells that it could mark a tipping point in the water crisis that threatens life in the West as we know it, particularly agriculture. “The word drought just doesn’t do it anymore,” said John Fleck, a professor in water policy at the University of New Mexico. “Drought implies a dry spell that ends with a wet spell. And climate change is fundamentally changing things” … The conditions seen across much of the West this summer are part of what some scientists have called a “megadrought” that started in the year 2000 ... “It’s one of the longest droughts that we’ve had in 100 years. The longest and the most severe,” said Brian Richter, president of Sustainable Waters. “It would have been bad even without climate change, but climate warming is accentuating it.”
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/whats-causing-the-drought-in-the-west-and-why-its-so-badThe looming Arctic collapse: more than 40% of north Russian buildings are starting to crumble
The melting of the permafrost is about to cause huge damage to buildings and infrastructure across the country Global warming is now leading to quick and irreversible change ... The country’s Minister of Natural Resources Aleksandr Kozlov confirms that more than 40 percent of all buildings in the North are now experiencing deformation in their building structure. And the construction of roads and railways is getting increasingly difficult ... melting ground is today the underlying reason for 23 percent of all technical system failure in the region, and up to 29 percent of oil and gas production facilities can no longer be operated.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/climate-crisis/2021/06/looming-arctic-collapse-more-40-north-russian-buildings-are-starting-crumbleMountaintop Glacier Ice Is Disappearing In Tropics Globally
Glacier ice on the mountaintop now covers significantly less area in the tropical region compared to 50 years ago ... study was published in the journal Global and Planetary Change—a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal. Researchers found that a glacier near Puncak Jaya, in Papua New Guinea, lost about 93% of its ice over a 38-year period from 1980 to 2018. In another instance between 1986 and 2017 the area covered by glaciers on top of Kilimanjaro in Africa decreased by nearly 71% ... shows that climate change is causing these glaciers, which have long been sources of water for nearby communities, to disappear and indicates that those glaciers have lost ice more quickly in recent years.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dishashetty/2021/06/29/mountaintop-glacier-ice-is-disappearing-in-tropics-globallyFlesh-Eating Parasites May Be Expanding Their Range As Climate Heats Up
[Leishmania] parasites are currently endemic in Texas and Oklahoma, and new studies suggest that they might be present in other states, including Florida [and] may soon be on the rise: As climate change pushes rodent and sand fly habitat northward, scientists caution that in the future, an increasing number of U.S. residents could be exposed to different varieties of the flesh-eating parasite ... "It's a pretty striking difference for a disease that we used to think of as limited to South America now extending as far north as Canada," she said, "potentially within the next several decades."
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/06/25/1009885640/flesh-eating-parasites-may-be-expanding-their-range-as-climate-heats-upRising greenhouse gases pose continued threat to Arctic ozone layer
The new findings call into question the commonly held assumption that ozone loss would grind to a halt in just a few decades following the 2010 global ban on the production of ozone depleting chemicals ... published in the journal Nature Communications ... data from the study showed the lowest Arctic polar vortex temperatures and the highest ozone losses on record in 2020, beating the previous records set nine years ago in 2011 ... the researchers confirmed that the Arctic is already experiencing a significant trend toward lower stratospheric temperatures and associated increases in ozone losses. What's more, their observations reveal that these trends are occurring at rate consistent with the fastest climate models.
https://phys.org/news/2021-06-greenhouse-gases-pose-threat-arctic.htmlCalifornia Homeowners Insurance Could Be Ending For More Than 2.1 Million Residents
California’s moratorium on insurance companies dropping homeowners insurance is quickly coming to an end. The mortarium was put in place last year to give homeowners peace of mind as Governor Newsom declared states of emergencies for fires and other extreme weather. When this moratorium ends in November, more than 2.1 million residents could lose insurance on their homes ... Residents living in “high risk” areas are facing the consequences of having their home insurance dropped just because they live in a certain area. “This wildfire insurance crisis has been years in the making, but it is an emergency we must deal with now if we are going to keep the California dream of home ownership from becoming the California nightmare, as an increasing number of homeowners struggle to find coverage,” said Commissioner Lara, California’s insurance commissioner ... Residents will be stuck in these areas as they will not be able to sell their homes.
https://www.sandiegonewsdesk.com/2021/06/california-homeowners-insurance-could-be-ending-for-more-than-2-1-million-residents/Crushing climate impacts to hit sooner than feared: draft UN report
Climate change will fundamentally reshape life on Earth ... Species extinction, more widespread disease, unliveable heat, ecosystem collapse, cities menaced by rising seas—these and other devastating climate impacts are accelerating and bound to become painfully obvious before a child born today turns 30 ... dangerous thresholds are closer than once thought, and dire consequences stemming from decades of unbridled carbon pollution are unavoidable in the short term ... a reality check against a slew of ill-defined net-zero promises by governments and corporations worldwide. The challenges it highlights are systemic, woven into the very fabric of daily life. They are also deeply unfair: those least responsible for global warming will suffer disproportionately, the report makes clear. And it shows that even as we spew record amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, we are undermining the capacity of forests and oceans to absorb them, turning our greatest natural allies in the fight against warming into enemies ... raising the question of whether humanity is sowing the seeds of its own demise. "Life on Earth can recover from a drastic climate shift by evolving into new species and creating new ecosystems," it says. "Humans cannot" ... on current trends, we're heading for three degrees Celsius [or higher] ... the world must face up to this reality and prepare for the onslaught, "Current levels of adaptation will be inadequate to respond to future climate risks," it cautions ... outlines the danger of compound and cascading impacts, along with point-of-no-return thresholds known as tipping points [where] a dozen temperature trip wires have now been identified in the climate system for irreversible and potentially catastrophic change ... in the more immediate future, some regions—eastern Brazil, Southeast Asia, the Mediterranean, central China—and coastlines almost everywhere could be battered by multiple climate calamities at once: drought, heatwaves, cyclones, wildfires, flooding ... simply swapping a gas guzzler for a Tesla or planting billions of trees to offset business-as-usual isn't going to cut it, the report warns.
https://phys.org/news/2021-06-climate-impacts-sooner.htmlAntarctic nearing climate disaster despite landmark historic treaty
As the planet heats up, glaciers whose collapse would deluge coastal cities from New York to Jakarta are melting and growing less stable ... current policies will heat the world by almost 3 C, according to Germany-based research group Climate Action Tracker. A study published in the journal Nature in May found that a global temperature rise of 3 C would lead to an "abrupt jump" in the pace of Antarctic ice loss that would, in turn, trigger "rapid and unstoppable" sea-level rise. A second study, published in June in the journal Science Advances, found that an ice shelf that supports the 175,000-square-kilometer (68,000-square-mile) Pine Island Glacier is breaking up into the water faster and faster. The glacier is responsible for more than a quarter of Antarctica's contribution to global sea level rise and will melt faster if it collapses into warm waters.
https://www.dw.com/en/antarctic-treaty-system-climate-change/a-57993681Moscow sees hottest June day for 120 years with more to come
Moscow has sweltered through its hottest June day for 120 years after the temperature hit 34.7C with even hotter weather expected over the coming days. Russia’s weather service Roshydromet blamed climate change for the soaring temperatures ... Russia has set numerous records in recent years and in June 2020 registered 38C in the town of Verkhoyansk – the highest temperature recorded above the Arctic Circle since measurements began. The rising mercury levels have contributed to devastating floods and forest fires that have affected Siberia with increasing regularity. They are also contributing to the melting of permafrost, which covers about two-thirds of Russia’s large territory.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/23/moscow-sees-hottest-june-day-for-120-years-with-more-to-comeFish are swimming to cooler waters as climate change heats our oceans
[T]he oceans absorb the majority of the excess heat in our climate system ... having a direct impact on fish populations, with those species which are able to move to new habitats now shifting into areas to the north or south where the temperatures better suit their metabolisms. The reason is that fish are particularly sensitive to changes in temperature, due to being cold-blooded animals. They also live in habitats close to their upper temperature limit, meaning that even a slight change in temperature can impact their ability to feed and breed.
https://www.euronews.com/green/2021/06/14/how-fish-are-swimming-to-cooler-waters-as-climate-change-heats-our-oceansWildfires erupt after hottest week in history across parts of the West ignited them
On Monday, 7 million people were under red flag warnings across six Western states where the combination of hot temperatures, wind gusts to 40 mph and bone-dry humidity lead to a critical fire threat ... With climate change making heat waves three times more likely compared to 100 years ago and contributing to the current 22-year megadrought, wildfire seasons are starting earlier and lasting longer into the year. As the gap closes, experts say there isn't so much a defined wildfire season in the West anymore, but instead it lasts year round.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/wildfires-erupt-after-hottest-week-history-across-parts-west-ignited-n1271603Shocking scene as a major tree die-off hits East Bay parks
The East Bay Regional Park District said they began noticing "sudden tree mortality" in October 2020. Unlike years prior when certain species, like California oaks, were under siege, this year the die-off is affecting all kinds of trees. Eucalyptus, acacia, bay, pine and more are dying at alarming rates and filling the hills with dry tinder. In April, the park district said they've seen at least 1,000 acres of tree die-off, primarily in Redwood Regional Park, Tilden Park and Anthony Chabot Regional Park ... "The cause of tree mortality and dieback is not fully known but most likely has a direct correlation to drought caused by climate change."
https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/bay-area-drought-dead-trees-oaks-acacia-eucalyptus-16256034.php‘It’s brutal’: Las Vegas cooks amid blazing heatwave – and it’s going to get worse
[T]emperatures in the desert city hovered close to historic highs, peaking at 116 degrees Fahrenheit (46.6 Celsius), and setting a new record for such dangerously hot weather so early in the year ... Heatwaves are not only getting hotter, they are also becoming more frequent ... heat-related deaths are on the rise ... those exposed to high temperatures have higher rates of chronic kidney disease. Hot weather also adds to air quality issues, trapping harmful pollutants while spikes in energy use from air conditioning increase emissions. Studies show that heat affects the brain, slowing cognitive function ... Meanwhile, the construction continues. Housing developments in various stages of completion are on full display at the fringes of the city, and even on the hottest days, workers brave the elements to complete them. “It’s hard and it’s hot but if we don’t work we don’t get money,” said Ignacio Regrelar, who is finishing drywall on a development during the 116 degree day. He and his team work for 8 hours through the extreme heat. “The problem is, if the boss says he is ready, and you don’t do it, he will take other people,” he said.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/19/las-vegas-heatwave-nevada-us-west-temperaturesThe Record Temperatures Enveloping The West Are Not Your Average Heat Wave
"It's not only unusual for June, but it is pretty extreme even in absolute terms," says Daniel Swain, climate scientist at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. Palm Springs, Calif., recently hit 123 degrees, equaling its highest recorded temperature. Phoenix reached a record 118 degrees, the earliest the city has hit that high a mark. Sacramento, Calif., set a new daily record of 109 degrees. The National Weather Service just extended its excessive heat warning through Sunday night in the Central Valley and parts of northern California. Denver this week hit 100 for three straight days, the earliest date of such a streak on record. And in the Plains, several cities including Omaha, Neb., set records. [The heat is] also coinciding with worsening record drought across big parts of the West. These two things, Daniel Swain says, are now making each other worse. "That's sort of the vicious cycle of drought and extreme heat in a warming climate," he says. The excessive heat and widening drought continues to elevate wildfire risk across much of the West. The number of new wildfires in the U.S. so far this year is at a 10-year high, signaling a long, potentially dangerous summer and fall for wildfires. Experts say this current heat dome is yet more evidence of the impact of human-caused climate change.
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/19/1008248475/the-record-temperatures-enveloping-the-west-is-not-your-average-heat-waveCalifornia Walking a ‘Tight Rope’ as Hydropower Supply Fades
The catastrophic drought that’s gripping the U.S. West is claiming a new victim: the hydropower dams that much of the region depends on for electricity supplies ... at a time when electric grids across the West are already forecast to be stretched this summer as heat waves send power demand surging. With less hydropower, the challenge of meeting peak demand may get even tougher, especially in California [which] is already being swamped with demand as temperatures are forecast to exceed 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 Celsius) ... hydropower is down about 40% this month compared with June 2020, according to BNEF. At the Hoover Dam, on the Nevada-Arizona border, capacity has fallen about 25%, with the site’s reservoir at its lowest point since 1937 ... As of June 10, 85% of California was in extreme or exceptional drought. The parched conditions mean wildfire threat is high and farmers are struggling to irrigate crops ... the Pacific Northwest will also see a decline in electricity generated from conventional hydropower this year.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-15/california-is-walking-a-tight-rope-as-hydropower-supply-fadesRecord heat bakes Middle East as temperatures top 125 degrees
Five countries joined the 50-degree Celsius club, which equates to 122 degrees Fahrenheit ... a full month before high temperatures reach their annual average peak ... temperatures hit 123.8 degrees in the United Arab Emirates. Iran also climbed to 123.8 degrees ... Kuwait, on the Persian Gulf, managed 123.6 degrees ... Oman logged a high of 122.2 degrees ... Pakistan did the same ... Following Saturday’s blowtorch, somehow Sunday turned it up a notch, when the mercury soared to an astonishing 125.2 degrees in United Arab Emirates, becoming both a monthly and record high. It’s also the hottest June temperature ever observed in the United Arab Emirates and ties the nation’s record ... This early-season scorcher is the result of building high pressure, also known as a heat dome. That kinks the jet stream northward and suppresses rain chances, allowing heat to become established while diverting cooling clouds, fronts and disturbances. It is worth noting that this heat dome isn’t particularly intense, yet temperatures are already at record values [due to] human-induced climate change [pushing] what might otherwise be more routine fluctuations into record territory. Heat extremes have already been documented dramatically increasing in frequency in the Middle East and North Africa. There is even research to suggest that parts of the Middle East might become uninhabitable.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/06/07/record-june-heat-wave-middle-east/The Earth is now trapping an 'unprecedented' amount of heat, NASA says
The amount of heat Earth traps has roughly doubled since 2005, contributing to more rapidly warming oceans, air and land, according to new research from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "The magnitude of the increase is unprecedented," said Norman Loeb, a NASA scientist and lead author of the study, which was published this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. "The Earth is warming faster than expected" ... "It is a massive amount of energy," said Gregory Johnson, an oceanographer for NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and co-author of the study ... That extra heat, especially in the oceans, will mean more intense hurricanes and marine heat waves. "I hope the heating doesn't keep going at this clip," Loeb said. "It's not good news."
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/The-Earth-is-now-trapping-an-unprecedented-16252934.php
reporting on a study at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GL093047The Arctic’s ice is thinning faster than expected. It’s an ominous sign.
A group of British scientists has concluded that the Arctic’s coastal sea ice is thinning much faster than experts had previously estimated. ... The British team’s new calculations indicate that Arctic ice is thinning 70 to 100 percent faster — that is, at roughly double the rate — than previously thought. This finding is just another in a long string of warnings from scientists that many of global warming’s predicted effects may be occurring faster or in a more severe manner than anticipated.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/thinning-arctic-ice-is-yet-another-ominous-climate-signal/2021/06/04/78b5401c-c56d-11eb-9a8d-f95d7724967c_story.htmlIrreversible warming tipping point possibly triggered, Arctic mission chief says
A tipping point for irreversible global warming may have already been triggered, the scientist who led the biggest-ever expedition to the Arctic warned Tuesday. “The disappearance of summer sea ice in the Arctic is one of the first landmines in this minefield, one of the tipping points that we set off first when we push warming too far,” said Markus Rex. “And one can essentially ask if we haven’t already stepped on this mine and already set off the beginning of the explosion.” Rex led the world’s biggest mission to the North Pole, an expedition involving 300 scientists from 20 countries. The expedition returned to Germany in October after 389 days drifting through the Arctic, bringing home devastating proof of a dying Arctic Ocean.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/06/16/world/science-health-world/climate-change-tipping-point/Leading scientists warn of global impacts as Antarctic nears tipping points
Expert Working Group of leading Antarctic scientists warns that climate change is pushing this remote polar region, which connects all our ocean basins and keeps our planet habitable, towards numerous tipping points with global ramifications for humanity and biodiversity ... The report, "Climate Change and Southern Ocean Resilience," the result of the Expert Working Group discussions, is a unique collaboration across scientific disciplines, and identifies key interconnected Southern Ocean processes that are being impacted by climate change, and which will result in widespread changes well beyond the Antarctic region.
https://phys.org/news/2021-06-scientists-global-impacts-antarctic-nears.htmlUK warned it is unprepared for climate chaos
The UK is woefully unprepared to deal with changes occurring to the climate, government advisers say. A report by the independent Climate Change Committee predicts warming will hit the UK harder than first thought. It warns of more severe heatwaves, especially in big cities, and more intense rainfall, with an increased flood risk across most of the UK. It says homes, infrastructure and services must be made resilient to floods, heat and humid nights ... The committee, also known as the CCC, says the UK is even worse prepared than it was five years ago, at the time of its last report on the risks of climate change.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57487943Lake Mead falls to lowest level since 1930s amid worsening drought
The record low is due to a combination of years of punishing drought that's worsening across the Southwest ... expected subsequent drops in the lake, are almost certain to trigger a federal "water shortage" declaration later this summer, which would set off cuts in water allocations to several states. Lake Mead, which sits along the border between Nevada and Arizona, is part of the vast Colorado River basin that provides water for agriculture and human consumption to seven states ... levels this low have not been seen since the reservoir was originally filled in 1937 ... region is currently in a longer-term "megadrought" that is the second-worst such event in at least 1,200 years [and] is likely to continue to intensify and expand across the West and Southwest throughout the summer.
https://www.axios.com/lake-mead-drought-record-0b2eac6a-6aac-4a81-8654-a03d00f309f9.html
see also https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/10/lake-mead-reservoir-drought-lowAs early season heat roasts U.S., records tumble in Middle East
At the same time as much of the Lower 48 states are seeing temperatures soar through the 90s, an unusually severe early season heat wave has enveloped the Middle East and South Asia, prompting temperatures to spike above the 50°C (122°F) mark in at least five countries: Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Iran and Pakistan. Typically, the hottest time of year in the Persian Gulf region as well as Pakistan comes in July ... climate change could result in a Middle East that's virtually uninhabitable for several months a year by the middle of this century. Already, temperatures have flirted with such inhospitable levels.
https://www.axios.com/extreme-heat-records-us-middle-east-9b7f40b7-ac72-41ce-b71c-20e98f1290c5.htmlEdge of Pine Island Glacier’s ice shelf is ripping apart, causing key Antarctic glacier to gain speed
For decades, the ice shelf helping to hold back one of the fastest-moving glaciers in Antarctica has gradually thinned. Analysis of satellite images reveals a more dramatic process in recent years: From 2017 to 2020, large icebergs at the ice shelf’s edge broke off, and the glacier sped up. Since floating ice shelves help to hold back the larger grounded mass of the glacier, the recent speedup due to the weakening edge could shorten the timeline for Pine Island Glacier’s eventual collapse into the sea ... “We may not have the luxury of waiting for slow changes on Pine Island; things could actually go much quicker than expected,” said lead author Ian Joughin, a glaciologist at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory. “The processes we’d been studying in this region were leading to an irreversible collapse, but at a fairly measured pace. Things could be much more abrupt if we lose the rest of that ice shelf.”
https://www.washington.edu/news/2021/06/11/edge-of-pine-island-glaciers-ice-shelf-is-ripping-apart-causing-key-antarctic-glacier-to-gain-speed/
reporting on a study at https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/24/eabg3080Interacting tipping elements increase risk of climate domino effects under global warming
With progressing global warming, there is an increased risk that one or several tipping elements in the climate system might cross a critical threshold, resulting in severe consequences for the global climate, ecosystems and human societies ... we explicitly study the effects of known physical interactions among the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and the Amazon rainforest [and] analyse the risk of domino effects being triggered ... We find that the interactions tend to destabilise the network of tipping elements.
https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/12/601/2021/An Alaska glacier hurtles downhill in a rare exhibition of ‘this amazing science’
[This] began last fall some 12 miles uphill. That's where the glacier initially started sliding ... at speeds up to 100 times faster than normal ... [normally] the Muldrow moves only about three inches a day. Scientists estimate it is now gaining 30 to 60 feet daily ... across the Alaska Range, glaciers are losing mass because of climate change. "These are glaciers that are born in really tall mountains with really cold weather systems throughout a lot of the year," Young said. "In the past, they've had the opportunity to grow really large. In Alaska and everywhere else in the world, we're seeing volume loss and retreat in these glaciers as the summer season is getting longer and warmer and they are getting less snow throughout the course of the winter."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/alaska-glacier-surge-muldrow-climate/2021/06/04/dade503a-c315-11eb-9a8d-f95d7724967c_story.htmlWorld leaders ‘ignoring’ role of destruction of nature in causing pandemics
The root cause of pandemics – the destruction of nature – is being ignored, scientists have warned ... the spillover of disease from animals to humans ... razing of forests and hunting of wildlife is increasingly bringing animals and the microbes they harbour into contact with people and livestock. About 70% of new infectious diseases have come from animals, including Covid-19, Sars, bird flu, Ebola and HIV. However, preventing this root cause of spillover is scarcely mentioned by leaders and authorities, said the scientists behind a new independent taskforce ... hosted by Harvard University in the US ... “Covid-19 was a warning shot from the whole of nature to our species,” said Aaron Bernstein, a doctor at Harvard’s Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment who is leading the taskforce. “But so far world leaders are far from acting. You hear from [them] about the actions to supposedly prevent pandemics, but the idea of preventing their root causes is scarcely even mentioned.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/04/end-destruction-of-nature-to-stop-future-pandemics-say-scientistsOregon fall firestorms cautionary tale in worsening drought
Pushed by unusually strong winds, fires ripped through temperate rainforest just a few minutes’ drive from the ocean, crept to within 30 miles (48 kilometers) of downtown Portland, leveled thousands of homes and businesses along Interstate 5 and wiped out communities that cater to outdoors enthusiasts. It was a wake-up call for the Pacific Northwest as climate change brings destructive blazes that feel more like California’s annual fire siege to wet places and urban landscapes once believed insulated from them. And as the U.S. West enters yet another year of drought, Oregon is now starting fire season amid some of the worst conditions in memory ... “I thought we still had a generation or so to get our ducks in a row to prepare for this, and these last couple fire seasons here have been a huge wake-up call that we are experiencing it now,” said [Larry O’Neill, Oregon’s state climatologist].
https://apnews.com/article/nv-state-wire-oregon-fires-climate-change-nm-state-wire-0fcfcde1ab4a5a9b05877e2c40547855World’s soils ‘under great pressure’, says UN pollution report
The world’s soils, which provide 95% of humanity’s food, are “under great pressure”, according to a UN report on soil pollution. Soils are also the largest active store of carbon, after the oceans, and therefore crucial in fighting the climate crisis. But the report said industrial pollution, mining, farming and poor waste management are poisoning soils ... future for soils looks “bleak” ... A 2017 report found that a third of the planet’s land is severely degraded and that fertile soil was being lost at the rate of 24bn tonnes a year.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/04/soils-great-pressure-un-pollution-report-food-farming-mining
reporting on a study at http://www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/cb4827enBrazilian Amazon deforestation hits record for May
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon reached a record for the month of May this year, the space research institute INPE said. A total of 1,180 square kilometers of the Amazon was lost in May, representing a 41 percent increase compared to the same month in 2020. It was the third straight month in which such a record was set and raises serious questions over President Jair Bolsonaro's commitments to protecting the rainforest.
https://phys.org/news/2021-06-brazilian-amazon-deforestation.htmlClimate crisis will collapse our financial system, IMF official warns
Climate change could “absolutely” ignite a financial crisis, according to a top official from the International Monetary Fund [who] pointed to recent examples of extreme typhoons in the Bahamas and the Philippines causing immense economic ruin. In the US, meanwhile, historic snow storms in Texas caused billions of dollars of damage and killed numerous people. Officials within the US and top executives in the financial sector are beginning to take this message to heart. In a recent report, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission wrote that "climate change poses a major risk to the stability of the US financial system and to its ability to sustain the American economy”.
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/climate-change-wall-street-imf-b1859419.html‘Birthplace of Ice’ in Russia’s Arctic Sees Record-Breaking Start to Melting Season
In 2020 the Laptev Sea stayed ice-free until November for the first time in documented history. The sea, which plays a crucial role in generating ice coverage for the entire Arctic, has broken another record with its annual ice melt starting earlier in the spring than ever before. “We are off to a record-breaking start to the sea ice melt season in the Laptev Sea (again),” Labe tweeted, citing data from the U.S. National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC). The ice-free season in the Laptev Sea, located between the Kara and East Siberian seas, has grown longer in recent decades, a pattern that is likely to continue for the rest of the century.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/06/02/birthplace-of-ice-in-russias-arctic-sees-record-breaking-start-to-melting-season-a74079Scientists Said The West Was Entering A Megadrought. Now It’s Twice As Bad
Lake Powell is within just a few feet of its low level ever observed ... California’s reservoirs are 50 percent lower than they should be at this time of year ... drought in the western US at historic levels. In [a 2020 study] scientists said the nearly two decades between 2000 and 2018 in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico was the driest such span since the late 1500s [but] in the past half year drought in the west has reached new levels that make the trend described in that study seem quaint. As of Tuesday, 26 percent of the western US is in exceptional drought status - the highest level of dryness - while 96 percent of the west is suffering from at least some level of drought ... [2000-2019] were dry enough to drive talk of a megadrought or even of “permanent drought” in the west. And now the extent of exceptional drought is more than double what was seen during that period.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2021/06/03/scientists-said-the-west-was-entering-a-megadrought-now-its-twice-as-bad/A 20-Foot Sea Wall? Miami Faces the Hard Choices of Climate Change.
In Miami, the U.S. metropolitan area that is perhaps most exposed to sea-level rise, the problem is not climate change denialism. Not when hurricane season, which begins this week, returns each year with more intense and frequent storms. Not when finding flood insurance has become increasingly difficult and unaffordable ... South Florida, flat and low-lying, sits on porous limestone, which allows the ocean to swell up through the ground. Even when there is no storm, rising seas contribute to more significant tidal flooding, where streets fill with water even on sunny days. The expanding saltwater threatens to spoil the underground aquifer that supplies the region’s drinking water, and to crack old sewer pipes and aging septic tanks. It leaves less space for the earth to absorb liquid, so floodwaters linger longer, their runoff polluting the bay and killing fish. And that is just sea-level rise. Temperatures have gotten so sweltering over recent summers that Miami-Dade County has named a new interim “chief heat officer.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/02/us/miami-fl-seawall-hurricanes.htmlClimate crisis is suffocating the world’s lakes, study finds
The climate crisis is causing a widespread fall in oxygen levels in lakes across the world, suffocating wildlife and threatening drinking water supplies ... new research shows that the decline in lakes has been between three and nine times faster in the past 40 years ... Rising temperatures driven by global heating is the main cause, because warmer water cannot hold as much oxygen. Furthermore, rising summer heat leaves the top layer of lakes hotter and less dense than the waters below, meaning mixing is reduced and oxygen supply to the depths falls ... The study, published in the journal Nature, analysed 45,000 dissolved oxygen and temperature profiles collected from nearly 400 lakes worldwide.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/02/climate-crisis-is-suffocating-the-worlds-lakes-study-findsSatellites may have been underestimating the planet's warming for decades
The global warming that has already taken place may be even worse than we thought. That's the takeaway from a new study that finds satellite measurements have likely been underestimating the warming of the lower levels of the atmosphere over the last 40 years. Basic physics equations govern the relationship between temperature and moisture in the air, but many measurements of temperature and moisture used in climate models diverge from this relationship, the new study finds. That means either satellite measurements of the troposphere have underestimated its temperature or overestimated its moisture, study leader Ben Santer, a climate scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California, said in a statement ... The datasets that best followed the rules for water vapor and temperature ratios tended to be those showing the most warming.
https://www.livescience.com/satellites-underestimated-global-warming.html
reporting on a study at https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/aop/JCLI-D-20-0768.1/JCLI-D-20-0768.1.xmlHumans have ‘stressed out’ Earth far longer, and more dramatically, than realized
According to a research team led by Ondrej Mottl and Suzette G.A. Flantua of the University of Bergen in Norway, the vegetation of the planet began changing dramatically between 4,600 and 2,900 years ago, and it’s likely that the primary cause was human activity—agriculture, deforestation, and the use of fire to clear landscapes. “[H]umans likely impacted the planet strongly not just in recent decades or centuries, but thousands of years ago,” Mottl says of their research, published today in the journal Science. The landscape changes of the last century or two, as dramatic as they have been, appear to be continuations of trends several thousands of years in the making ... a 2019 study that surveyed 250 archaeologists about past human agricultural activity around the globe came to similar conclusions: By 3,000 years ago, much of the planet’s terrestrial surface had been markedly transformed by human activity. The lead author of that study, Lucas Stephens, an archaeologist and environmental policy expert at Duke University, says the two studies in tandem paint a compelling picture.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/humans-have-stressed-out-earth-far-longer-and-more-dramatically-than-realized
reporting on a study at https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6544/860Brazil’s Worst Water Crisis in 91 Years Threatens Power Supplies
“Brazil is going through the biggest water crisis of the past 91 years,” Energy Minister Bento Albuquerque said in a Thursday interview. The country of 212 million is hugely water dependent because as much as 70% of its energy mix depends on hydroelectricity, Albuquerque estimates. “This is very bad for a country that relies” so heavily on water for power, he said. Brazil is also a global agricultural powerhouse. Drought has now turned so severe that farmers are worried they’ll run out of the water reserves that help keep crops alive.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-28/brazil-s-worst-water-crisis-in-91-years-threatens-power-suppliesAs rising 'heat shocks' ruin rice crops, Bangladesh faces hunger risk
Two days of sudden, intensely hot air that swept across the country in April disrupted the rice's growth ... The heat stress - caused by a mix of high temperatures, low rainfall and low humidity - ruined thousands of hectares of crops in Bangladesh's main rice-growing region this spring ... temperatures reached as high as 36 degrees Celsius (97 degrees Fahrenheit) for two consecutive days in early April ... more than 68,000 hectares of rice were either partially or completely destroyed over the two days, affecting more than 300,000 farmers and resulting in losses of an estimated 3.3 billion taka ($39 million). Bangladesh already faces increasingly extreme weather - including droughts, floods and storms ... Romij Uddin, an agronomy professor at Bangladesh Agricultural University, said heat stress on crops is directly linked to global warming and rice is particularly vulnerable to high temperatures.
https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2021/05/29/as-rising-heat-shocks-ruin-rice-crops-bangladesh-faces-hunger-riskFollow the warning signs: California is facing a devastating drought.
Water from snowmelt that hydrologists had expected only a few weeks ago to replenish foothill reservoirs is vanishing. It’s being absorbed by the parched soil or dissipating into the thin mountain air ... Major Northern California reservoirs currently contain only half the water they normally do in late spring. It’s a warning sign of a potentially devastating new drought. More than that, it’s an undeniable mark of dramatic climate change. “The past two decades have been exceptionally warm and dry, and included the hottest drought — 2012-16 — in the state’s recorded history,” the PPIC report reads. “Warming is making droughts more intense” ... Both the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project have announced they intend to deliver only 5% of requested [agricultural water] this year ... farmers keep overpumping groundwater. Aquifers have been so raided that the land has sunk alarmingly in many places, cracking canals and ruining roads and bridges.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-05-24/skelton-water-drought-newsom-budget-californiaExperts predict Iraq-like weather for Spain in the near future
“Forget about the Iberian peninsula,” concluded a renowned German atmospheric physicist, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, in view of the extreme heat that the south of Europe will have to bear in the not-too-distant future ... Dominic Royé, a climatologist, postdoc researcher and lecturer at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain’s Galicia region, quotes Schellnhuber when discussing his latest article on heatwave projections ... published in the scientific journal Atmospheric Research. The article indicates a significant increase in the intensity, frequency, duration and impact of these extreme heat episodes ... “the worst summers so far will be ... considered cool by [our] children.”
https://english.elpais.com/spanish_news/2021-05-27/experts-predict-iraq-like-weather-for-spain-in-the-near-future.html
see also https://english.elpais.com/society/2021-05-18/global-warming-accelerates-in-spain-average-temperature-rises-13c-in-60-years.html
reporting on a study at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169809521002076Arctic sea ice succumbs to Atlantification
With alarm bells ringing about the rapid demise of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, satellite data have revealed how the intrusion of warmer Atlantic waters is reducing ice regrowth in the winter ... there is an undeniable trend of declining ice as climate change tightens its grip on this fragile polar region ... "Over the last decades we observed the tendency that the less ice you have at the beginning of the freezing season, the more it grows in the winter season. However, what we've found now is that in the Barents Sea and Kara Sea regions, this stabilizing effect is being overpowered by ocean heat and warmer temperatures that are reducing the ice growth in winter." This new process is called Atlantification, meaning that heat from the Atlantic Ocean carried to higher latitudes is causing the edge of the sea ice to retreat.
https://phys.org/news/2021-05-arctic-sea-ice-succumbs-atlantification.htmlCanada Faces Mega-Hurricanes if Climate Change Pushes Storms North: Swiss Re Warns
Climate change is making hurricanes bigger and stronger, and it may soon push them farther north. Yet Canada’s homeowners, businesses and insurers underestimate that escalating risk, according to one of the world’s leading reinsurance firms ... as ocean surfaces warm, the frequency, duration and intensity of storms increase. That’s extending their range and making Canada, where just one or two tropical cyclones make landfall each year, more vulnerable, according to the Zurich-based company [Swiss Re], which provides reinsurance to 15% of the country’s insurance industry. “You have an increased likelihood of hurricanes making landfall further north and eventually making landfalls at higher latitudes than what we’ve ever seen before,” Monica Ningen, head of Swiss Re Canada, said in an interview.
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2021/05/21/615351.htm3 Florida Insurers to Drop Thousands of Policies, Make Moves to Stay Afloat
More than 50,000 Florida policyholders will soon be looking for a new carrier for their homeowners insurance after three Florida-based companies were approved by the state regulator to drop the policies. The moves come just a few weeks before the official start of hurricane season ... insurers will remove the policies over the next 45 days ... The regulator’s actions are the most recent indicators of Florida’s stressed insurance marketplace that has been described as “spiraling towards collapse.”
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southeast/2021/05/12/613541.htmTrees Fell Faster in the Years Since Companies and Governments Promised to Stop Cutting Them Down
In the seven years since governments and corporations promised to stop deforestation, the clear cutting of critically important tropical forests has instead increased by more than 50 percent, a new report shows ... The research looks at the period, starting in 2014, when dozens of governments, organizations and companies signed onto the New York Declaration on Forests, a voluntary agreement to halve deforestation by 2020 and stop it altogether by 2030. The researchers found that, since those commitments, an area nearly twice the size of California has been cleared of trees, mostly for commercial agriculture, which is the largest driver of deforestation and the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions from land use.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19052021/deforestation-climate-change-forest-trends-companies-governments/Arizona’s current historic drought may be ‘baseline for the future’
Arizona and other Western states just lived through the driest year in more than a century, with no drought relief in sight in the near future, experts told a House panel Tuesday. The period from last April to this March was the driest in the last 126 years for Arizona and other Western states, witnesses said. It caps a two-decade stretch that was the driest in more than 100 years that records have been kept – and one of the driest in the past 1,200 years based on paleohydrology evidence, one official said. “We have never seen drought at the scale and intensity that we see right now, and it is possible that this may be the baseline for the future,” Elizabeth Klein, a senior counselor to the secretary of Interior, said in her testimony. More than half of Arizona is currently experiencing “exceptional” drought conditions, the most severe level of drought.
https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2021/05/25/arizonas-current-historic-drought-may-be-baseline-for-the-future/Widespread Drought in Mexico
Nearly 85 percent of the country is facing drought conditions as of April 15, 2021. Large reservoirs across the country are standing at exceptionally low levels. Water levels have continued to decline. Villa Victoria [reservoir] is filled to about one third of its normal capacity. According to the newspaper El País, roughly 60 other large reservoirs, mostly in northern and central Mexico, were below 25 percent capacity ... According to Mexico’s National Meteorological Service, the northwest and northeast have recently moved from severe to extreme drought.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/148270/widespread-drought-in-mexicoGet Ready for Financial Shocks From Climate Change, Biden Tells Officials
Experts warn of two broad types of financial risk posed by a hotter planet: The growing cost to businesses and investors as climate-related disasters damage or destroy buildings, crops or supply chains; and the potential for a sudden drop in the value of companies that depend on fossil fuels, as governments or consumers embrace wind, solar and other sources of energy that do not produce the carbon emissions driving global warming ... “Our modern financial system was built on the assumption that the climate was stable,” Brian Deese, head of President Biden’s National Economic Council, said Thursday on a call with reporters. “It’s clear that we no longer live in such a world.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/climate/biden-climate-change-economy.htmlNations Must Drop Fossil Fuels, Fast, World Energy Body Warns
Nations around the world would need to immediately stop approving new coal-fired power plants and new oil and gas fields and quickly phase out gasoline-powered vehicles if they want to avert the most catastrophic effects of climate change, the world’s leading energy agency said Tuesday. In a sweeping new report, the International Energy Agency issued a detailed road map of what it would take for the world’s nations to slash carbon dioxide emissions to net zero by 2050 ... first time the International Energy Agency has outlined ways to accomplish such drastic cuts in emissions. That’s significant, given the fact that the influential agency is not an environmental group but an international organization that advises world capitals on energy policy ... For now, the world remains off course. Last month, the agency warned that global carbon dioxide emissions were expected to rise at their second-fastest pace ever in 2021 ... half the emissions cuts by 2050 would come from technologies that are still in the demonstration or prototype stage, the report said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/18/climate/climate-change-emissions-IEA.html
see also https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050Greenland ice sheet on brink of major tipping point, says study
Scientists say ice equivalent to 1-2 metres of sea level rise is probably already doomed to melt
A significant part of the Greenland ice sheet is on the brink of a tipping point, after which accelerated melting would become inevitable even if global heating was halted, according to new research ... The new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, used temperature records, ice cores, and modelling to reconstruct the ice sheet’s elevation and melting rates since 1880. Careful examination of the size and duration of changes during this time series revealed the warning signals of an imminent tipping point, by showing that the ice sheet’s ability to recover from melting is diminishing fast.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/17/greenland-ice-sheet-on-brink-of-major-tipping-point-says-study
reporting on a study at https://www.pnas.org/content/118/21/e2024192118Blazes That Refuse to Die: ‘Zombie Fires’
According to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, fires in far northern forests that smolder throughout the wet, cold winters and pop up again in the spring could become more common because of climate change ... Arctic is warming far faster than the rest of the planet, and warming is associated with summer temperature extremes, with fires covering large areas, and with deep burning. Those factors interconnect: High temperatures lead to longer fire seasons and larger burn areas as well as drier soils that are friendly to fire. And because the fires occur in peat and peat-like soils high in carbon content [which are very difficult to put out] their burning can emit disproportionately large amounts of carbon dioxide and methane that contribute to global warming. In Alaska, Dr. Veraverbeke noted, only 10 percent of carbon emissions from fires comes from trees; 90 percent comes from burning soil.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/19/climate/climate-change-zombie-forest-fires.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03437-yFew realistic scenarios left to limit global warming to 1.5°C
Of the over 400 climate scenarios assessed in the 1.5°C report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), only around 50 scenarios avoid significantly overshooting 1.5°C. Of those only around 20 make realistic assumptions on mitigation options, for instance the rate and scale of carbon removal from the atmosphere or extent of tree planting, a new study shows. All 20 scenarios need to pull at least one mitigation lever at 'challenging' rather than 'reasonable' levels, according to the analysis. Hence the world faces a high degree of risk of overstepping the 1.5°C limit ... The researchers drew from existing research to define bounds that delineate between the 'reasonable', 'challenging', and 'speculative' use of each of the levers by mid-century. The bounds quantify the range of emissions reduction potentials of each of the aggregate levers, which result from technological, economic, social and resource considerations ... Those scenarios classified by the analysis as unrealistically optimistic most frequently tend to over-estimate carbon capture and storage potentials.
https://phys.org/news/2021-05-realistic-scenarios-left-limit-global.html
reporting on a study at https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abfeecStudy finds alarming levels of ‘forever chemicals’ in US mothers’ breast milk
A new study that checked American women’s breast milk for PFAS contamination detected the toxic chemical in all 50 samples tested, and at levels nearly 2,000 times higher than the level some public health advocates advise is safe for drinking water ... PFAS, or per and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of about 9,000 compounds that are used to make products like food packaging, clothing and carpeting water and stain resistant ... they do not naturally break down and have been found to accumulate in humans. They are linked to cancer, birth defects, liver disease, thyroid disease, plummeting sperm counts and a range of other serious health problems ... published on Thursday in the Environmental Science and Technology journal.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/13/pfas-forever-chemicals-breast-milk-us-studyMicroplastics: A Threat for Male Fertility
One of the main consequences of industrialization is the production, use and discharge of several environmental pollutants that can result as harmful for animal, human and environmental health ... sunlight, wind, and wave action break down plastic waste into small particles ... These non-biodegradable materials can act as a vector for environmental pollutants, can be ingested by humans in food and water, and can enter and accumulate in human tissues with a possible risk for heath. Recent studies revealed the deleterious effects of MPs exposure in male reproduction and sperm quality, making them a potential hazard to reproductive success.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7967748/U.S. has entered unprecedented climate territory, EPA warns
The destruction of year-round permafrost in Alaska, loss of winter ice on the Great Lakes and spike in summer heat waves in U.S. cities all signal that climate change is intensifying, the EPA said in its report ... which languished under the Trump administration for three years ... the nation has entered unprecedented territory, in which climate effects are more visible, changing faster and becoming more extreme ... Heat waves are occurring about three times more often than they did in the 1960s, the agency found ... Americans are blasting air conditioners to stay cool during the hot months, which has nearly doubled summer energy use over the past half-century and added even more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere ... in Alaska, permafrost has warmed since 1978. The biggest temperature increases were found in the northernmost reaches of the state.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/05/12/us-has-entered-unprecedented-climate-territory-epa-warns/Asian Cities Face Greatest Environmental Risks, Report Shows
Of the 100 most vulnerable cities, 99 are in Asia, according to the report released on Thursday. Of those, 37 are in China and 43 are in India, the world’s first and third biggest emitters of greenhouse gases respectively. Globally, 1.5 billion people live in 414 cities that are at high risk from pollution, water shortages, extreme heat, natural hazards and the physical impacts of climate change.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-12/asian-cities-face-greatest-environmental-risks-report-shows
reporting on a study at https://www.maplecroft.com/insights/analysis/asian-cities-in-eye-of-environmental-storm-global-ranking/Germany’s 2045 Net-Zero Goal Means Accepting Unpopular Technologies
Germany would have to phase out coal by the end of the decade — eight years earlier than planned — while boosting renewables to 70% of the country’s energy mix. Sales of new petrol and diesel cars will have to end by 2032. The amount of electricity generated will have to double as more of it is consumed by vehicles and used to create vast amounts of clean hydrogen. Germany will also have to do something it’s resisted in the past: deploy carbon-capture technology on a large scale. The industrial powerhouse will have to bury as much as 73 million tons of carbon dioxide annually by 2045, from approximately zero today.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-11/germany-s-2045-net-zero-goal-means-accepting-unpopular-technologiesGerman Climate Goals Need ‘Massive’ Cut in Industry CO2 by 2030
“In the industrial sector, the indicated reductions can only be achieved with massive decarbonization of industrial plants and processes,” according to the draft. “Given the lead times and investment cycles in the sector, these must be initiated immediately” ... [goal is] cutting emissions by 65% below 1990 levels by 2030. However, that would still not be compatible with the terms of the Paris Agreement.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-11/germany-s-climate-goals-require-massive-cut-in-industrial-co2More than 60% of Russian territory is permafrost. Now it is melting
Across the country’s north, buildings, roads and industrial installations are slowly sliding into the ground ... “65 percent of Russia’s territory is located in the permafrost zone, but this is not mentioned in a single federal program document, despite the fact that the permafrost area is a vital component in the natural environment, of which the landscape, vegetation and coastline is dependent,” [Minister of Natural Resources Aleksandr] Kozlov says in a statement. The melting already has major consequences for people living in the region, he explains. “We see how the melting of the permafrost is triggering accidents at industrial and housing objects ... We have to protect the nature from environmental catastophe,” he says.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/climate-crisis/2021/05/more-60-russian-territory-permafrost-now-it-meltingRussia is to lose its permafrost, minister of natural resources warns
The phenomenon of permafrost - a several-metre-deep and hard frozen mix of soil, sand and ice, lying under cities, towns and vast unpopulated areas of Russian Arctic regions - is vanishing, Alexander Kozlov, Russian Minister of Natural Resources said. ‘Every such region understands what's coming to it in 20, 30 years. It’ll stop being northern (climate-wise) ... Russia has a vast Arctic zone, spreading about four million square kilometres along its northern border from the west to the extreme east. Almost 60% is permafrost ... Russian permafrost area is also the world’s biggest reservoir of organic carbon, which converts into a greenhouse gas including methane once it thaws.
https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/russia-is-to-lose-its-permafrost-minister-of-natural-resources-warns/Rapid decline of China’s wetlands threatens mass extinction for rare birds
The destruction of China’s wetlands, which are critical stopping points for birds migrating as far away as the Arctic or the South Pacific, threatens mass extinctions of species across East Asia, new research has found ... The Coastal Wetland Conservation Blueprint report, a joint effort by the Paulson Institute, China’s forestry ministry and the Chinese Academy of sciences, says shrinking habitats are forcing migratory birds into smaller areas ... “protection of important natural capital such as wetlands is often lost to short-term economic gains,” the report said ... Half of the 10 most important wetlands on the Pacific-East Asia route are in China ... Since the 1950s, China’s coast has lost over half of its temperate wetlands, almost three quarters of its mangrove forests and around 80% of its coral reefs – all habitats important for migratory birds.
https://chinadialogue.net/en/nature/8253-rapid-decline-of-china-s-wetlands-threatens-mass-extinction-for-rare-birdsStratospheric contraction caused by increasing greenhouse gases
Rising emissions of anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHG) have led to tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling over recent decades. As a thermodynamic consequence, the troposphere has expanded and the rise of the tropopause, the boundary between the troposphere and stratosphere, has been suggested as one of the most robust fingerprints of anthropogenic climate change ... we show that [the stratosphere] has contracted substantially over the last decades, and that the main driver for this are increasing concentrations of GHG ... we show that this trend will continue ... its short emergence time (less than 15 years) makes it a novel and independent indicator of GHG induced climate change.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abfe2bOne in four cities cannot afford crisis protection measures
One in four cities around the world lack the money to protect themselves against the ravages of climate breakdown, even though more than 90% are facing serious risks, according to research. Cities are facing problems with flooding, overheating, water shortages, and damage to their infrastructure from extreme weather, which is growing more frequent as the climate changes.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/12/one-in-four-cities-cannot-afford-climate-crisis-protection-measures-studyStudy Warns of 'Rapid and Unstoppable' Sea Level Rise If World Misses Paris Climate Targets
A new study published Wednesday in the journal Nature [projects that] if planetary warming continues at its current rate — which is headed toward 3° Celsius above pre-industrial levels — Antarctic melting will reach a tipping point by 2060 ... "If the world warms up at a rate dictated by current policies we will see the Antarctic system start to get away from us around 2060 ... and once that is set in motion you can't reverse it."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/05/05/study-warns-rapid-and-unstoppable-sea-level-rise-if-world-misses-paris-climate
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03427-0Editorial: There is no drought
If ‘drought’ means a period of dry years followed by a return to the norm, California is not in drought. The current climate is the norm
Droughts are deviations from the norm. What we have now is no deviation. It is the norm itself. Our climate has changed ... ["Temporary drought"] is sometimes used to deny the epic and obvious change in our climate patterns, but that’s all wrong. Just as there is no temporary drought in the Sahara, where heat and dryness punctuated by flash flooding is the norm, there is no temporary drought in California. The years of steady and predictable water flow are over, and there is no sign of them coming back in our lifetimes. This is it. We have to build, and grow, and legislate, and consume for the world as it is, not as we may remember it.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-05-06/editorial-there-is-no-droughtClimate scientists: concept of net zero is a dangerous trap
[C]urrent consensus is that if we deploy so-called “carbon dioxide removal” techniques at the same time as reducing our burning of fossil fuels, we can more rapidly halt global warming. Hopefully around the middle of this century we will achieve “net zero” ... This is a great idea, in principle [but] the idea of net zero has licensed a recklessly cavalier “burn now, pay later” approach which has seen carbon emissions continue to soar ... it was becoming more and more difficult for economic-climate models to find viable pathways to avoid dangerous climate change [so,] long before the world would witness any such schemes, the hypothetical process had been included in climate-economic models. In the end, the mere prospect of carbon capture and storage gave policy makers a way out of making the much needed cuts to greenhouse gas emissions ... We struggle to name any climate scientist who at that time thought the Paris Agreement was feasible. We have since been told by some scientists that the Paris Agreement was “of course important for climate justice but unworkable” ... Instead of confronting our doubts, we scientists decided to construct ever more elaborate fantasy worlds in which we would be safe. The price to pay for our cowardice: having to keep our mouths shut about the ever growing absurdity of the required planetary-scale carbon dioxide removal.
https://theconversation.com/climate-scientists-concept-of-net-zero-is-a-dangerous-trap-157368Climate Change Could Cut World Economy by $23 Trillion in 2050, Insurance Giant Warns
Rising temperatures are likely to reduce global wealth significantly by 2050, as crop yields fall, disease spreads and rising seas consume coastal cities [says] a report from Swiss Re, one of the world’s largest providers of insurance to other insurance companies ... During the past 40 years, the United States has experienced almost 300 weather and climate-related disasters that exceeded $1 billion in losses each, noted Donald L. Griffin, a vice president at the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, which represents insurance companies ... If climate change continues unabated, he said, the cost of insurance risks becoming too high in at-risk areas. “We can’t just continue to rebuild in the same way,” Mr. Griffin said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/22/climate/climate-change-economy.htmlWhy no action on climate change is not an option
While no country is immune to the adverse effects of climate change, some nations will suffer worse than others ... The Economics of Climate Change report pulls together information about the physical risks of wetter or drier climates, each country’s ability to adapt to these changes and the likely adverse impact of climate change on GDP ... "Our research is unique in that it explicitly simulates many uncertainties around the economic effects of climate change. What we found is that, over time, climate impacts could be a lot more severe than policymakers, fiscal authorities and central banks are currently taking into account." [says] Patrick Saner, Head of Macro Strategy at the Swiss Re Institute, and one of the report's authors.
https://www.swissre.com/risk-knowledge/mitigating-climate-risk/no-action-climate-change-not-option.htmlAmerica’s new normal: A degree hotter than two decades ago
America’s new normal temperature is a degree [F] hotter than it was just two decades ago ... not just hotter, but wetter in the eastern and central parts of the nation and considerably drier in the West than just a decade earlier ... the yearly normal temperature is now 53.3 degrees (11.8 degrees Celsius) based on weather station data from 1991 to 2020. That’s nearly half a degree warmer than a decade ago. Twenty years ago, normal was 52.3 degrees (11.3 degrees Celsius) based on data from 1971 to 2000.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-05-04/americas-new-normal-a-degree-hotter-than-two-decades-ago
reporting on a study at https://www.noaa.gov/news/new-us-climate-normals-are-here-what-do-they-tell-us-about-climate-changeAs glaciers disappear in Alaska, the rest of the world’s ice follows
Nowhere in the world is losing glacier ice as rapidly as Alaska. This single region accounts for about a quarter of global mass loss, more than twice the share of other areas including the Greenland periphery and the Himalayas. That is a global concern because glacier loss is a bigger source of sea level rise than the polar ice sheets [and they] are a vital component of the Earth’s life-support system ... No longer does a glacier reach the Muir Inlet. “If John Muir went to some of the same places today, he wouldn’t even see a glacier. What would be write about? Open water and a young growth forest?” If this was just one bay, it would be no cause for concern. Glaciers have always gained in one valley and lost in another. The difference today, he said, is that all the glaciers in the region are declining at the same time ... the fall of [Taku glacier] the last hold-out against global warming was a sobering moment. “That makes the score climate change 250, alpine glaciers 0 ... they are all in retreat.” To varying degrees, the story is the same across the world ... Even the remote Antarctic is not immune. In January 2020, scientists at a polar research base detected black carbon that had floated across the Pacific from the record bushfires in Australia. This, however, pales into insignificance compared to the impact of warming air and oceans, which is eroding giant southern glaciers, such as Thwaites. If Thwaites and other Antarctic glaciers break into the ocean, sea levels would rise rapidly ... For Peito, the picture is dismal: “We keep updating the data, and the story keeps getting worse.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/01/as-glaciers-disappear-in-alaska-the-rest-of-the-worlds-ice-followsSpeed at which world’s glaciers are melting has doubled in 20 years
The melting of the world’s glaciers has nearly doubled in speed over the past 20 years and contributes more to sea-level rise than either the Greenland or Antarctic ice sheets, according to the most comprehensive global study of ice rivers ever undertaken ... Between 2000 and 2019, glaciers lost 267 gigatonnes (Gt) of ice per year, equivalent to 21% of sea-level rise, reveals a paper published in Nature. The authors said the mass loss was equivalent to submerging the surface of England under 2 metres of water every year. This was 47% higher than the contribution of the melting ice sheet in Greenland and more than twice that from the ice sheet in Antarctica. As a cause of sea-level rise, glacier loss was second only to thermal expansion, which is prompted by higher ocean temperatures ... The study uses historical NASA satellite data and new statistical methods to construct three-dimensional topographies going back 20 years and covering 99.9% of the world’s glaciers. The result is the most accurate and comprehensive assessment of the world’s 217,175 glaciers to date. Scientists said the precision of the data allowed them to be more certain than before that glacier loss is enormous and accelerating.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/28/speed-at-which-worlds-glaciers-are-melting-has-doubled-in-20-yearsMillions of Groundwater Wells Could Run Dry
Overpumping, drought and the steady influence of climate change are depleting groundwater resources all over the globe, according to new research. As much as 20% of the world’s groundwater wells may be facing imminent failure, potentially depriving billions of people of fresh water. “We found that this undesirable result is happening across the world, from the western United States to India,” said Debra Perrone, a water resources expert at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and co-author of the study. The research, published yesterday in the journal Science, pulled together construction records from 39 million wells scattered across 40 countries.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/millions-of-groundwater-wells-could-run-dry/
reporting on a study at https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6540/418Climate tipping points may have been reached already, experts say
Through decades of research, and now lived experience, it has become clear that the impacts of climate change will have drastic and far-reaching consequences on our planet. And while some of those consequences are predictable — like more extreme weather, sea-level rise and loss of biodiversity — the pace at which these unfold and their eventual severity hinge on what happens with key linchpins in the climate system, called tipping points ... In a 2019 paper, Professor Timothy Lenton, a global leader on the subject, identified nine climate tipping points [including] what he deems the three most critical tipping points: the Amazon rainforest, the West Antarctic ice sheet and the Gulf Stream system. Lenton highlights these three because the West Antarctic ice sheet may have already passed a tipping point; the Amazon because it is a crucial crucible of biodiversity and for its warehouse of carbon; and the Gulf Stream system because of its potential for profound changes with connected ramifications all around the planet. CBS News spoke to Lenton and several other scientists [and] their message was unanimous: Changes are happening faster than what was expected and the chance of hitting tipping points in the climate system, which just a decade ago appeared remote and far off, now seems much more likely and more immediate ... [Leading climate scientist Michael] Mann warns this is all happening much faster than projected. "The observations tell us we are about 50 years, or more, ahead of where the climate models say we should be at this point," he said.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-tipping-points-amazon-rainforest-antarctic-ice-gulf-stream/Stinson Beach residents must reckon with abandoning their homes as sea levels rise
Studies show that numerous [posh] homes in Stinson Beach will flood with just one foot of sea rise, an unavoidable result of human-caused climate change. Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) projects that this will likely happen in under 20 years (the same data set shows a rise of nearly four feet by the end of the century) ... "Lots of people delighted with their beach house and their one-and-a-half-minute walk to the beach all of a sudden discovered that you wouldn't be able to get a permit, for anything," resident and HOA President Mike Matthews told the station. "That equates to 'can’t sell your house,' and that equates to loss of the value of it so there was an extreme reaction." This has resulted in a fight between residents and the California Coastal Commission on what to do with the at-risk homes, as the commission wants to let nature take its course and not build a sea wall ... The commission sees the loss of homes as inevitable and is advocating for a "managed retreat," meaning the homes in the low-lying areas will need to be moved or abandoned.
https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/2020-04-bay-area-sea-rise-stinson-beach-climate-16133384.phpThere aren’t enough trees in the world to offset society’s carbon emissions – and there never will be
[E]arth’s land ecosystems can hold enough additional vegetation to absorb between 40 and 100 gigatonnes of carbon from the atmosphere. Once this additional growth is achieved (a process which will take a number of decades), there is no capacity for additional carbon storage on land. But our society is currently pouring CO2 into the atmosphere at a rate of ten gigatonnes of carbon a year.
https://theconversation.com/there-arent-enough-trees-in-the-world-to-offset-societys-carbon-emissions-and-there-never-will-be-158181
reporting on a study at https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2020.00058/fullA Massive Methane Reservoir Is Lurking Beneath the Sea
Methane in the Laptev Sea is stored in reservoirs below the sea’s submarine permafrost or in the form of methane hydrates — solid ice-like structures that trap the gas inside ... disintegrating hydrates and reservoirs can lead to sudden, eruptive releases. Methane has now started to escape as the Laptev’s submarine permafrost is thawed by the relative warmth of overlying seawater. With an even stronger greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide, methane releases into the atmosphere could substantially amplify global warming ... study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America in March. “The big finding was that we really have something that’s coming out from a deep pool,” said Steinbach. As the permafrost thaws, it opens up new pathways that allow methane to pass through. According to Gustafsson, this is worrying, as the pool likely contains more methane than is currently in the atmosphere.
https://eos.org/articles/a-massive-methane-reservoir-is-lurking-beneath-the-sea
reporting on a study at https://www.pnas.org/content/118/10/e2019672118Aquatic Pollutants in Oceans and Fisheries
Exposures to environmental pollutants are adversely impacting fertility, behavior, and resilience ... Estimates indicate up to 80% of marine chemical pollution originates on land and the situation is worsening ... Endocrine disrupting chemicals, which are biologically active at extremely low concentrations, pose a particular long-term threat to fisheries ... pollutants such as mercury, brominated compounds, and plastics biomagnify in the aquatic food web and ultimately reach humans ... Oceans are warming and becoming more acidic ... Melting sea ice, glaciers and permafrost are increasing sea levels and altering ocean currents ... Increases in both de-oxygenated ‘dead zones’ and coastal algal blooms are being observed ... climate change is re-mobilizing historical contaminants from their ‘polar sinks’ ... Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) represent a long-term threat to all aquatic life. Exposure to EDCs disrupts an organism’s endocrine system by interfering with normal hormonal activity ... evident in fish, frogs, alligators, and ultimately in humans. In the most extreme cases, animals developed both male and female sexual characteristics making reproduction impossible. EDCs can affect the biological systems of all aquatic species ... Mercury is a potent neurotoxin and the accumulation of mercury can cause damage to fish brains. Mercury is also linked to reproductive impairment in many fish species ... Over 40% of insect species may be threatened with extinction.
https://ipen.org/transfer/embargo/aquatic_pollutants_in_oceans_and_fisheries_ipen-en.pdfIEA issues 'dire warning' on CO2 emissions as it predicts 5% rise
Global CO2 emissions from energy are seen rising nearly 5% this year, suggesting the economic rebound from COVID-19 could be "anything but sustainable" for the climate, the International Energy Agency said ... largest single increase in more than a decade ... will likely be driven by a resurgence in coal use in the power sector ... Demand for all fossil fuels is on course to grow in 2021, with both coal and gas set to rise above 2019 levels. The expected rise in coal use dwarfs that of renewables by almost 60%, despite accelerating demand for solar, wind and hydro power.
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/iea-issues-dire-warning-co2-emissions-it-predicts-5-rise-2021-04-20/
reporting on a study at https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2021‘Relentless’ climate crisis intensified in 2020, says UN report
There was a “relentless” intensification of the climate crisis in 2020, according to the UN’s World Meteorological Organization ... the temporary dip in carbon emissions due to lockdowns had no discernible impact on atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, the WMO report said. Last year was ranked as the hottest on record [and the decade] 2011-20 was the hottest on record. Extreme weather events broke records across the world ... Richard Allan, a professor of climate science at the University of Reading in the UK, said: “What is notable is an emerging picture that climate change is gathering pace: [ice is] melting more quickly and heat is accumulating more rapidly in the ocean, while CO2 increases, which are driving these changes, are becoming progressively larger over time.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/19/relentless-climate-crisis-intensified-in-2020-says-un-report
reporting on a study at https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=10618Early heatwaves in South Asia foreshadow an uncertain future for the region
[Karachi Pakistan temperature] rose to 44 degrees Celsius on April 3 ... Sardar Sarfaraz of the Pakistan Meteorological Department attributed the early arrival of the heatwave to the shattering of traditional weather patterns – a consequence of climate change ... In recent years, a spate of heatwaves has been recorded in Sindh province of southeast Pakistan. In 2015, Karachi’s heat index soared to 66 degrees Celsius, killing at least 1,200 people with 40,000 suffering from heatstroke and heat exhaustion [but a] study published by Geophysical Research Letters, a scientific journal, predicts that the worst is yet to come ... the study concludes that, even if global warming is contained at 1.5 degrees Celsius ... deadly heatwaves are likely to become more common across South Asia ... as “wet bulb” temperatures climb above 32 degrees Celsius ... The study notes that the impact of soaring temperatures will be felt most by labourers and industrial workers ... in a region where 29% of the population – 216 million people – live in extreme poverty.
https://scroll.in/article/992163/early-heatwaves-in-south-asia-foreshadow-an-uncertain-future-for-the-regionThe Ongoing Collapse of the World's Aquifers
All over the world geology is conspiring with climate change to sink the ground under humanity’s feet. More punishing droughts mean the increased draining of aquifers, and rising seas make sinking land all the more vulnerable to flooding. According to a recent study published in the journal Science, 1.6 billion people could be affected by subsidence [by 2040] ... “Aquifers will be depleted ... it's not possible to ask people who are in need of fresh water to stop using groundwater” ... At the end of the day, subsiding cities are up against unstoppable physical forces. “Geology is geology ... we can't do anything about that.”
https://www.wired.com/story/the-ongoing-collapse-of-the-worlds-aquifers/
reporting on a study at https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6524/34The Dead Sea is dying. Drinking water is scarce. Jordan faces a climate crisis
In the last three decades, the Dead Sea’s level has fallen almost 100 feet. The rate of loss is accelerating ... Jordan’s perennial thirst is worsening. A virtually landlocked desert kingdom with few resources, the country’s yearly decrease in rainfall could lead to a 30% reduction by 2100, according to Stanford University’s Jordan Water Project. Jordan’s aquifers ... are being pumped at a furious pace, even as the pandemic has increased demand by 40% ... “The situation here is bleak,” says Water Ministry spokesman Omar Salameh ... a preview of what the region faces as a whole. Middle Eastern nations top the list of most water-stressed countries, the World Resources Institute says. The region is also a “global hotspot of unsustainable water use,” according to 2017 World Bank report.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-04-15/the-dead-sea-is-dying-drinking-water-is-scarce-jordan-faces-a-climate-crisisThe 'Heat Bombs' Destroying Arctic Sea Ice
A team led by physical oceanographers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography shows in a new study how plumes of warm water are flowing into the Arctic Ocean from the Pacific Ocean and accelerating sea ice melt from below [and] changing the nature of the Arctic Ocean faster than nearly any other place on Earth ... Warm, relatively salty water enters from the Pacific Ocean through the Bering Strait and then the Barrow Canyon off Alaska’s northern coast, which ... is dense enough to “subduct,” or dive beneath, the fresh Arctic surface layer [and create] pockets of very warm water that lurk below surface waters ... These pockets known as “heat bombs'' are just stable enough to be able to last for months or years, swirling far north beneath the main ice pack near the north pole, and destabilizing that ice as the heat in them gradually but steadily diffuses upwards to melt the ice.
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/heat-bombs-destroying-arctic-sea-iceLong-term consequences of CO2 emissions
The oxygen content in the oceans will continue to decrease ... A new study published today in the scientific journal Nature Communications shows that this process will continue for centuries, even if all CO2 emissions and thus warming at the Earth's surface would be stopped immediately. "In the study, a model of the Earth system was used to assess what would happen in the ocean in the long term if all CO2 emissions would be stopped immediately," explains the author, Professor Andreas Oschlies from GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. "The results show that even in this extreme scenario, the oxygen depletion will continue for centuries, more than quadrupling the oxygen loss we have seen to date in the ocean."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210416120005.htmJust 3% of world’s ecosystems remain intact, study suggests
Just 3% of the world’s land remains ecologically intact with healthy populations of all its original animals and undisturbed habitat ... mainly in parts of the Amazon and Congo tropical forests, east Siberian and northern Canadian forests and tundra, and the Sahara ... Previous analyses have identified wilderness areas based largely on satellite images and estimated that 20-40% of the Earth’s surface is little affected by humans. However, the scientists behind the new study argue that forests, savannah and tundra can appear intact from above but that, on the ground, vital species are missing ... The new assessment combines maps of human damage to habitat with maps showing where animals have disappeared from their original ranges or are too few in number to maintain a healthy ecosystem.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/15/just-3-of-worlds-ecosystems-remain-intact-study-suggests
reporting on a study at https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2021.626635/full[US] Corn Belt Has Lost a Third of Its Topsoil
Crops hunger for the carbon-packed composition of rich topsoil. They need the nutrients and water that it stores, unlike the compacted, infertile soils that decades of conventional farming create ... agricultural soil erosion has been a problem for decades, but quantifying soil loss from a hundred years of farming and across multiple states has proven difficult. Now a study led by geomorphologist Evan Thaler and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in February attempts to answer the elusive question of how much topsoil has been eroded in the Corn Belt, which stretches roughly from Ohio to Nebraska and produces 75 percent of the nation’s corn. The study estimated that about 35 percent of the region has lost its topsoil completely ... Rick Cruse, an agronomy professor at Iowa State University whose research on soil erosion includes remote sensing and satellite imagery, found Thaler’s results to be reasonable. “The technologies they used have been in the literature and have been developed for decades,” he says. “When I look at the landscape where they’re making these estimates, and look at the economic estimates they’ve generated, I have no pushback on what’s been done here.”
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/scientists-say-nations-corn-belt-has-lost-third-its-topsoil-180977485/Epic drought means water crisis on Oregon-California border
The federally owned irrigation project will draw [only] 33,000 acre-feet of water from Upper Klamath Lake, which farmers said was roughly 8% of what they need in such a dry year. Water deliveries will also start June 1, two months later than usual ... “It just hasn’t rained or snowed this year. We all know how dry our fields are, and the rest of the watersheds are in the same boat,” Ben DuVal, president of the Klamath Water Users Association, told several dozen irrigators who gathered in Klamath Falls on Wednesday morning to hear the news. “We all know what this is going to mean to our farms, our families and our community as a whole.” ... Jay Weiner, an attorney for the Klamath Tribes, [said] “What we’re seeing with climate change increasingly — year after year after year — is that there is not enough water to go around. This crisis should not come as a surprise to anyone ... We have over-drafted our account, essentially, and now we have to deal with the consequences.”
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/epic-drought-means-water-crisis-on-oregon-california-border/US West prepares for possible 1st water shortage declaration
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation released 24-month projections this week forecasting that less Colorado River water will cascade down from the Rocky Mountains through Lake Powell and Lake Mead and into the arid deserts of the U.S. Southwest and the Gulf of California. Water levels in the two lakes are expected to plummet low enough for the agency to declare an official shortage for the first time, threatening the supply of Colorado River water that growing cities and farms rely on. It comes as climate change means less snowpack flows into the river and its tributaries, and hotter temperatures parch soil and cause more river water to evaporate as it streams through the drought-plagued American West. The agency’s models project Lake Mead will fall below 1,075 feet (328 meters) for the first time in June 2021. That’s the level that prompts a shortage declaration under agreements negotiated by seven states that rely on Colorado River water: Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming ... Arizona, Nevada and Mexico have voluntarily given up water under a drought contingency plan for the river signed in 2019. A shortage declaration would subject the two U.S. states to their first mandatory reductions. Both rely on the Colorado River more than any other water source.
https://apnews.com/article/arizona-colorado-lakes-water-shortages-colorado-river-09302e61c5e0ef051f50459f3dcb771fColorado River basin due for more frequent, intense hydroclimate events
In the vast Colorado River basin, climate change is driving extreme, interconnected events among earth-system elements such as weather and water ... "We found that concurrent extreme hydroclimate events, such as high temperatures and unseasonable rain that quickly melt mountain snowpack to cause downstream floods, are projected to increase and intensify within several critical regions of the Colorado River basin," said Katrina Bennett, a hydrologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and lead author of the paper ... The Los Alamos study looked at heat waves, drought, flooding, and low flows in climate scenarios taken from six earth-system models for the entire Colorado River basin. The basin spans portions of Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and California ... In every scenario, the number and magnitude of each type of extreme event increased on average across the Colorado River Basin for the future period compared to the historical period ... More than 40 million people depend on the Colorado River basin for water, and it directly supports $1.4 trillion in agricultural and commercial activity.
https://phys.org/news/2021-04-colorado-river-basin-due-frequent.html
reporting on a study at https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/13/7/978Climate Change Threatens Russia With Billions in Annual Costs
Russia is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change. A significant part of its territory is in the Arctic, which is warming more than twice as fast as the rest of the world. That’s manifested in Siberia’s unusually high 2020 temperatures, two consecutive years of record wildfires and thawing permafrost ... Reinsurance [company] Aon Benfield estimated that June floods near Russia’s border with China in 2019 cost the nation more than $460 million. In total, major catastrophes may have led to just under $1 billion of losses in Russia that year, it said. “The heat wave in Siberia in 2020 and the corresponding widespread fires are renewed evidence of climate change,” said Ernst Rauch, chief climate and geoscientist at global reinsurance provider Munich Re. “We view with concern the thawing permafrost soils, which amplify global warming by releasing methane.”
https://www.bloombergquint.com/politics/climate-change-may-be-costing-russia-billions-every-yearCalifornia is poised for a catastrophic fire season. Experts say its plan isn’t nearly enough
Last year, the state saw five of the six largest fires in state history, after a lack of rain and a heat wave dried out fire-fueling vegetation across the region’s wildlands. This year is tied for the third-driest year in state history – and the desiccated landscape is primed to burn. “We’re definitely looking at a serious challenge ahead,” Field said. As the state heads into its dry, summer season, its reservoirs remain at about half capacity. The region is so dry that the chamise plants that cover the state’s chaparral landscape didn’t sprout or flower this year in some locations. Instead, the highly flammable vegetation has already started to dry out – transforming into kindling that could invite more destructive fires, earlier than usual.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/14/california-wildfire-season-2021We Are Living in a Climate Emergency, and We’re Going to Say So
Signed By: Covering Climate Now, Scientific American, Columbia Journalism Review, The Nation, The Guardian, Noticias Telemundo, Al Jazeera, The Asahi Shimbun, La Repubblica
It’s time for journalism to recognize that the climate emergency is here. This is a statement of science, not politics. Thousands of scientists—including James Hansen, the NASA scientist who put the problem on the public agenda in 1988, and David King and Hans Schellnhuber, former science advisers to the British and German governments, respectively—have said humanity faces a “climate emergency.” Why “emergency”? Because words matter. To preserve a livable planet, humanity must take action immediately. Failure to slash the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will make the extraordinary heat, storms, wildfires and ice melt of 2020 routine and could “render a significant portion of the Earth uninhabitable,” warned the January Scientific American article.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/we-are-living-in-a-climate-emergency-and-were-going-to-say-so/Carbon dioxide levels in atmosphere reach record high
The data released by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography shows atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gas in March averaged 417.14 parts per million (ppm), a new record high. The UK’s Met Office predicts monthly concentrations of carbon dioxide, the main driver of rising temperatures and the climate crisis, will peak in 2021 at about 419.5 ppm ... Last year’s annual average figure was 413.94ppm – with 2021’s level forecast to be about 416.3ppm ... “It took over 200 years to increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 25%, and just 30 years to reach 50% above pre-industrial levels.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/07/carbon-dioxide-levels-in-atmosphere-reach-record-highHalf of global methane emissions come from aquatic ecosystems – much of this is human-made
In our paper published today in Nature Geoscience, we show as much as half of global methane emissions come from aquatic ecosystems ... Scientists had previously underestimated this global methane contribution due to underaccounting human-created and human-impacted aquatic ecosystems ... emissions from impacted, polluted and human-made aquatic ecosystems are higher than from more natural sites ... [we found] strong methane release from rice cultivation, reservoirs and aquaculture farms. Globally, rice cultivation releases more methane per year than all coastal wetlands, the continental shelf and open ocean together.
https://theconversation.com/half-of-global-methane-emissions-come-from-aquatic-ecosystems-much-of-this-is-human-made-156960
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00715-2Despite pandemic shutdowns, carbon dioxide and methane surged in 2020
The global surface average for CO2, calculated from measurements collected at NOAA’s remote sampling locations, was 412.5 ppm in 2020, rising by 2.6 ppm during the year ... economic recession was estimated to have reduced carbon emissions by about 7 percent during 2020. Without the economic slowdown, the 2020 increase would have been the highest on record ... Since 2000, the global CO2 average has grown by 43.5 ppm, an increase of 12 percent ... CO2 is now comparable to where it was during the Mid-Pliocene Warm Period around 3.6 million years ago [when] sea level was about 78 feet higher than today, the average temperature was 7 degrees Fahrenheit higher than in pre-industrial times, and studies indicate large forests occupied areas of the Arctic that are now tundra ... annual increase in atmospheric methane for 2020 was 14.7 ppb, which is the largest annual increase recorded since systematic measurements began.
https://research.noaa.gov/article/ArtMID/587/ArticleID/2742/Despite-pandemic-shutdowns-carbon-dioxide-and-methane-surged-in-2020Permafrost temperatures in Swiss Alps reach record highs
In 2019-2020 [winter] air temperatures were up to 1°C higher than average ... This, combined with a very warm spring, two summer heat waves, and the early arrival of snow at high altitudes in November 2019, resulted in warm permafrost conditions across the country ... the Swiss Permafrost Monitoring Network PERMOS documents changes in permafrost conditions in the Swiss Alps and draws on the expertise of six research institutes and universities in the country.
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/permafrost-temperatures-in-swiss-alps-reach-record-highs/46513966'This has never happened': California's only wildfire research center makes scary discovery
"Fire season 2021 is looking grim ... never seen April fuels look so dry"
"The lack of rain this season has severely impacted our chaparral live fuel moistures ... April is [historically] the highest FMC of the season." FMC refers to "fuel-moisture content" — a measure of the ratio of moisture to combustible material in plants that indicates how prone they are to burning ... This year the fuel-moisture content across the Santa Cruz Mountains is "the lowest we've observed" ... This finding comes a year after California saw its largest wildfire season in modern history with over 10,000 wildfires tearing through over 4.2 million acres ... Clements fears this [fire] season could be equally dire.
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/fuel-moisture-content-California-wildfire-16087019.phpClimate change is a major threat to stability, spy agencies say
Climate change will lead to a less secure, more crisis-prone world that will strain global institutions, according to a major [US] national security assessment ... many systems large and small may fail under the increased stress. “Climate change will increasingly exacerbate risks to human and national security and force states to make hard choices and tradeoffs,” the report states [environment section begins on p 30] ... This is not your typical grim climate report projecting disaster in the year 2100, i.e. the distant future. Instead, the climate change we will see through midcentury is already baked into the climate system, thanks to how the oceans absorb and redistribute heat. Studies show that even if emissions are sharply reduced now we are still in for additional amounts of warming through mid-century, which will lead to more extreme weather events, sea level rise, and other effects.
https://www.axios.com/climate-change-national-security-intelligence-report-22a18eaa-f307-4d07-a149-6c565dd7337f.html
reporting on a study at https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/GlobalTrends_2040.pdf'Immediate and drastic.' The climate crisis is seriously spooking economists
With those floods, wildfires and hurricanes occurring more frequently, the financial toll from the climate crisis is expected to rise dramatically: Economic damage from climate change is projected to reach $1.7 trillion per year by 2025 and surge to roughly $30 trillion annually by 2075 under most scenarios, according to consensus forecasts included in the survey.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/30/economy/climate-crisis-economy/index.htmlEvidence of Antarctic glacier's tipping point confirmed for first time
Researchers have confirmed for the first time that Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica could cross tipping points, leading to a rapid and irreversible retreat which would have significant consequences for global sea level ... Such a retreat, once started, could lead to the collapse of the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which contains enough ice to raise global sea level by over three metres. While the general possibility of such a tipping point within ice sheets has been raised before, showing that Pine Island Glacier has the potential to enter unstable retreat is a very different question. Now, researchers from Northumbria University have shown, for the first time, that this is indeed the case. Their findings are published in leading journal, The Cryosphere.
https://phys.org/news/2021-04-evidence-antarctic-glacier.html
reporting on a study at https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/1501/2021/Australian Academy of Science: The risks to Australia of a 3°C warmer world
The planet is well on the path to devastating climate change. In 2019, Australia’s warmest year on record, average surface temperatures were 1.1°C above the pre-industrial period. Australia has warmed on average by 1.4°C since national records began in 1910. Current global and Australian policies to reverse this trend are inadequate ... If the international community fails to meet the emission reduction targets under the UNFCCC Paris Agreement, this will result in a global mean surface temperature increase of approximately 3°C or more by mid to late century ... Limiting climate change to 1.5°C is now virtually impossible.
https://www.science.org.au/supporting-science/science-policy-and-analysis/reports-and-publications/risks-australia-three-degrees-c-warmer-worldFire and flood: 'Whole areas of Australia will be uninsurable'
After the events of the past two years, that question – what is going to happen with insurance? – is proving increasingly significant ... the size of the loss incurred by IAG and Suncorp alone was so great the companies burned through their catastrophe allowances and had to draw on their reinsurance contracts – the insurance for insurers – prompting the world’s largest reinsurer, Swiss Re, to publicly lash the companies for consistently failing to predict the cost of natural disasters. Viewed over time, the impact is stark ... “People will become more aware about climate risk and will be more likely to move, but in reality people can’t afford to move their house and they get stuck there” ... during that hearing, the industry largely accepted that a world 2C hotter on average was now locked in, a position outlined in IAG’s report on climate change. “A 2C target is therefore unlikely to be achieved and will therefore significantly increase the risk for catastrophic events, even compared to 1.5C warming,” the report said.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/apr/02/fire-and-flood-whole-areas-of-australia-will-be-uninsurable‘Record-breaking’ temperatures to engulf Southwest, with ‘critical’ fire weather conditions possible
The National Weather Service is warning of “critical fire weather conditions,” the exceptional early-season heat combining with single-digit humidity to transform the already-parched landscape into a tinder box. Most of the Southwest is already in the midst of an “exceptional” drought, the highest tier on a six-step scale. Signs point to the drought continuing to worsen with time with an anomalously hot and dry summer expected. The desert Southwest is still running dry from a virtually nonexistent monsoon last summer — a pronounced reduction and, in some cases, a total absence of the warm-season showers and thunderstorms that make up most of the region’s annual rainfall ... Since World War II, the average date of Phoenix’s first 100-degree reading has shifted earlier by about three weeks [and] 100-degree days are sticking around about 10 days later. All told, that’s nearly a month more triple-digit heat than was typical just 70 years ago ... this is the time of year when the stage is being set for just how bad the fires will eventually get. “The fuels are prepared now,” Benedict said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/04/02/record-southwest-temperatures-fire-weatherToxic impact of pesticides on bees has doubled, study shows
The toxic impact of pesticides on bees and other pollinators has doubled in a decade, new research shows, despite a fall in the amount of pesticide used. Modern pesticides have much lower toxicity to people, wild mammals and birds and are applied in lower amounts, but they are even more toxic to invertebrates. The study shows the higher toxicity outweighs the lower volumes, leading to a more deadly overall impact on pollinators ... The scientists said their work contradicts claims that declines in the amount of pesticides used is reducing their environmental impact. The research also shows that the toxic impact of pesticides used on genetically modified crops remains the same as conventional crops, despite claims that GM crops would reduce the need for pesticides.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/01/toxic-impact-of-pesticides-on-bees-has-doubled-study-showsTropical species are moving northward in U.S. as winters warm
Notwithstanding last month’s cold snap in Texas and Louisiana, climate change is leading to warmer winter weather throughout the southern U.S., creating a golden opportunity for many tropical plants and animals to move north, according to a new study appearing this week in the journal Global Change Biology. Some of these species may be welcomed, such as sea turtles and the Florida manatee, which are expanding their ranges northward along the Atlantic Coast. Others, like the invasive Burmese python — in the Florida Everglades, the largest measured 18 feet, end-to-end —maybe less so. Equally unwelcome, and among the quickest to spread into warming areas, are the insects, including mosquitoes that carry diseases such as West Nile virus, Zika, dengue and yellow fever, and beetles that destroy native trees.
https://news.berkeley.edu/story_jump/tropical-species-are-moving-northward-as-winters-warm/
reporting on a study at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.15563Destruction of world's forests increased sharply in 2020
According to data from the University of Maryland and the online monitoring platform Global Forest Watch, the loss was well above the average for the last 20 years, with 2020 the third worst year for forest destruction since 2002 when comparable monitoring began. The losses were particularly severe in humid tropical primary forests, such as the Amazon, the Congo and south-east Asia. These forests are vital as carbon sinks in the regulating the global climate, as well as for their irreplaceable ecosystems. Losses from this type of forest alone amounted to 4.2m hectares (10.4m acres), equivalent to the annual carbon dioxide emissions of more than 575m cars, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI), which compiled the report.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/31/destruction-of-worlds-forests-increased-sharply-in-2020-loss-tree-cover-tropical
see also https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-31/forest-destruction-surged-in-2020-even-as-global-economy-slowedThe Earliest Cherry Blossom Season in 1,200 Years Is Here Due to Climate Change
In 2021, after an unusually warm spring, Kyoto has burst into color far sooner than expected. To date, this is the earliest cherry blossoms in the city have bloomed in more than 1,200 years. We know that because imperial court documents and ancient diary entries on the nation's cherry blossom festivals can be traced back to 812 CE. In all that time, the earliest blooming date was March 27 in the year 1409 ... When scientists graph Kyoto's full bloom dates over time, they look remarkably like the hockey stick shape of global warming itself.
https://www.sciencealert.com/japan-s-cherry-blossoms-burst-into-color-sooner-than-they-have-in-1-200-yearsHail to be more frequent in Australia, more severe worldwide
The study, published in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, found the effects of climate change on hailstorms are likely to vary markedly by region, with a general expectation that hailstorm frequency will increase in Australia and Europe and decrease in East Asia and North America, while hailstorm severity will increase in most regions ... “We know with climate change that we are going to have more moisture in the atmosphere and that leads to more instability in the atmosphere, so we expect there will be more tendency for thunderstorms to occur,” Dr Raupach said ... Hailstorms are dangerous and costly phenomena. Severe hail on October 31 which struck areas of Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast has produced more than 33,500 insurance claims so far, with losses estimated at $805 million, the Insurance Council of Australia says.
https://www.insurancenews.com.au/local/hail-to-be-more-frequent-in-australia-more-severe-worldwideGlobal Warming Is 'Fundamentally' Changing The Structure of Our World's Oceans
The research published in the journal Nature looked at 50 years of data and followed the way in which surface water "decouples" from the deeper ocean. Climate change has disrupted ocean mixing, a process that helps store away most of the world's excess heat and a significant proportion of CO2. Water on the surface is warmer – and therefore less dense – than the water below, a contrast that is intensified by climate change. Global warming is also causing massive amounts of fresh water to flush into the seas from melting ice sheets and glaciers, lowering the salinity of the upper layer and further reducing its density. This increasing contrast between the density of the ocean layers makes mixing harder, so oxygen, heat and carbon are all less able to penetrate to the deep seas ... lead author Jean-Baptiste Sallee of Sorbonne University and France's CNRS national scientific research center [said] while scientists were aware that this process was under way, "we here show that this change has occurred at a rate much quicker than previously thought: more than six times quicker."
https://www.sciencealert.com/fundamental-changes-to-our-oceans-are-occurring-much-faster-than-we-thoughtErosion of global functional diversity across the tree of life
Mapping extinction risk within [more than 75,000 species of plants, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish] showed that larger species with slower pace of life are universally threatened. Simulated extinction scenarios exposed [that this is] particularly severe for mammals and amphibians. Considering the disproportionate importance of the largest species for ecological processes, our results emphasize the importance of actions to prevent the extinction of the megabiota.
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/13/eabf2675Atmospheric drying will lead to lower crop yields, shorter trees across the globe
Atmospheric drying ... is predicted to amplify even more in the coming decades as climate change intensifies. In a new paper published in the journal Global Change Biology, research from the University of Minnesota and Western University in Ontario, Canada, outlines global atmospheric drying significantly reduces productivity of both crops and non-crop plants, even under well-watered conditions. The new findings were established on a large-scale analysis covering 50 years of research and 112 plant species ... "An increase in vapor pressure deficit places greater demand on the crop to use more water ... We believe a climate change-driven increase in atmospheric drying will reduce plant productivity and crop yields."
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-03/uom-adw030821.phpAt Least 25% Of Marine Mammals Are Heading For Extinction, Study Finds
A newly published study from the University of Exeter has revealed that at least 25% of marine mammals are classified as threatened of extinction ... Not only are 25% classified as being vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered on the IUCN Red List, but 98% of marine mammal species are at some level of risk in 56% of the ocean.
https://www.unilad.co.uk/animals/at-least-25-of-marine-mammals-are-heading-for-extinction-study-finds/
reporting on a study at https://www.int-res.com/articles/esr2021/44/n044p291.pdfOil and natural gas production emit more methane than previously thought
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is underestimating methane emissions from oil and gas production in its annual Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks, according to new research from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). The research team found 90 percent higher emissions from oil production and 50 percent higher emissions for natural gas production than EPA estimated in its latest inventory. The paper is published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
https://phys.org/news/2021-03-oil-natural-gas-production-emit.htmlIntensity of tropical cyclones is probably increasing due to climate change
Researchers at Princeton University, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the University of East Anglia (UEA) examined more than 90 peer-reviewed articles to assess whether human activity is influencing tropical cyclones, including tropical storms, hurricanes and typhoons. The studies showed growing evidence that climate change is probably fuelling more powerful hurricanes and typhoons, a trend that is expected to continue as global temperatures rise.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-03/uoea-iot032521.phpDirect observations confirm that humans are throwing Earth's energy budget off balance
Climate modeling predicts that human activities are causing the release of greenhouse gases and aerosols that are affecting Earth's energy budget. Now, a NASA study has confirmed these predictions with direct observations for the first time: radiative forcings are increasing due to human actions, affecting the planet's energy balance and ultimately causing climate change. The paper was published online March 25, 2021, in the journal Geophysical Research Letters ... The team found that human activities have caused the radiative forcing on Earth to increase by about 0.5 Watts per square meter from 2003 to 2018. The increase is mostly from greenhouse gases emissions from things like power generation, transport and industrial manufacturing. Reduced reflective aerosols are also contributing to the imbalance.
https://phys.org/news/2021-03-humans-earth-energy.htmlCarbon emissions slow, but not nearly fast enough
[O]nly 64 countries have cut their carbon emissions in the years since 195 nations delivered the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015: these achieved annual cuts of 0.16bn tonnes in the years since. But emissions actually rose in 150 nations, which means that overall from 2016 to 2019 emissions grew by 0.21bn tonnes, compared with the preceding five years, 2011-2015. And, say British, European, Australian and US scientists in the journal Nature Climate Change, the global pause during the pandemic in 2020 is not likely to continue. To make the kind of carbon emissions cuts that will fulfill the promise made in Paris to contain global heating to “well below” 2°C by 2100, the world must reduce carbon dioxide emissions each year by one to two billion tonnes. That is an annual increase of ten times the cuts achieved so far by only 64 out of 214 countries.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/carbon-emissions-slow-but-not-nearly-fast-enough/Deadly Heat Waves Will Be Common In South Asia, Even At 1.5 Degrees Of Warming
[H]eat stress will become commonplace across South Asia, according to the new study in Geophysical Research Letters ... They estimated the wet bulb temperature residents will experience ... wet bulb temperature of 32 degrees Celsius (89.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is considered to be the point when labor becomes unsafe, and 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) is the limit to human survivability – when the body can no longer cool itself. Their analysis suggests at 2 degrees of warming, the population’s exposure to unsafe labor temperatures will rise more than two-fold, and exposure to lethal temperatures rises 2.7 times.
https://news.agu.org/press-release/deadly-heat-waves-will-be-common-in-south-asia-even-at-1-5-degrees-of-warming/Russia forecasters warn over Siberia forest fires
Devastating forest fires have ripped across Siberia with increasing regularity over the past few years ... Roman Vilfand, head of science at Russia's weather service, said the whole country would see above-average temperatures from April to September [which] "naturally transform themselves into a fire hazard," Vilfand said, noting that Krasnoyarsk will also see rainfall deficiency. "The problem of precipitation deficiency is not only a problem of this year, it is a climatic problem" ... Russia has set numerous heat records in recent years, with the first half of 2020 seeing the warmest temperatures since the country began weather observations. Asked if Russia will see its winters shrink in the coming years due to warming temperatures, Vilfand noted that while that is already happening, the main challenge of global warming is dealing with increasingly cataclysmic weather events. "The number of dangerous phenomena has doubled over the last quarter of a century. Not by 5 percent, not by 10 percent, but doubled," he said.
https://phys.org/news/2021-03-russia-siberia-forest.htmlArctic methane release due to melting ice is likely to happen again
Beneath the cold, dark depths of the Arctic ocean sit vast reserves of methane. These stores rest in a delicate balance, stable as a solid called methane hydrates, at very specific pressures and temperatures ... New research, published on today in Geology, indicates that during the last two global periods of sea-ice melt, the decrease in pressure [due to melting ice] triggered methane release from buried reserves. Their results demonstrate that as Arctic ice, such as the Greenland ice sheet, melts, similar methane release is likely and should be included in climate models.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210322135221.htmSource apportionment of methane escaping the subsea permafrost system in the outer Eurasian Arctic Shelf
The East Siberian Arctic Shelf holds large amounts of inundated carbon and methane (CH4). Holocene warming by overlying seawater, recently fortified by anthropogenic warming, has caused thawing of the underlying subsea permafrost ... all three isotope systems are consistent with methane release from an old, deep, and likely thermogenic pool to the outer Laptev Sea.
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/10/e2019672118One of Earth’s giant carbon sinks may have been overestimated - study
Soils and the plants that grow in them absorb about a third of the carbon emissions that drive the climate crisis ... Rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere can increase plant growth and, until now, it was assumed carbon storage in soils would increase too. But the study, based on over 100 experiments, found the opposite. When plant growth increases, soil carbon does not ... “We found that when rising CO2 increases plant growth, there is a decrease in soil carbon storage. That’s a very important conclusion,” said César Terrer, who led the research while at Stanford University in the US. He said that if soils do absorb less in future, “the speed of global warming could be higher”.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/24/soils-ability-to-absorb-carbon-emissions-may-be-overestimated-study
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03306-8What if the Perfect Climate Fix Can’t Arrive in Time?
[New no-carbon technology scenarios] take too long to stop emissions now. Trees don't reach canopy-height overnight. By 2080, new forests could draw 6 gigatons of CO₂ out of the air, or about 16% of 2019 emissions. Not too shabby! But not enough and not soon enough ... “The system is great for showing the lack of silver bullets,” said Glen Peters, research director of the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo ... Andrew Jones, co-director of Climate Interactive, says that often lost in political debates about competing climate solutions is how quickly they cut CO2 ... The problem is, as Jones put it, "the energy system turns like an ocean liner, not like a sports car."
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-23/what-if-the-perfect-climate-fix-can-t-arrive-in-timeHurricanes Will Drive More Migrants to Border, Climate Change and Immigration Experts Say
Experts believe that worsening hurricanes in the future may create even more "climate refugees" ... tropical storms are expected to become more frequent and powerful, according to projections released in September 2020 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ... Current U.S. policy doesn't count environmental devastation as a reason for accepting refugees ... farmers and other citizens migrate elsewhere as they face resulting massive crop losses and food shortages ... By the year 2050, as many as 1.5 billion people around the world could be displaced as a result of climate change.
https://www.newsweek.com/hurricanes-will-drive-more-migrants-border-climate-change-immigration-experts-say-1577946Arctic warming causing heatwaves in India
The deadly heat waves occurring in India are linked to the increasing temperatures in the Arctic region due to global warming, says a study conducted by researchers from India and Brazil ... results are worrying the scientists since the arctic region in the recent decades has been warming up at an alarming rate with an increase in temperature more than twice as fast as the global average. The study titled 'Large-scale connection to Deadly Indian Heatwaves' was published in the Quarterly Journal of Royal Meteorology.
https://english.madhyamam.com/india/arctic-warming-causing-heatwaves-in-india-779339
reporting on a study at https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.3985As Arctic Sea Ice Hits Annual Maximum, Concern Grows Over Polar Ice Loss: Studies
This year ranks as the 7th lowest maximum extent since the satellite record began in 1978. Last year was the hottest on record, and, accordingly, sea ice saw its second lowest extent at the September minimum. This winter might indicate a modest recovery — but there’s a caveat: winter maximums seem to have little correlation to summer minimums. And, moreover, the ice in the Arctic is thin. “Volume keeps going down,” says Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center ... both polar regions continue losing ice fast, with the biggest losses, thus far, occurring at sea. In a recent study published in The Cryosphere, University of Leeds researchers found that global ice loss had increased at a record rate.
https://earth.org/as-arctic-sea-ice-hits-annual-maximum-concern-grows-over-polar-ice-loss/Meltdown – The Permafrost that Holds the Arctic Together is Falling Apart
As permafrost scientist Steve Kokelj of the Northwest Territories Geological Survey put it, “When permafrost thaws, we’re losing the glue that holds the landscape together” ... the western Arctic and sub-Arctic are heating up twice as fast as the global average [with] worldwide repercussions ... permafrost is a glimpse of the past: plants and animals that died long ago, compressed by the clamp of time but not necessarily decomposed because of the freezer-like conditions that have remained in high-latitude ground since the last ice age ... nearly half of Canada and almost a quarter of the northern hemisphere rests on permafrost [and] “There is much, much, much more activity now within the past 15 years than we can find in the record of the previous 10,000” ... as permafrost thaws and breaks open, the carbon-rich organic material that has been locked away, for some 10,000 years in the western Arctic or even 100,000 in parts of Siberia, becomes fuel ... Without oxygen, such as under lakes and ponds, they belch methane, which isn’t as long-lived in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide but is about 30 times more effective as a heat-trapper over 100 years. Carbon dioxide, on the other hand, can remain in the atmosphere for thousands of years. Increasingly, researchers are detecting nitrous oxide from cracks in the ground created as permafrost thaws; as a greenhouse gas, it is nearly 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide over 100 years ... All of this means that permafrost thaw is a much more alarming global threat than previously anticipated.
https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/meltdown-permafrost-arctic-together-falling-apart/Submarine Permafrost Has Been Overlooked as a Major Source of Greenhouse Gases, Scientists Warn
Scientists have found that permafrost buried beneath the Arctic Ocean [are] a major source of greenhouse gases not currently included in climate projections that could have a significant impact on climate change in the longer-term. The amount of carbon locked into submarine permafrost is more than humans have released into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution ... The study estimates that permafrost beneath the Arctic Ocean has been slowly thawing since the end of the last glacial period, some 14,000 years ago, in what scientists call a “natural response to deglaciation.” The frozen sediment and soil currently releases 140 million tons of carbon dioxide and 5.3 million tons of methane into the atmosphere each year — roughly equal to the yearly emissions of Spain. But the researchers said anthropogenic global warming will likely accelerate this greenhouse gas release.
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/submarine-permafrost-has-been-overlooked-as-a-major-source-of-greenhouse-gases-scientists-warnSiberia's warming shows climate change has no winners
Global warming [was supposed to be] something of a boon for Russia, where 55% to 65% of the country is covered in permafrost. It is estimated that 60% of the country's oil and 90% of its natural gas, as well as deposits of nonferrous metals and gold, lie under this thawing part of the planet ... 140,000 sq. km of Russia, about the size of Greece, was lost to fire in 2020. Most of that was in once-frozen areas. When covered with snow in winter, the fires seem to be extinguished. However, the peat in the ground continues to smolder, and in summer it ignites on the surface ... [Greenhouse gases] are released by fires and other events, further accelerating global warming. The world's permafrost zones are thought to contain twice the amount of carbon that is in the atmosphere ... collapse [at a Siberian power plant] occurred because the ground loosened as the permafrost thawed. It has been reported that one-fifth of [Siberian infrastructure] will be affected by 2050 ... Although it was supposed to be a global warming "winner," Russia has become an unexpected climate change victim.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Comment/Siberia-s-warming-shows-climate-change-has-no-winnersThe Threat of Cascading Extinctions on Earth Could Be Greater Than We Thought
[R]esearchers have found that the species we see as most valuable and worth protecting often aren't the 'threads' most critical to maintaining the complex ecological webs we rely on. Ecologist Aislyn Keyes from the University of California and colleagues used data from three coastal food webs to simulate a dozen extinction sequences to gain a better understanding of how the connections anchor ecosystem services and the stability of the entire webs themselves [and found that] "species playing supporting roles in services through interactions are critical to the robustness of both food webs and services." This means that ecosystem services are under greater threat than anticipated because more species support these services than we've accounted for ... This research was published in Nature Communications.
https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-may-be-impacted-by-ripples-of-cascading-extinctions-sooner-than-expected/ampOver 10 million displaced by climate disasters in six months: report
About 10.3 million people were displaced by climate change-induced events such as flooding and droughts in the last six months, the majority of them in Asia, a humanitarian organisation said on Wednesday. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said about 2.3 million others were displaced by conflict in the same period, indicating the vast majority of internal displacements are now triggered by climate change. Though the figures cover only a six-month period from September 2020 to February 2021, they highlight an accelerating global trend of climate-related displacement.
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN2B90Z8Reproductive Problems in Both Men and Women Are Rising at an Alarming Rate
[R]eproductive problems in males are increasing by about 1 percent per year in Western countries. This “1 percent effect” includes the rates of declining sperm counts, decreasing testosterone levels and increasing rates of testicular cancer, as well as a rise in the prevalence of erectile dysfunction. On the female side of the equation, miscarriage rates are also increasing by about 1 percent per year in the U.S., and so is the rate of gestational surrogacy. Meanwhile, the total fertility rate worldwide has dropped by nearly 1 percent per year from 1960 to 2018 [which] adds up to more than 10 percent per decade and more than 50 percent over 50 years. When you consider that sperm counts declined by 50 percent in just 40 years, as Shanna's meta-analysis published in a 2017 issue of the journal Human Reproduction Update showed, it’s difficult to deny or discount how alarming this is. [These] are largely driven by a common cause: the presence of hormone-altering chemicals.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/reproductive-problems-in-both-men-and-women-are-rising-at-an-alarming-rate/Plummeting sperm counts, shrinking penises: toxic chemicals threaten humanity
[A]n environmental and reproductive epidemiologist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York finds that sperm counts have dropped almost 60% since 1973. Following the trajectory we are on, Swan’s research suggests sperm counts could reach zero by 2045 ... The chemicals to blame for this crisis are found in everything from plastic containers and food wrapping, to waterproof clothes and fragrances in cleaning products, to soaps and shampoos, to electronics and carpeting ... “In some parts of the world, the average twentysomething woman today is less fertile than her grandmother was at 35,” Swan writes. In addition to that, Swan finds that, on average, a man today will have half of the sperm his grandfather had.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/18/toxic-chemicals-health-humanity-erin-brokovichSydney's Warragamba Dam overflows and mid north coast evacuated amid wild weather
Swathes of suburban Sydney were on alert for dangerous flooding after the city’s main dam spilled over on Saturday, with severe storms across New South Wales also triggering a mini-tornado, evacuations, and hampering coronavirus vaccine delivery. Warragamba Dam spilled over at about 3pm on Saturday and daily rainfall records for parts of the mid north coast for March were broken ... Saturday’s wild weather occurred in areas marked by droughts and bushfires in recent years, with Sydney’s water levels dropping so low in 2019 that water restrictions were triggered, while Port Macquarie, Taree and areas of the north coast experienced the early brunt of the Black Summer bushfires.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/mar/20/nsw-floods-sydney-battered-by-rain-and-mid-north-coast-evacuated-amid-wild-weatherEight States Are Seeding Clouds to Overcome Megadrought
But there is little evidence to show that the process is increasing precipitation
Boosting snowpack is being pursued with growing urgency. Much of the western U.S. has been gripped by drought for the last 20 years. Scientists recently concluded that the past two decades represent the driest span in the region since at least the late 1500s. This “megadrought” has been heavily influenced by climate change ... Flow has dwindled on major water systems like the Rio Grande and the Colorado River, which each supply water to millions of people ... [In this seeding study] scientists estimated that around 286 Olympic swimming pools’ worth of snow fell from the clouds they seeded ... But experts also advise keeping expectations in check. The science so far suggests that cloud seeding is far from a silver bullet when it comes to dealing with drought. “As we’ve shown in the paper, we cannot really generate an awful lot of snow,” Friedrich said. “We can generate snow, but not that we can really overcome a drought situation.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eight-states-are-seeding-clouds-to-overcome-megadrought/Spring Outlook: Drought to persist, expand in U.S. West and High Plains
Nearly one-half of the country — stretching from the Pacific Coast to the Great Plains and upper Midwest — is currently experiencing moderate to exceptional drought conditions, and that is expected to continue and expand, according to NOAA’s U.S. Spring Outlook released today ... For April through June, warmer-than-normal temperatures are favored for the entire contiguous U.S. with the exception of Western Montana, northern Idaho, and parts of Oregon and Washington. Hawaii, western and northern Alaska are also forecast to see above-normal temperatures.
https://www.noaa.gov/media-release/spring-outlook-drought-to-persist-expand-in-us-west-and-high-plainsEuropean summer droughts since 2015 unprecedented in past two millennia
An international team, led by the University of Cambridge, studied the chemical fingerprints in European oak trees to reconstruct summer climate over 2,110 years ... drought conditions since 2015 suddenly intensified, beyond anything in the past two thousand years. This anomaly is likely the result of human-caused climate change and associated shifts in the jet stream. The results are reported in the journal Nature Geoscience ... "These tree-ring stable isotopes give us a far more accurate archive to reconstruct hydroclimate conditions in temperate areas, where conventional tree-ring studies often fail," said co-author Professor Jan Esper from the University of Mainz, Germany.
https://phys.org/news/2021-03-european-summer-droughts-unprecedented-millennia.htmlNew Mexico’s Coming Megadrought Highlights Farmers’ Control of Water
The upcoming season highlights a difficult reality in this state: Farming and ranching to pay the bills could become an unsustainable way of life in New Mexico, as the water supply dwindles ... While agriculture’s economic impact in New Mexico is usually just a few percent a year, it’s by far the largest consumer of water — irrigation accounted for 76% of water withdrawals ... The disparity between agriculture’s economic impact and water usage is common throughout the West, and Pegram said water law has perpetuated this trend ... Albuquerque, as well as Santa Fe, purchase water from the Colorado River Basin [and] “If we didn’t have that water, things would be even much worse” [but] the state is unable to store any more water from the river due to restrictions under the Rio Grande Compact, which governs water apportioning among Colorado, New Mexico and Texas. Even if the state got out of those restrictions, she said, it owes a debt of 100,000 acre feet of water — enough to flood about that many football fields a foot deep — downstream to Texas. Climatic trends don’t bode well for New Mexico.
https://capitalandmain.com/new-mexicos-coming-megadrought-0308Changing Lengths of the Four Seasons by Global Warming
[S]ummer in the Northern Hemisphere mid‐latitudes has lengthened, whereas winter has shortened, accompanied by shorter spring and autumn. Such changes in lengths and onsets can be mainly attributed to greenhouse‐warming. Even if the current warming rate does not accelerate, [under] the business‐as‐usual scenario, summer is projected to last nearly half a year, but winter less than two months by 2100.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2020GL091753Is this the end of forests as we've known them?
These trees are dying without humans laying a hand on them, at least physically, and they are not resprouting. Forests cover 30% of the planet’s land surface, and yet, as humans heat the atmosphere, some locations where they would have grown now appear too dry or hot to support them ... In the Amazon, some experts warn that a forest mortality tipping point is looming. The boreal forests of Siberia are under attack from higher temperatures. Temperate European forests thought to be less vulnerable to climate change are showing worrying symptoms ... forests ringing the northerly parts of the globe are in fact projected to experience the greatest warming of all. In central Siberia, conifers are already dying at greater rates ... increasingly there are worries that if forests die back they will switch from storing carbon to emitting it [which] helps explain why much-touted proposals to plant millions of trees to suck up carbon and ameliorate the climate crisis are encountering skepticism; they won’t work if conditions on Earth don’t allow for forests to reproduce and thrive.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/10/is-this-the-end-of-forests-as-weve-known-themHumans are responsible for destroying or degrading two-thirds of the Earth's tropical rainforests, according to new study
The world's dependence on coal, farming, soy, palm oil and mining has resulted in two-third's of Earth's tropical rainforests being completely destroyed, and the remaining ecosystems being put "closer to a tipping point," the report, published Tuesday, says ... "the remaining tropical rainforests are either severely damaged or increasingly fragmented ... Humans are chopping these once vast and impenetrable forests into smaller and smaller pieces, undermining their ability to store carbon, cool the planet, produce rain and provide habitats."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tropical-rainforests-reduced-by-two-thirds-by-humans/Amazon rainforest now appears to be contributing to climate change
For years, researchers have expressed concern that rising temperatures, drought, and deforestation are reducing the capacity of the world’s largest rainforest to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere ... [New research] published today in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, estimates that atmospheric warming from all of these sources combined now appears to swamp the forest’s natural cooling effect. “Cutting the forest is interfering with its carbon uptake,” says lead author Kristofer Covey, a professor of environmental studies at New York’s Skidmore College. “But when you start to look at these other factors alongside CO2, it gets really hard to see how the net effect isn’t that the Amazon as a whole is really warming global climate.” [Results] make clear that focusing on a single metric - CO2 - simply doesn’t paint an accurate picture. “As important as carbon is in the Amazon, it’s not the only thing that’s going on,” says Tom Lovejoy, a senior fellow in biodiversity with the United Nations Foundation ... Resource extraction, damming rivers, and the conversion of forest for soybean and livestock production all alter the natural systems in a variety of ways. But most serve to warm the climate.
https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/environment-and-conservation/2021/03/amazon-rainforest-now-appears-to-be-contributing-to-climate
reporting on a study at https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2021.618401/fullGlobal heating pushes tropical regions towards limits of human livability
“If it is too humid our bodies can’t cool off by evaporating sweat,” said Yi Zhang, a Princeton University researcher who led the new study, published in Nature Geoscience. “High body core temperatures are dangerous or even lethal.” The research team looked at various historical data and simulations to determine how wet-bulb temperature extremes will change as the planet continues to heat up, discovering that these extremes in the tropics increase at around the same rate as the tropical mean temperature. This means that the world’s temperature increase will need to be limited to 1.5C to avoid risking areas of the tropics exceeding 35C in wetbulb temperature, which is so-called because it is measured by a thermometer that has its bulb wrapped in a wet cloth, helping mimic the ability of humans to cool their skin by evaporating sweat. Dangerous conditions in the tropics will unfold even before the 1.5C threshold, however, with the paper warning that 1C of extreme wet-bulb temperature increase “could have adverse health impact equivalent to that of several degrees of temperature increase”. The world has already warmed by around 1.1C on average due to human activity and although governments vowed in the Paris climate agreement to hold temperatures to 1.5C, scientists have warned this limit could be breached within a decade. This has potentially dire implications for a huge swathe of humanity. Around 40% of the world’s population currently lives in tropical countries, with this proportion set to expand ... The study is just the latest scientific warning over severe dangers posed by heat. Extreme heatwaves could push parts of the Middle East beyond human endurance, scientists have found, with rising temperatures also posing enormous risks for parts of China and India.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/08/global-heating-tropical-regions-human-livabilityHigher dykes won't save NL from climate change consequences
With the world seeming to be heading towards global warming of 3 degrees Celsius, the Netherlands will be facing some very major consequences ... [Netherlands Meteorological Institute] director Gerard van der Steenhoven told NOS that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius may already be impossible. A recent study showed that global warming resulting from emissions from the past may have been greatly underestimated. Areas that warm more slowly, such as the Southern Ocean, will eventually catch up and can amplify global warming. A warming of 2.3 degrees could already be inevitable, and that doesn't even account for future greenhouse gas emissions ... soil continues to settle and subside, and half of the Netherlands becoming deeper and deeper ... the drainage results in salt seawater being sucked in under the dykes has major consequences for agriculture.
https://nltimes.nl/2021/03/13/higher-dykes-wont-save-nl-climate-change-consequencesEndocrine disruptors threatens semen quality
Epidemiologists analyzed the potential impact of endocrine disruptors on semen quality of men whose mothers were working at the early stages of their pregnancy. Their results, published in the journal Human Reproduction, show that men who have been exposed in utero to products known to contain endocrine disruptors are twice more likely to have semen volume and total sperm count per ejaculation below the reference values set by the WHO ... "In our study, the products most associated with these anomalies were pesticides, phthalates and heavy metals" ... "the results could explain, at least in part, the low semen quality."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210319125459.htmAntarctic Peninsula warming up due to heat in Tasman Sea
The ever-increasing warming of the [Antarctic Peninsula] - and the whole of Antarctica at large - is a major concern plaguing climatologists all over the world. Commenting on the serious implications of this rapid rise in temperature and sea levels and the importance of the findings of their study [published in Nature Communications], Dr. Inoue says, "Antarctic warming accelerates Antarctic ice sheet melting and contributes to the rise in sea levels across the world. Therefore, knowledge of the mechanisms of the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet would help scientists, policymakers, and administrations to devise measures for people who will be most affected by the rising sea levels."
https://phys.org/news/2021-03-antarctic-peninsula-due-tasman-sea.htmlArctic Ocean Was Much Warmer Than Average During February Temperatures in the Arctic Ocean, an area that has a significant influence on the world’s weather, were much warmer last month than the average for the past two decades. Northeastern Canada and Greenland were also much warmer-than-average for February, according to a report Monday by Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-08/arctic-ocean-was-much-warmer-than-average-during-februaryInaction leaves world playing ‘Russian roulette’ with pandemics, say experts
The coronavirus that causes Covid-19 is thought to have jumped from wild bats to humans and about two-thirds of diseases that infect humans start in other species, including the influenza, HIV, Zika, West Nile and Ebola viruses. The increasing destruction of nature by farming, logging and the wild animal trade has brought people and their livestock into closer contact with wildlife and led to a great increase in diseases crossing from animals to people in recent decades. “The Covid-19 vaccines will help rescue us from this current mess, but it won’t do a thing to protect us from the next pandemic’” said Aaron Bernstein at the TH Chan school of public health at Harvard University ... In October, the world’s leading scientists said the world was in an “era of pandemics” and that diseases would emerge more often, spread more rapidly, kill more people and affect the global economy with more devastating impact than ever before, unless the devastation of the natural world ends.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/09/inaction-leaves-world-playing-russian-roulette-pandemics-expertsScientists blow up decades of thinking on why hurricanes are becoming more deadly
Understood as a naturally occurring phenomenon, the [Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation was thought to] cycle through warm and cool phases every 20-40 years, which accounts for seasonal hurricane activity. New research posits that there is no AMO at all, however, and that changes in hurricane activity within the Atlantic are directly related to human-caused climate change. Published in the journal Science, a team of researchers argue that the AMO is not an entity in and of itself; rather, it is a manifestation of the effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, or fossil fuels emitted into the atmosphere from human activity. In short, the AMO is not responsible for varying hurricane activity — humans are ... When greenhouse gases are emitted into the atmosphere, they also include sulphate aerosols, which are fine solid particles that have the ability to block light. Greenhouse gases and carbon emissions may work to trap heat in the atmosphere, causing spikes in global temperatures, but the accompanying [aerosol masking] particles actually block light from entering the atmosphere, resulting in a cooling effect. This fluctuation in sporadic cooling and warming runs parallel to the assumed effects of the AMO.
https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/climate-change/542298-scientists-blow-up-decades-of-thinking-on-whyHumans, not nature, are the cause of changes in Atlantic hurricane cycles, new study finds
[I]n a newly released paper in the journal Science, the [previously believed natural] Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation may have been dealt a deadly blow ... AMO is very likely an artifact of climate change ... if true, this discovery means that during the 20th century and beyond, humans — not natural variability — have been the main driving force in the up-and-down cycles of hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-atlantic-hurricane-activity-cycles/Butterfly numbers plummeting in US west as climate crisis takes toll
[B]utterfly species that dot the US west are being cut down by the climate crisis, new research has found, with rising temperatures helping cause a steep decline in butterfly numbers over the past 40 years. There has been a 1.6% reduction in the total number of butterflies observed west of the Rocky Mountain range each year since 1977, researchers calculated, which amounts to a staggering loss of butterflies over the timespan of the study period ... The research, published in Science, analyzed citizen-gathered sightings of butterflies in 72 locations spanning all of the western US states. In all, more than 450 butterfly species were included in the study. [Findings are] consistent with the rate of decline of other insects found by researchers in different places around the world.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/04/butterfly-numbers-plummeting-us-west-climate-crisisThe collapse of Northern California kelp forests will be hard to reverse
[T]he area covered by kelp forests off the coast of Northern California has dropped by more than 95 percent ... have been replaced by 'urchin barrens,' where purple sea urchins cover a seafloor devoid of kelp and other algae ... Published March 5 in Communications Biology, the study shows that the kelp forests north of San Francisco were resilient to extreme warming events in the past, surviving other strong marine heatwaves and El Niño events. But the loss of a key urchin predator, the sunflower sea star, due to sea star wasting disease left the kelp forests of Northern California without any predators of sea urchins, which are voracious grazers of kelp.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210305080126.htmIn February the US experienced record cold temperatures while much of the planet hit all-time highs
While some of the coldest weather in a century was gripping millions of Americans for over a week in February, large areas of the globe were basking in the warmest weather ever observed during winter ... outside of the US, record warm temperatures for February outpaced the cold records by more than 4 to 1, according to data from NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information ... Hamburg Germany experienced temperatures one would expect in mid-June ... record warmth was observed at numerous locations across Sweden, Poland, Slovakia, Austria and Slovenia ... in the wine-growing hills of eastern France, the community of Lons-le-Saunier soared more than 20 degrees Fahrenheit above seasonal averages ... Beijing was experiencing temperatures one would expect in the month of May ... North and South Korea recorded their hottest February day ... the fact that much of the rest of the world saw much higher than normal temperatures should come as no surprise. As globally-averaged temperature increases as a result of human-caused climate change, record warm temperatures have been outpacing record cold temperatures by more than 2-1 in recent decades.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/02/weather/record-temperatures-february-us-world/index.htmlRussian researchers: Average Arctic temperature could increase 20°С by century's end
According to the Russian Marchuk Institute of Numerical Mathematic, climate gas emissions are leading to a continued rapid temperature increase in the northernmost part of the planet. By the end of the century, average temperatures in the central parts of the Arctic could be 20°С higher than what is considered normal for the region ... “Even in a situation where the world community by 2050 reaches a zero-emission target for climate gases into the atmosphere, the Arctic will in any case be 2-3 degrees higher than today because of the inertia of the climate system” ... The Marchuk Institute of Numerical Mathematic is part of the Russian Academy of Science and has modeling of climate change scenarios as one of its main research areas.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/climate-crisis/2021/03/russian-researchers-average-arctic-temperature-could-increase-20-degsEuropean companies on 2.7°C warming path
A €4 trillion mismatch is forming between bank lending that aims to be ‘Paris-aligned’ and the market for this corporate lending in Europe, according to new analysis from EU-funded non-profit CDP Europe and global management consulting firm Oliver Wyman. Running hot: accelerating Europe's path to Paris, released today, estimates that 95% of all corporate lending in Europe comes from banks with a Paris-alignment ambition. But under 1 in 10 European companies so far have emissions targets aligned with Paris’ well-below 2°C goal – meaning banks financing these companies are far from Paris-aligned today. The research is based on nearly 1,000 European companies worth around 80% of Europe’s market value ... report authors also modeled three potential scenarios for 2030, setting out alternative rates of acceleration in corporate target-setting. Based on this, capping warming at 1.5°C would take an 8x increase in the current ambition level of European corporates on emissions ... The new report is presented today at the CDP Europe Awards, held with the European Investment Bank on Euronews, where speakers include Angela Merkel and the European Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services and the Capital Markets Union.
https://www.cdp.net/en/articles/media/running-hot-cdp-europe-report-releaseCO2 emissions: nations' pledges 'far away' from Paris target, says UN
If all of the national pledges submitted so far were fulfilled, global emissions would be reduced by only 1% by 2030, compared with 2010 levels. Scientists have said a 45% reduction is needed in the next 10 years to keep global heating to no more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, in line with the Paris agreement. Patricia Espinosa, the executive secretary of UN Climate Change, said: “We are very far away from a pathway that will meet the Paris agreement goal. We are collectively walking into a minefield blindfolded. The next step could be disaster.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/26/co2-emissions-nations-pledges-far-away-from-paris-target-says-unAustralian scientists sound alarm on ecosystem collapse
The 38 eminent scientists, from 29 universities and organisations, say they have observed signs of Austafter Arctic permafrost releases more carbon dioxide than once believedralian ecosystem decline and collapse all over the country, from tropical savannahs and rainforests to coral reefs, deserts and even Antarctic environments. Their stark findings were published on Friday in the journal Global Change Biology. Their collaboration began when Dr Dana Bergstrom, from the Australian Antarctic Division, documented rapid, widespread plant dieback in the subantarctic tundra of remote Macquarie Island, and wondered if it was happening elsewhere. Despite working in very different regions and landscapes, scientists all over Australia are observing signs of collapse in 19 ecosystems, said co-author Dr Justine Shaw from the University of Queensland. All of the ecosystems, with the exception of the subtropical rainforests of coastal New South Wales, were found to have a low likelihood of recovery.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/australian-scientists-sound-alarm-on-ecosystem-collapse-20210226-p5762n.html
reporting on a study at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.15539Heat record: Earliest ever "spring" week in NL
Wednesday marked the fourth consecutive day-heat record broken at the national weather station in De Bilt ... first ever winter with five days of maximums above 15 degrees in the Netherlands. And the high temperatures mean that this week will get the "spring" label - the earliest one ever measured ... The previous record for number of "mild days", with maximums above 15 degrees, dated from 2019 with four days. In the previous century, there were never more than three mild days in the winter. This is also the earliest spring week ever recorded. "On average, the first spring week starts around 29 March. In the previous climate period this was 3 days later, in the middle of the last century around 10 April, and at the beginning of the last century the average was around 13 April," Wilfred Janssen of Weerplaza said ... Last year, 13 heat records were set in De Bilt, and one single cold record. "The fact that more heat records than cold records are being broken is due to global warming. Without warming, the ratio between heat records and cold records would be virtually the same," Weerplaza meteorologist Raymond Klaassen said.
https://nltimes.nl/2021/02/25/heat-record-earliest-ever-spring-week-nlGulf Stream system at weakest in a millennium due to climate change
Using sediment data and temperature records to map historical trends, a study in Nature Geoscience found the Gulf Stream system, also known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (Amoc), is travelling at its slowest rate in the last millennium. “This is highly likely to be caused by our greenhouse gas emissions, because there is no other plausible explanation for this slowdown,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, one of the authors and head of earth system analysis at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “It is exactly what the climate models have been predicting for decades” ... A separate study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that if the pace of global warming accelerates, this could cause the Gulf Stream to shut down entirely.
https://www.ft.com/content/589d034a-ee9d-4c74-b20b-4b750c2d904dGerman forest decline hits record levels
Forests in Germany "are sick" and deteriorated at record levels in 2020, the agriculture minister said, commenting on an annual forest report released on Wednesday ... More trees died in Germany in 2020 than in any other previous year. Just 21% of trees under observation had an intact canopy — an indication of how healthy a tree is ... A bark beetle infestation was the main cause for spruce tree deaths in the country. This was made worse due to a dry summer that enabled the beetles to get deep into barks. The report also blamed storms, drought and forest fires in the past three years for massively damaging German forests.
https://www.dw.com/en/german-forest-decline-hits-record-levels/a-56680590World risks ‘collapse of everything’ without strong climate action, Attenborough warns Security Council
More collective action is needed to address the risks climate change poses to global peace and security, the UN Secretary-General told a high-level Security Council debate on Tuesday [and] Sir David Attenborough issued a sobering warning to leaders. “If we continue on our current path, we will face the collapse of everything that gives us our security: food production, access to fresh water, habitable ambient temperature, and ocean food chains,” he said, adding “and if the natural world can no longer support the most basic of our needs, then much of the rest of civilization will quickly break down.”
https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/02/1085452Climate crisis hits 'worst case scenario' levels – Environment Agency head
Sir James Bevan says extreme flooding in UK indicates urgent need for change if humanity is to survive The climate emergency is already hitting “worst case scenario” levels that if left unchecked will lead to the collapse of ecosystems, with dire consequences for humanity, according to the chief executive of the Environment Agency ... “Much higher sea levels will take out most of the world’s cities, displace millions, and make much of the rest of our land surface uninhabitable or unusable,” Bevan told the annual conference of the Association of British Insurers. “Much more extreme weather will kill more people through drought, flooding, wildfires and heatwaves than most wars have. “The net effects will collapse ecosystems, slash crop yields, take out the infrastructure that our civilisation depends on, and destroy the basis of the modern economy and modern society. “If [this] sounds like science fiction let me tell you something you need to know. This is that over the last few years the reasonable worst case for several of the flood incidents the EA has responded to has actually happened, and it’s getting larger.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/23/climate-crisis-hitting-worst-case-scenarios-warns-environment-agency-headCalifornia's iconic redwoods, sequoias and Joshua trees threatened by climate change
California's iconic coastal redwoods, some standing since before Julius Caesar ruled Rome, are in a fight for their lives. They are increasingly threatened by wildfires that are larger and more intense due to the impact of human-caused climate change. And it's not just the redwoods — giant sequoias and Joshua trees are also in trouble ... the experts who know and love these trees are genuinely worried about their future. Last year, 4.2 million acres burned in California's worst fire season on record. Scientists say as the climate warms these fires will grow bigger at an accelerating pace ... Since 2000, the western U.S. has been experiencing a megadrought, one of its worst droughts in 1,200 years. On top of that, since 1970, summers in California have warmed by 2 to 3 degrees Fahrenheit. These types of climate conditions, warmer and drier, set the stage for a longer fire season with larger, more intense fires.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-california-redwood-sequoia-joshua-trees/Taiwan's chip industry under threat as drought turns critical
Taiwan's tech manufacturers fear their output is under threat from the island's worst drought in decades, risking more turmoil for global supply chains already strained by shortages of semiconductors and other key components. Taiwan's government will on Thursday further tighten water use in several cities that are home to a cluster of important manufacturers ... Chip production requires massive amounts of water, but reservoirs in Taiwan are critically low and authorities have already cut supplies to agriculture to support industrial and residential use. The water concerns come as the chip sector battles worldwide shortages.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/Taiwan-s-chip-industry-under-threat-as-drought-turns-critical2Newly identified greenhouse gas with no known use an ‘early warning’
An international network of climate scientists has detected increasing atmospheric concentrations of three ozone-depleting substances, which are also greenhouse gases, that have no known uses ... Researchers from the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (Agage) network believe the ‘unexpected’ emissions of three HCFCs are by-products from other processes. This means that there are no public inventories or emission reports available for them ... two of gases, HCFC-133a and HCFC-31, are known compounds that are likely produced during the manufacture of refrigerants [and the third gas] HCFC-132b had not previously been detected in the atmosphere, although it is likely produced in a similar way to the other two compounds ... "This adds yet another new greenhouse gas to the already wide spectrum of man-made contributions to the atmosphere. In addition, this particular one is an HCFC and therefore also harmful to the life-protecting ozone layer," says Johannes Laube, an atmospheric chemist based at the Jülich Research Centre in Germany, who was not involved in the project.
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/newly-identified-greenhouse-gas-with-no-known-use-an-early-warning/4013263.article#/1 in 5 deaths globally caused by fossil fuel pollution, a new study reveals
More than eight million people died as a result of breathing in minute particulate matter from burning fossil fuels in 2018, according to research from Harvard University, in collaboration with the University of Birmingham, the University of Leicester and University College London ... As well as confirming that regions with the worst air pollution have the highest rates of mortality, the study, published in the journal Environmental Research, found that the number of deaths in these regions had been underestimated ... North America, Europe and Asia were also shown to suffer more deaths from particulates than previously thought. Overall, the study found higher mortality rates among people who suffered long-term exposure to fossil-fuel emissions, even at comparatively low levels.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/02/fossil-fuel-pollution-one-in-five-deaths-globally/
reporting on a study at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0013935121000487UN: Huge changes in society needed to keep nature, Earth OK
Humans are making Earth a broken and increasingly unlivable planet through climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. So the world must make dramatic changes to society, economics and daily life, a new United Nations report says. Unlike past U.N. reports that focused on one issue and avoided telling leaders actions to take, Thursday’s report combines three intertwined environment crises and tells the world what’s got to change. It calls for changing what governments tax, how nations value economic output, how power is generated, the way people get around, fish and farm, as well as what they eat. “Without nature’s help, we will not thrive or even survive,” Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said ... “In the end it will hit us,” said biologist Thomas Lovejoy, who was a scientific advisor to the report. “It’s not what’s happening to elephants. It’s not what’s happening to climate or sea level rise. It’s all going to impact us” ... In another break, this report gives specific solutions that it says must be taken. This report uses the word “must” 56 times and “should” 37 times. There should be 100 more because action is so crucial, said former U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres, who wasn’t part of the report. “Time has totally ran out. That’s why the word ‘must’ is in there,” Figueres said.
https://apnews.com/article/un-climate-change-environment-crisis-df5f89784ec92aaf8a855f88bdd753c9An unusual Ocean anomaly is being detected in the Gulf Stream, not seen in at least 150 years
The Gulf Stream is a strong ocean current that brings warmer water up from the Gulf of Mexico into the Atlantic Ocean. It extends all the way up the eastern coast of the United States, where it starts to turn towards northwest Europe [and] helps to warm the western European countries ... temperature signature of the warm Gulf Stream area and cold North Atlantic is one of the strongest indicators that the AMOC is weakening. There are also direct observations being made with instruments, which objectively confirmed that the North Atlantic circulation is indeed on the decline ... most probable [cause] is the induction of the freshwater into the North Atlantic from sea ice melt in Greenland and the Arctic ... Winters would become more severe in Europe and the United States. Of course, this is not something that would/will happen overnight ... But what can happen almost overnight, are strong storms and hurricanes. And the Gulf Stream and the AMOC play an important role in these events, especially for the United States.
https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/gulf-stream-amoc-ocean-anomaly-united-states-europe-faUnfortunate timing and rate of change may be enough to tip a climate system
Imagine abrupt shifts of the tropical monsoons, reductions in Northern Hemisphere rainfall, and strengthening of North Atlantic storm tracks within decades. These are some of the impacts that climate scientists expect if the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which redistributes heat from equatorial regions to the Northern Hemisphere, suddenly tips into a dormant state as a result of global warming. The consequences would drastically alter conditions for agriculture, biodiversity, and the economy in large parts of the World. A model study by Johannes Lohmann and Peter D. Ditlevsen from Physics of Ice, Climate, and Earth, The Niels Bohr Institute, the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, now suggests the AMOC, and potentially other climate sub-systems approaching tipping points might tip long before anticipated because of rate-induced tipping. The work, published today in PNAS is part of the TiPES project funded by the EU Horizon 2020.
https://phys.org/news/2021-02-unfortunate-climate.htmlafter Arctic permafrost releases more carbon dioxide than once believed2020, a year of slowdowns, but not for global warming
Last year wasn’t business as usual. But while our livelihoods were disrupted by an ongoing health and economic crisis, our planet’s climate continued on its warming course, with particularly high levels throughout the last decade ... In 2020, the global climate was 0.6 C warmer than averages between 1981-2010 and around 1.25 C above pre-industrial levels, according to new data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and a recent report from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). The year also wrapped up the hottest decade registered, of which the last six years were the warmest ever.
https://www.euronews.com/2021/01/29/2020-a-year-of-slowdowns-but-not-for-global-warmingVery few of world’s rivers undamaged by humanity, study finds
Rivers in which fish populations have escaped serious damage from human activities make up just 14% of the world’s river basin area, according to the most comprehensive study to date. Scientists found that the biodiversity of more than half of rivers had been profoundly affected ... Rivers and lakes are vital ecosystems. They cover less than 1% of the planet’s surface, but their 17,000 fish species represent a quarter of all vertebrates, as well as providing food for many millions of people. Healthy rivers are also needed to supply clean water. Other recent research has shown that global populations of migratory river fish have plunged by a “catastrophic” 76% since 1970, with a 93% fall in Europe. Large river animals have fared worst ... The research, published in the journal Science, examined almost 2,500 rivers in all parts of the world, except the polar regions and deserts.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/18/very-few-of-worlds-rivers-undamaged-by-humanity-study-findsStudy Warns Emissions Cuts Must Be 80% More Ambitious to Meet Even the Dangerously Inadequate 2°C Target
A new study warns that countries' pledges to reduce planet-heating emissions as part of the global effort to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement must be dramatically scaled up to align with even the deal's less ambitious target of keeping temperature rise below 2°C—though preferably 1.5°C—by the end of the century. A pair of researchers at the University of Washington found that the country-based rate of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions cuts should increase by 80% beyond current nationally determined contributions (NDCs)—the term for each nation's pledge under the Paris agreement—to meet the 2°C target. The study, published Tuesday in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, adds to the mountain of evidence that since the Paris agreement—which also has a bolder 1.5°C target—was adopted in late 2015, countries around the world have not done enough to limit human-caused global heating. "On current trends, the probability of staying below 2°C of warming is only 5%."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/02/11/study-warns-emissions-cuts-must-be-80-more-ambitious-meet-even-dangerouslyHow fires have spread to previously untouched parts of the world
Wildfires are spreading to fuel-abundant regions of the world that used to be less prone to burning ... Experts believe the changing fire patterns are driven by human factors: global heating, which is creating more tinderbox conditions in forests, and land conversion, which is turning grasslands into farm fields, conurbations and roads ... [In Australia] “There is no question that climate change was a very significant factor in the extreme fire activity of the last season. We have always had droughts and heatwaves leading to extreme fire weather conditions, but our background long-term temperature trend is now 1C over the pre-industrial level, with much hotter and longer heatwaves than before, and consistent with the temperature elevation, our droughts are now hotter leading to drier fuels more able to burn quickly” ... [In California] “The confluence of increased fuel in a warmer and drier climate has certainly contributed to the very large increase in forested burned area in parts of the western US” ... [In Europe] “There is consensus among fire researchers that climate change is extending the dry season and contributing to megafires.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2021/feb/19/how-fires-have-spread-to-previously-untouched-parts-of-the-world'Turkey’s Maldives' Lake Salda faces drought threat
[Lake Salda] in western Turkey’s Burdur province may join other famous lakes that are drying up. Recent rainfall and snowfall apparently were not sufficient to restore the lake to its former glory ... “The lake’s main source of water is from a nearby mountainous area, which serves as a ski resort. Snowfall there feeds the after Arctic permafrost releases more carbon dioxide than once believedwater, but we do not see enough snowfall there.”
https://www.dailysabah.com/turkey/turkeys-maldives-lake-salda-faces-drought-threat/newsWarming Seas Are Accelerating Greenland’s Glacier Retreat
A new study published in Science Advances has quantified, for the first time, how the warming coastal waters are impacting Greenland’s glaciers ... the bigger they are, the faster they melt. And the culprit is the depth of the fjord they occupy: Deeper fjords allow in more warm ocean water than shallow fjords, hastening the undercutting process ... previous observations have shown that the ice sheet has been out of balance since the 1990’s: Melt has accelerated and calving has increased. In other words, the rate of ice being lost to the ocean is exceeding the supply from the ice sheet. This is causing the ice sheet to shrink and the glaciers to retreat toward land ... These findings suggest that climate models may underestimate glacial ice loss by at least a factor of two if they don’t account for undercutting by a warm ocean.
https://scitechdaily.com/nasas-omg-warming-seas-are-accelerating-greenlands-glacier-retreat/
reporting on a study at https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/1/eaba7282Increasing hurricane intensity around Bermuda linked to rising ocean temperatures
New research shows that hurricane maximum wind speeds in the subtropical Atlantic around Bermuda have more than doubled on average over the last 60 years due to rising ocean temperatures in the region ... The study, published in Environmental Research Letters, also develops a predictor for the intensity of hurricanes moving through the Bermuda area using the average upper ocean temperature in the top 50m layer.
https://phys.org/news/2021-02-hurricane-intensity-bermuda-linked-ocean.html
reporting on a study at https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abe493‘Incredibly destructive’: Canada’s Prairies to see devastating impact of climate change
As the climate continues to warm at an alarming rate, experts warn if dramatic steps to mitigate global warming are not taken, the effects in Canada’s Prairie region will be devastating to the country’s agriculture sector. According to Environment and Climate Change Canada, the country is warming, on average, about double the global rate ... “(In Canada) we are looking at about 6.4C degrees of warming this century, which isn’t much less than one degree per decade, which is just a terrifying rate of warming,” Darrin Qualman, the director of climate crisis policy and action at the National Farmer’s Union said. Qualman said there is “massive change coming” to Canada’s Prairies, which will be “incredibly destructive.”
https://globalnews.ca/news/7610723/climate-change-canada-prairies/Arctic permafrost releases more CO2 than once believed
There may be greater CO2 emissions associated with thawing Arctic permafrost than ever imagined. An international team of researchers has discovered that soil bacteria release CO2 previously thought to be trapped by iron. The finding presents a large new carbon footprint that is unaccounted for in current climate models ... The amount of carbon stored in permafrost is estimated to be four times greater than the combined amount of CO2 emitted by modern humans ... iron was believed to bind carbon even as permafrost thawed. The new result demonstrates that bacteria incapacitate iron's carbon trapping ability, resulting in the release of vast amounts of CO2 [previously thought to be bound]. This is an entirely new discovery ... The study has just been published in Nature Communications.
https://www.science.ku.dk/english/press/news/2021/arctic-permafrost-releases-more-co2-than-once-believed/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20102-6Methane Is Blowing More Holes in the Arctic
“These craters represent an Earth system process that was previously unknown to scientists,” Sue Natali, Arctic program director at Woodwell Climate Research Center and co-author on the study, said ... Entire lakes have disappeared, draining out completely as the permafrost—frozen ground made of soil, rocks, and water—that forms their outer edges and bottoms melted away amid rising temperatures. Huge swaths of the region have also become greener because higher air and soil temperatures have increased plant growth. Due to permafrost thaw and ice melt, parts of the region are also sinking ... As the planet continues to warm, the researchers expect these changes will occur more quickly. That includes the methane explosions, since they’re more likely to occur when the ground’s pressure rises or ice on the ground thaws and breaks suddenly.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/methane-is-blowing-more-holes-in-the-arctic-1846242991The Same Deadly Vitamin Deficiency Is Ravaging All Kinds of Animals
Thiamine originates in the lowest levels of the food web, where particular species of bacteria, phytoplankton, fungi, and plants synthesize the compound [which] then passes through the food chain and eventually finds its way into every animal and plant on Earth ... Without enough thiamine, cellular-level functioning begins to fail. Affected animals behave abnormally, suffer neurological and reproductive disorders, and can eventually die ... Dale Honeyfield, who worked with the U.S. Geological Survey as a research chemist and has studied thiamine deficiency since the mid-1990s [said] “Humans are somehow involved ... Thiamine deficiency is really an indicator that we have an ecosystem that is disrupted” ... “It’s very eye-opening that the lack of a simple vitamin can cause complete collapse of populations in vast areas,” says Donald Tillitt, an environmental toxicologist with the U.S. Geological Survey ... “If there’s no synthesis going on at the bottom, then there’s no source to feed up through to the top predators,” Honeyfield says.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/01/vitamin-b1-thiamine/617884/
and https://www.hakaimagazine.com/features/the-oceans-mysterious-vitamin-deficiency/Avoiding a ‘Ghastly Future’: Hard Truths on the State of the Planet
In the 1960s, humans took about three-quarters of what the planet could regenerate annually. By 2016 this rose to 170 percent, meaning that the planet cannot keep up with human demand ... Humans have altered about 70 percent of Earth’s land surface and ocean. Wetlands have lost 85 percent of their natural area; kelp forests have lost 40 percent; seagrass meadows are disappearing at 1 percent per year; the ocean’s large predatory fish are two-thirds gone; coral reefs have lost half their living mass. Agriculture has halved the weight of living vegetation on land, driving a diversity loss of 20 percent; 40 percent of extant plants are currently endangered. Farmed animals and humans now constitute 96 percent of all land vertebrates; only around 5 percent are wild, free-living animals. The world’s wild populations of birds, mammals, fishes, reptiles, and amphibians have declined by an average of nearly 70 percent in just the last 50 years ... These disruptions and declines have caused the deterioration of soil, air, and water quality; pollination; carbon sequestration; and human health. Other things have increased: floods, fires, the number of malnourished people, plastic pollution, general toxification, and infectious epidemics.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/avoiding-a-ghastly-future-hard-truths-on-the-state-of-the-planet
reporting on a study at https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419/fullClimate change could leave millions at risk in Tunisia and Egypt
Rising global temperatures, driven mainly by greenhouse gas emissions, will result in millions being displaced from the coastal cities of North Africa, according to a study published in the Nature Research Journal ... coastal cities in the Gulf of Tunis, which have a population of more than 2 million, are at higher risk from rising sea levels ... Egypt, which is the Arab world's most populous nation, is another country that the report says is at a “very high risk” from population displacement as a result of rising sea levels.
https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/climate-change-could-leave-millions-at-risk-in-tunisia-and-egypt-43891California rains starting later, extending fire season: study
California’s rainy season now starts a month later than it did decades ago, prolonging the state’s destructive wildfire season into November, the American Geophysical Union said on Thursday, citing new research ... Rainfall is becoming more concentrated in the months of January and February, the study found, suggesting more irrigation will be needed in the drought-stricken state. The study was published last month in AGU’s journal Geophysical Research Letters.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-california-wildfires/california-rains-starting-later-extending-fire-season-study-idUSKBN2A431JWhy call recent disasters ‘natural’ when they really aren’t?
Wildfires, storms, and viruses now are exacerbated by climate change. Perhaps we should call them what they are: disasters of our own making.
[Recently] the mercury in Death Valley hit 130°F, the highest temperature ever reliably recorded on Earth. A hotter, drier California is much more likely to burst into flames. The Gulf too is heating up, with dangerous consequences. Hurricanes draw their energy from the warmth of the surface waters and so are becoming stronger and more apt to intensify ... By cutting down forests and digging mines and building cities, we’ve transformed half of the ice-free land on Earth. (Indirectly, we’ve altered half of what remains.) With our fertilizer plants, we fix more nitrogen than all terrestrial ecosystems combined; with our plows and bulldozers, we move around more earth than all the world’s rivers and streams. In terms of biomass, the numbers are staggering. People now outweigh wild mammals by a ratio of more than 8 to 1. Add in our domesticated animals (mostly cows and pigs), and the ratio’s almost 23 to 1 ... And then there’s COVID-19. Pathogens have, presumably, been jumping between animals and humans for as long as both have been around. But for most of human history, such “spillover events” were limited in their impact. Infected populations didn’t move very far or very fast. [But with jet travel] within a month of the first confirmed cases in central China, COVID had reached at least 26 other countries ... the trend lines are clear. As people increasingly destroy other animals’ habitats and move species around the world, outbreaks of novel diseases will become more common ... David Quammen has put it this way: “We disrupt ecosystems, and we shake viruses loose from their natural hosts. When that happens, they need a new host.” Often, that new host is going to be us.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2021/03/why-call-recent-disasters-natural-when-they-really-are-not/Melting glaciers, rising seas: Approaching climate tipping points
Glaciers have shrunk at high speed during the last 30 years, raising fears of future land loss and more climate refugees.
The first global ice-loss survey released recently found that melting of the ice sheets accelerated so much during the past 30 years that it is now in line with the worst-case scenarios outlined by scientists. There was a stunning exchange on the recent Outrage and Optimism podcast which rendered host Christiana Figueres, one of the architects of the Paris Agreement, speechless. She was told by leading climate scientist Johan Rockström, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, that we have already gone beyond some key tipping points. Losing the resilience of the planet was the nightmare that is keeping scientists awake at night, Rockström said.
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/2/5/melting-glaciers-rising-seas-climate-tipping-pointsThe Terrifying Warning Lurking in the Earth’s Ancient Rock Record
Today, humans are injecting CO2 into the atmosphere at one of the fastest rates ever ... All of recorded human history—at only a few thousand years, a mere eyeblink in geologic time—has played out in perhaps the most stable climate window of the past 650,000 years. We have been shielded from the climate’s violence by our short civilizational memory, and our remarkably good fortune. But humanity’s ongoing chemistry experiment on our planet could push the climate well beyond those slim historical parameters, into a state it hasn’t seen in tens of millions of years, a world for which Homo sapiens did not evolve ... The planet today is not yet in equilibrium with the warped atmosphere that industrial civilization has so recently created ... The transition will be punishing in the near term and the long term, and when it’s over, Earth will look far different from the one that nursed humanity. This is the grim lesson of paleoclimatology ... let us take a trip back into deep time, a journey that will begin with the familiar climate of recorded history and end in the feverish, high-CO2 greenhouse of the early age of mammals, 50 million years ago. It is a sobering journey, one that warns of catastrophic surprises that may be in store.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/03/extreme-climate-change-history/617793/Increasing risk of floods as glaciers recede in Central Andes
A researcher at the University of Huddersfield has examined the rate at which glaciers have been retreating in the Central Andes and says further monitoring is needed to address the growing risk of ‘Glacial Lake Outburst Floods’ to communities located downstream from glacierised areas. Dr Ryan Wilson is a Senior Lecturer in Physical Geography from the Department of Biological and Geographical Sciences at the University of Huddersfield and has recently completed a project funded by the UK's leading public funder of environmental science, the National Environment Research Council. The research was a collaboration between experts from six countries ... Dr Wilson and the team explain the findings of the research in an article published by the peer-reviewed Journal of Glaciology ... The team were joined by researchers from Chile’s Centre for Ecosystem Research in Patagonia and the University of Concepción as well as experts from the universities of Aberystwyth and Exeter.
https://www.hud.ac.uk/news/2021/february/flood-risk-as-glaciers-recede-in-chile/Economics' failure over destruction of nature presents ‘extreme risks’
The world is being put at “extreme risk” by the failure of economics to take account of the rapid depletion of the natural world and needs to find new measures of success to avoid a catastrophic breakdown, a landmark review has concluded. Prosperity was coming at a “devastating cost” to the ecosystems that provide humanity with food, water and clean air, said Prof Sir Partha Dasgupta, the Cambridge University economist who conducted the review. Radical global changes to production, consumption, finance and education were urgently needed, he said. The 600-page review was commissioned by the UK Treasury, the first time a national finance ministry has authorised a full assessment of the economic importance of nature.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/02/economics-failure-over-destruction-of-nature-presents-extreme-risksCOVID-19 lockdowns temporarily raised global temperatures
[Lockdowns led to] "decline in emissions from the most polluting industries, and that had immediate, short-term effects on temperatures," said NCAR scientist Andrew Gettelman, the study's lead author. "Pollution cools the planet, so it makes sense that pollution reductions would warm the planet." Temperatures over parts of Earth's land surface last spring were about 0.1-0.3 C warmer than would have been expected with prevailing weather conditions, the study found. The effect was most pronounced in regions that normally are associated with substantial emissions of aerosols, with the warming reaching about 0.37 C over much of the United States and Russia ... Although the research illustrates how aerosols counter the warming influence of greenhouse gases, Gettelman emphasized that emitting more of them into the lower atmosphere is not a viable strategy for slowing climate change. "Aerosol emissions have major health ramifications," he said. "Saying we should pollute is not practical."
https://phys.org/news/2021-02-covid-lockdowns-temporarily-global-temperatures.htmlSea level likely to rise faster than previously thought
Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen have constructed a new method of quantifying just how fast the sea will react to warming. Their comparison of sea-level responsiveness in models with historical data shows that former predictions of sea level have been too conservative, so the sea will likely rise more and faster than previously believed. The result is now published in the European Geosciences Union journal Ocean Science.
https://phys.org/news/2021-02-sea-faster-previously-thought.htmlSouthern France set to sizzle, says new climate change study
Even if humanity manages to modestly reduce greenhouse gas emissions -- which so far has only happened during a raging pandemic or a global recession -- France as a whole is on track to heat up nearly three degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by about 2070, Meteo France said in a report. And if carbon pollution continues unabated, average annual temperatures across the nation will, by century's end, soar 4.5C beyond that benchmark. That is verging on an unliveable world, a raft of climate studies have shown. With just over 1C of warming so far, the planet has seen a sharp crescendo in deadly extreme weather, including heatwaves and megastorms made more destructive by rising seas.
https://www.france24.com/en/france/20210202-southern-france-set-to-sizzle-says-new-climate-change-studyFurther drop in Lake Mead water level could trigger water shortage declaration
A study released in January from the Bureau of Reclamation projects Lake Mead's water level to currently be at 1,085 feet. However, if Lake Mead's elevation is projected to be below 1,075 feet in August then a shortage condition will be declared in the Lower Basin for the first time in January 2022 ... Under a shortage condition, water allotments to Arizona would be reduced by 320,000 acre-feet, Nevada by 13,000 acre-feet, and Mexico by 50,000 acre-feet ... in September 2020, the Bureau of Reclamation released models that suggested looming shortages in Lake Powell and Lake Mead were more likely than previously thought between expanding cities and prolonged drought.
https://www.ktnv.com/news/further-drop-in-lake-mead-water-level-could-trigger-water-shortage-declarationWorld is at its hottest for at least 12,000 years – study
The planet is hotter now than it has been for at least 12,000 years, a period spanning the entire development of human civilisation, according to research. Analysis of ocean surface temperatures shows human-driven climate change has put the world in “uncharted territory”, the scientists say. The planet may even be at its warmest for 125,000 years, although data on that far back is less certain. The research, published in the journal Nature, reached these conclusions by solving a longstanding puzzle known as the “Holocene temperature conundrum” ... Jennifer Hertzberg, of Texas A&M University in the US, said: “By solving a conundrum that has puzzled climate scientists for years, Bova and colleagues’ study is a major step forward. Understanding past climate change is crucial for putting modern global warming in context.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/27/climate-crisis-world-now-at-its-hottest-for-12000-years
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03155-xRevised Holocene temperature record affirms role of greenhouse gases in recent millennia
https://phys.org/news/2021-01-holocene-temperature-affirms-role-greenhouse.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03155-xThe Big Thaw
As the climate warms, how much, and how quickly, will Earth's glaciers melt?
When President Taft created Glacier National Park in 1910, it was home to an estimated 150 glaciers. Since then the number has decreased to fewer than 30, and most of those remaining have shrunk in area by two-thirds. Fagre predicts that within 30 years most if not all of the park's namesake glaciers will disappear. "Things that normally happen in geologic time are happening during the span of a human lifetime," says Fagre. "It's like watching the Statue of Liberty melt" ... Everywhere on Earth ice is changing. The famed snows of Kilimanjaro have melted more than 80 percent since 1912. Glaciers in the Garhwal Himalaya in India are retreating so fast that researchers believe that most central and eastern Himalayan glaciers could virtually disappear by 2035. Arctic sea ice has thinned significantly over the past half century ... There are no words to describe how much, and how fast, the ice is changing. Researchers long ago predicted that the most visible impacts from a globally warmer world would occur first at high latitudes: rising air and sea temperatures, earlier snowmelt, later ice freeze-up, reductions in sea ice, thawing permafrost, more erosion, increases in storm intensity. Now all those impacts have been documented.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/big-thaw/Deep water temperatures hit 'scary' highs in Gulf of St. Lawrence
A decade-long warming trend in the Gulf of St. Lawrence continued in 2020 with deep waters reaching record highs, according to ocean climate data released Tuesday by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Water temperatures at depths of 200, 250 and 300 metres were higher than any measured in the Gulf since records started in 1915 ... "It is scary to me because we're completely outside of the known envelope," Peter Galbraith, a longtime federal research scientist, said in an interview.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/record-high-water-temperatures-gulf-st-lawrence-1.5889072Alpine plants face extinction as melting glaciers force them higher, warns study
‘Escalator to extinction’ means aggressive species will eventually take over, threatening the entire mountain ecosystem
Alpine flowers could go extinct after glaciers disappear as more competitive species colonise terrain higher up the mountain, new research has warned. Glaciers are retreating at historically unprecedented rates, exposing new land for plants to grow, which benefits delicate alpine species in the short term. However, these early pioneers – some of which are endemic – soon become endangered as more aggressive species take over, driving them out of their remaining habitat and decreasing overall biodiversity, according to the paper published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/29/global-heating-alpine-plants-extinction-melting-glaciers-aoeGlobal shark and ray population crashed more than 70% in past 50 years – study
“The decline isn’t stopping, which is a problem,” said Nathan Pacoureau, a researcher at Simon Fraser University in Canada who was lead author of the study, published in Nature. “Everything in our oceans is so depleted now. We need proactive measures to prevent total collapse, this should be a wake up call for policy makers.” Using a raft of previous studies and catch data, the researchers compiled the first global census for shark and ray species, finding there has been an overall 71% decline since 1970.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/27/sharks-rays-global-population-crashed-studyAncient food scraps prove northern Australia is now the driest it’s ever been
Archaeologists have used food scraps from the earliest Australians to discover the northern part of the country is experiencing its driest period for 65,000 years ... they had samples of [pandanus] shells being eaten and discarded at the site from 65,000 years ago up until recently ... “People have been eating the same nut at the same place for 65,000 years, which is fantastic for scientists, because you can make direct comparisons,” Dr Florin said ... “We’re now able to read the changing rainfall record through time and match this to the amazing strategies that were developed by Aboriginal people to cope with a dramatically changing landscape,” Professor Clarkson said. The research has been published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/ancient-food-scraps-prove-northern-australia-is-now-the-driest-it-s-ever-been-20210125-p56wqi.htmlArabian Gulf experiencing longest recorded meteorological drought over last two decades
The Arabian Gulf has been experiencing the longest recorded meteorological drought over the last two decades, with temperatures in the region being on the rise since 1998, a top climate expert said today. “The general pattern of the climate in the region is warming. There is warming over the seas and sea surfaces, a rise in maximum temperatures and drying precipitation. In addition, there has been an increase in the number of Category 4 and 5 severe tropical cyclones, which is critical when we look at the economy,” warned Dr Said Alsarmi, meteorological expert at the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) secretariat.
https://gulfnews.com/uae/arabian-gulf-experiencing-longest-recorded-meteorological-drought-over-last-two-decades-1.76727771Our world is losing ice at record rate
A paper, published today in [the European Geophysical Union’s journal] The Cryosphere, describes how a team of researchers [found] that the rate at which Earth has lost ice has increased markedly within the past three decades, from 0.8 trillion tonnes per year in the 1990s to 1.3 trillion tonnes per year by 2017. To put this into perspective, one trillion tonnes of ice can be thought of as a cube of ice measuring 10x10x10 km, which would be taller than Mount Everest. The research shows that overall, there has been a 65% increase in the rate of ice loss over the 23-year survey ... Lead author Thomas Slater, a research fellow at Leeds’ Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, said, “Although every region we studied lost ice, losses from the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets have accelerated the most. The ice sheets are now following the worst-case climate warming scenarios set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Sea-level rise on this scale will have very serious impacts on coastal communities this century.”
https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/CryoSat/Our_world_is_losing_ice_at_record_rate
reporting on a study at https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/233/2021/After Alarmism
At current emissions levels, the planet will entirely exhaust the carbon budget for 1.5 degrees in just seven years — stay merely level, in other words, and we’ll burn through the possibility of a relatively comfortable endgame within the decade ... To decarbonize fast enough to give the planet a decent chance of hitting that 1.5-degree target without any negative emissions would require getting all the way to net-zero emissions by around 2035. Simply running the cars and furnaces and fossil-fuel infrastructure that already exists to its expected retirement date would push the world past 1.5 degrees—without a single new gasoline SUV hitting the road, or a single new oil-heated home being built, or a single new coal plant opened. A two-degree target, by contrast, yields a much longer timeline, requiring the world to achieve net-zero by 2070 or 2080 [but] it won’t be enough. It can’t be, because we are too far along. There is no solution to global warming, no going back. Achieving a two-degree goal, by rates of decarbonization only dreamed of a decade ago, would deliver a world that looked then quite unforgivably brutal — and should today, too ... African diplomats have wept at climate conferences at what [2C] would mean for the fate of their continent, calling it “certain death”; island nations have called it “genocide” ... cities in South Asia and the Middle East that are today home to many millions would become so hot during summer that it often wouldn’t be possible to walk around outside without risking death by heatstroke. “It is a totally different world,” Figueres told me. “It’s two completely different worlds from the point of view of human misery ... it will be unmanageable for any social system in any country to deal with the increased poverty and the increased migration pressure that a two-degree world will bring” ... If fires in the American West are, in a best-case scenario, going to grow sixfold, Americans living there can’t count on a project of decarbonization alone to protect them. If Calcutta will see, at two degrees, a hundred days of lethal heat each year, stabilizing warming at merely that level isn’t going to do the trick ... And yet, this is the [best case] face of the new world.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/climate-change-after-pandemic.htmlThe Ongoing Collapse of the World's Aquifers
[G]eology is conspiring with climate change to sink the ground under humanity’s feet. More punishing droughts mean the increased draining of aquifers, and rising seas make sinking land all the more vulnerable to flooding. According to a recent study published in the journal Science, in the next two decades, 1.6 billion people could be affected by subsidence, with potential loses in the trillions of dollars ... As the growing human population and more intense droughts brought on by climate change are putting ever more stress on water supplies, land is subsiding all over the world ... Subsidence is uniquely sensitive to climate change—at least indirectly. On a warmer planet, droughts are longer and more intense. “This is very important,” says Herrera-García. [Because] Dry reservoirs will lead cities to pump even more water out of their aquifers, and once you collapse the structure of an aquifer by neatly stacking those plates of clay grains, there’s no going back. For the 1.6 billion people potentially affected by subsidence—and that’s just by the year 2040—the consequences could be dire.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-ongoing-collapse-of-the-worlds-aquifers/The Great Lakes just set a record for lack of ice
According to the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL), the Great Lakes total ice coverage right now is sitting at 3.9%. This same time last year, it was sitting at 11.3%, and the year before at 18.5%. The previous record low for this date was 5% back in 2002 ... With no real robust areas of cold air in the future, the long-term forecast for Great Lakes ice coverage also looks meek. "The Great Lakes region is experiencing warmer-than-usual weather, and the max ice cover is projected to be 30%, way below the average of 53%," Wang said. That means by the end of winter, less than one-third of the Great Lakes will be covered by ice. In order to build significant ice over the lakes, a blast of cold air needs to settle in -- but the long-term forecast does not reflect that ... Current temperature above the lakes only tell a portion of the story. Last summer, the Great Lakes were exceptionally warm, and bodies of water retain heat much longer than land. Lakes Michigan, Erie, Huron and Ontario were each about 5-10 degrees above average. Even Lake Superior was at least 5 degrees above average.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/22/weather/great-lakes-record-lack-of-ice/index.htmlSouthern Ocean waters are warming faster than thought, threatening Antarctic ice
The Southern Ocean is one of the most important yet least explored and understood regions of the planet when it comes to determining how global warming may affect the future of humanity ... scientists have learned more about the fragility of large parts of the Antarctic ice sheet, since glaciers extending into the ocean are being eroded by relatively mild waters below. Like removing a doorstop, the collapse of these ice shelves can free up inland ice to move into the ocean, raising global sea levels and harming coastal communities. Now a new study, published Thursday in the journal Nature Communications, finds that beneath the surface layer of waters circling Antarctica, the seas are warming much more rapidly than previously known. Furthermore, the study concludes, this relatively warm water is rising toward the surface over time, at a rate three to 10 times what was previously estimated. This means that there is a greater potential for the waters of the Southern Ocean, which are absorbing vast quantities of added heat and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as a result of human activities, may soon help destabilize parts of the Antarctic Ice Sheet.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/01/21/southern-ocean-warming-antarctica/Iqaluit sets record high temperature for Jan. 19, reaching 0.5 C
Temperatures have been unseasonably balmy by Iqaluit standards this winter ... "it's like a different world. If that's not a heat wave then I don't know what is," [David Phillips, a senior climatologist with Environment Canada] said. "That's something that is quite exceptional and as I say, you've got temperatures this week that are like a dozen to two dozen degrees warmer than they should be for this time of the year." Phillips says it's alarming how long this warm spell has lasted. If the rest of this month continues on a warm streak, Phillips says December and January's average temperatures will be the warmest on record. He adds that what's exceptional is not the odd warm days necessarily, but the relentlessness of the warmth ... it's been going on since late November, throughout December and into January ... "You can look out your window and see climate change, the ice disappearing … the permafrost is not what it used to be, it's not as deep — you're seeing, clearly, evidence of a runaway kind of climate." In any case, he says it's consistent with what can be expected in the future. "It's almost like a … dress rehearsal for something you're going to see more of in the years to come as the climate really warms up in the North," he said ... Phillips says he's looked at temperatures across the entire Arctic and "they're all balmy ... much milder, maybe 10 to 12 degrees, maybe not as dramatic as Iqaluit, but they clearly are several, several degrees warmer than you'd expect for this time of the year."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/iqaluit-sets-record-high-temperature-for-jan-19-reaching-0-5-c-1.5882621Quarter of known bee species have not been recorded since 1990
The number of wild bee species recorded by an international database of life on Earth has declined by a quarter since 1990, according to a global analysis of bee declines. Researchers analysed bee records from museums, universities and citizen scientists collated by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, (GBIF) a global, government-funded network providing open-access data on biodiversity. They found a steep decline in bee species being recorded since 1990, with approximately 25% fewer species reported between 2006 and 2015 than before the 1990s ... A separate series of scientific studies into global insect declines this month warned that the abundance of insects was falling by 10-20% each decade, an “absolutely frightening” loss that threatened to “tear apart the tapestry of life.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/22/quarter-of-known-bee-species-have-not-been-recorded-since-1990Climate change will be sudden and cataclysmic. We need to act fast
Discussing the World Economic Forum Global Risks Report 2021 (see next entry below)
[W]e know from multidisciplinary scientific evidence - from geology, anthropology and archaeology - that climate change is not incremental ... [the carbon cycle] could trigger suddenly in response to gradual warming. These are tipping points that once passed could fundamentally disrupt the planet and produce abrupt, non-linear change in the climate ...Where the tipping points form a domino-like cascade, where breaching one triggers breaches of others, creating an unstoppable shift to a radically and swiftly changing climate ... We need to act now on our climate. Act like these tipping points are imminent. And stop thinking of climate change as a slow-moving, long-term threat that enables us to kick the problem down the road.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/01/climate-change-sudden-cataclysmic-need-act-fast/World Economic Forum Global Risks Report 2021
Among the highest likelihood risks of the next ten years are extreme weather, climate action failure and human-led environmental damage; as well as digital power concentration, digital inequality and cybersecurity failure. Among the highest impact risks of the next decade, infectious diseases are in the top spot, followed by climate action failure and other environmental risks ... the most imminent threats – those that are most likely in the next two years – include employment and livelihood crises, widespread youth disillusionment, digital inequality, economic stagnation, human-made environmental damage, erosion of societal cohesion, and terrorist attacks ... Climate change—to which no one is immune—continues to be a catastrophic risk ... A shift towards greener economies cannot be delayed until the shocks of the pandemic subside. “Climate action failure” is the most impactful and second most likely long-term risk identified.
https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-risks-report-2021Why we can’t plant our way out of climate change
[T]he benefit of any individual hectare of planted trees is limited and is no replacement for reducing gross emissions [because] any given hectare of forest eventually becomes saturated with carbon. Once a forest reaches maturity, the net amount of CO2 it sucks out of the atmosphere starts to decline. "As older trees start falling over, they're releasing carbon dioxide as they decompose, and so forests become a source of greenhouse gas emissions at the same time as they continue to sequester. You get a balance, it starts to reach an equilibrium." Plantation forests fare no better ... Another risk to forest carbon is global warming itself ... as temperatures rise, plants begin to expel carbon dioxide faster and absorb it more slowly. In a quickly warming world, some forests may soon become net sources of CO2.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/why-we-cant-plant-our-way-out-of-climate-changeEarth to reach temperature tipping point in next 20 to 30 years, new study finds
Earth's ability to absorb nearly a third of human-caused carbon emissions through plants could be halved within the next two decades at the current rate of warming, according to a new study in Science Advances [due to] a critical temperature tipping point beyond which plants' ability to capture and store atmospheric carbon decreases as temperatures continue to rise ... "every biological process has a range of temperatures at which it performs optimally, and ones above which function deteriorates ... we wanted to ask, how much can plants withstand?" This study is the first to detect a temperature threshold for photosynthesis from observational data at a global scale [and] found that temperature "peaks" for carbon uptake are already being exceeded in nature.
https://phys.org/news/2021-01-earth-temperature-years.html
reporting on a study at https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/3/eaay1052As the Arctic melts, a regime shift is taking place
Where there was once ice, there is now open ocean ... [Plankton] has increased in abundance in the Arctic by more than 50 per cent since the 1990s ... the waters should be freezing solid, yet, incredibly, vast areas remain open ocean ... there had never been so little sea ice since records began in the 1970s. More troubling, the NSIDC says the areas of open ocean are much warmer than the surrounding ice ... in the 1980s, an average of one-third of the sea ice was more than four years old. Today, less than 2 per cent of the sea ice is that old ... As the white, heat-reflecting ice melts, it is replaced by dark blue water that absorbs more heat. That heat warms the air and the whole region warms up. The faster the region warms, the less ice forms. The more it melts, the more it warms and the more it melts. It is called Arctic amplification, and it is why the Arctic is warming faster than any other place on Earth.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-13/regime-shift-is-taking-place-as-arctic-sea-ice-melts/12956328Russia has never been this hot
The year 2020 became the by far warmest ever in 130 years of measurements ... all of the country’s eight federal districts had a record-beating year. The only exception was the district of North Caucasus where the average temperature was the third highest ... biggest deviations were found in the Arctic, where average temperature were 5-7 degrees higher than normal ... In the Arctic, the year ended with severe cold. But just few weeks earlier, a series of smashing heat records were set. In early December, the average temperatures along major parts of the Russian Arctic coast were up to 15 °C above normal. And in November the deviation from normality in the region was set to 12 °C.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/climate-crisis/2021/01/russia-has-never-been-hotThe plug keeping the Arctic’s oldest ice in place is getting leaky
This area [north of Greenland] measuring hundreds of thousands of square kilometers and now nicknamed the Last Ice Area, holds much of the Arctic’s remaining multi-year ice ... is shrinking as sea and air temperatures rise, the result of global warming. Even so, scientists have remained hopeful the ice here could persist. But those hopes may be dashed by the results of a paper published in the most recent edition of the journal Nature Communications. The decline, according to the findings, is as much as double the rate of sea ice being lost in other parts of the Arctic Ocean, due to more ice being drained from the area through the Nares Strait ... The ice that is typically lost through the Nares Strait flows out during the summer. The rest of the year, ice dams, known as ice arches because of their shape, at the northern and southern ends of the strait prevent this from happening. However, the length of time each year that ice is being held back is remarkably shorter than in the past ... And the research suggests that the pace of change is accelerating ... Moore theorizes that the reason for the shorter period is that ice has become thinner and less stable. That the process is continuing, the paper concludes, does not bode well ... Doing anything to reverse the situation directly, according to Moore, is unfeasible. “The scale is so huge and the region is so remote. The only thing we can do is cool the planet down. Then the arches will hopefully naturally form again.”
https://www.arctictoday.com/the-plug-keeping-the-arctics-oldest-ice-in-place-is-getting-leaky/An unusually strong warm wave heads for the Siberian Arctic Ocean, raising surface temperatures more than 20 degrees above normal
Looking at the temperature anomalies for January so far, we can see a large area of warmer than normal temperatures over the Arctic region. Temperatures over the Kara Sea region are more than 20°C above the long-term normals ... this “heatwave” is set to continue in the coming days.On Monday, the large cyclonic system over the North Pole will blow the warm anomalies further into the Arctic circle, towards the East Siberian Sea. On Tuesday, the strong anomalies will reach further east, enveloping the entire east Arctic Ocean. At this point, the strongest temperature anomalies remain over 20°C above the long-term average.
https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/arctic-circle-unusual-temperature-wave-january-2021-fa/Upper ocean temperatures hit record high in 2020
Even with the COVID-19-related small dip in global carbon emissions due to limited travel and other activities, the ocean temperatures continued a trend of breaking records in 2020. A new study, authored by 20 scientists from 13 institutes around the world, reported the highest ocean temperatures since 1955 from surface level to a depth of 2,000 meters. The report was published on January 13 in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences and concluded with a plea to the policymakers and others to consider the lasting damage warmer oceans can cause as they attempt to mitigate the effects of climate change. "Over 90% of the excess heat due to global warming is absorbed by the oceans, so ocean warming is a direct indicator of global warming."
https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-01/ioap-uot011021.phpClimate change is hitting the Colorado River 'incredibly fast and incredibly hard'
“Climate change is drying out the headwaters ... We're really seeing the effects of climate change hit locally in the Upper Basin incredibly fast and incredibly hard” ... Arizona, California and Nevada could demand the Upper Basin send their allotted water downstream under the obligations of the 1922 Colorado River Compact ... What’s increasingly clear is that the status-quo methods of managing the river are on a collision course with worsening scarcity ... The Colorado River and its tributaries provide for about 40 million people and farmlands from Wyoming to the U.S.-Mexico border. Demands for water have outstripped the available supply for many years. Most of the river’s delta in Mexico was transformed into a dusty stretch of desert decades ago ... board member of California’s Imperial Irrigation District [said] there is a priority system that shouldn’t be changed. “The fact is that we were here first. We established a right to this ... it was their choice to build a Phoenix or a Las Vegas in the middle of the most arid places in the country.” Arizona gets nearly 40% of its water from the Colorado River ... climate science show[s] the effects of warming are here for good and will be severe.
https://www.azcentral.com/in-depth/news/local/arizona-environment/2021/01/01/colorado-rivers-headwaters-climate-change-drives-efforts-adapt/6461183002/Climate change has cost the U.S. billions of dollars in flood damage, study finds
Intensifying rainfall fueled by climate change has caused nearly $75 billion in flood damage in the U.S. in the past three decades, Stanford University researchers confirmed in a new study Monday. The findings, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shed light on the ongoing debate on how climate change has impacted growing costs of flooding and the heightened risk homeowners, builders, banks and insurers face as global temperatures continue to rise. The losses resulting from worsening extreme rains comprise nearly one-third of the total financial cost from flooding in the U.S. between 1988 and 2017, according to the report, which analyzed climate and socioeconomic data in order to quantify the relationship between changing historical rainfall trends and historical flood costs ... shows that past climate change has already cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars, just due to flood damages alone.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/11/climate-change-has-cost-the-us-billions-of-dollars-in-flood-damage.htmlInsect populations suffering death by 1,000 cuts, say scientists
Insect populations are suffering “death by a thousand cuts”, with many falling at “frightening” rates that are “tearing apart the tapestry of life”, according to scientists behind a new volume of studies ... 12 new studies are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Nature is under siege [and] most biologists agree that the world has entered its sixth mass extinction event,” concludes the lead analysis in the package.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/11/insect-populations-suffering-death-1000-cuts-scientistsClimate chaos batters global insurance industry
As the world digests the news that 2020 was the joint hottest year on record, two reports attempt to assess how many billions of dollars are being lost as a result of an ever-warming planet [though] “these estimates are based only on insured losses, meaning the true financial costs are likely to be higher”, the report says ... Swiss Re is one of the world’s biggest insurance groups. Its preliminary estimate of global insurance losses as a result of both what it terms natural catastrophes and man-made disasters in 2020 [are] up 40% on the previous year.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/climate-chaos-batters-global-insurance-industry/Record broken for number of billion-dollar US weather and climate disasters in 2020
U.S. weather and climate disasters hit an all-time high in 2020 with 22 separate catastrophes that cost more than $1 billion each ... “2020 is the sixth consecutive year (2015-2020) in which 10 or more billion-dollar weather and climate disaster events have impacted the United States,” the report says ... "The number and cost of weather and climate disasters are increasing in the United States ... climate change is playing an increasing role in the increasing the frequency of some types of extremes that lead to billion-dollar disasters," NOAA climatologist Adam Smith told The Hill.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/533366-record-broken-for-number-of-billion-dollar-weather-and-climateDrought is the sleeper weather story you’ll hear more about in 2021
Drought is an insidious climate threat — by the time it has a hold of a region, impacts on ecosystems and water supplies can be locked in. It may not grab extreme weather headlines like the disrupted polar vortex or record hurricane season, but drought during 2020 and heading into 2021 is a looming story likely to grow in importance ... A total of 49 percent of the Lower 48 states were in moderate to exceptional drought conditions as of Dec. 29, with dry conditions extending north into Alberta.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/01/07/drought-expands-north-americaAmazon ecosystem could collapse in less than 50 years
"The messages here are stark. We need to prepare for changes in our planet's ecosystems that are faster than we previously envisaged," said Professor John Dearing of the University of Southampton, who led the study published in the journal Nature Communications ... While large ecosystems take longer to reach their tipping point because of their size, once this point is reached, the deterioration occurs at a faster pace than smaller systems, the study found.
https://www.dw.com/en/amazon-ecosystem-could-collapse-in-less-than-50-years/a-52716809Amazon Rainforest Will Collapse by 2064, New Study Predicts
A new report for Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development concluded that the Amazon rainforest will collapse and largely become a dry, shrubby plain by 2064. Development, deforestation and the climate crisis are to blame, study author and University of Florida geologist Robert Toovey Walker found.
https://www.ecowatch.com/amazon-rainforest-collapse-2649776959.html
reporting on a study at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00139157.2021.1842711Baby sharks emerge from egg cases earlier and weaker in oceans warmed by climate crisis
“This is a huge red flag for us,” said Dr Jodie Rummer, an associate professor at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University and a co-author on the study ... In normal temperatures, the sharks emerged from the egg cases after 125 days. But in 31C waters, they emerged after 100 days ... the results of the study, published Tuesday in the journal Scientific Reports, presented a “worrying future” because many sharks were already under threat ... “They’re pretty tough ... If they can’t hack it, then we have big problems ... climate change is affecting even the toughest little sharks.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/12/baby-sharks-emerge-from-egg-cases-earlier-and-weaker-in-oceans-warmed-by-climate-crisisMore Than Two Degrees of Climate Warming Is Already Locked In, New Study Finds
Existing greenhouse gases will eventually push the climate into more than two degrees [Celsius] of warming, according to a study published in Nature Climate Change [which analyzed] "committed warming," or the amount of warming that would occur if atmospheric greenhouse gases were paused at their current concentrations. Previous estimates had put committed warming at around 1.4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels [however] those estimates were based on faulty assumptions about Earth's climate system, the paper authors argued ... The researchers estimated that a likely total of 2.3 degrees Celsius of warming is now locked in, about a full degree above the previous estimate ... "If we continue to emit greenhouse gases at the rate we currently are, then we will blow through the 1.5 and two degree Celsius limits possibly within a few decades."
https://www.ecowatch.com/greenhouse-gases-paris-agreement-2649767807.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-00955-xThe polar vortex is splitting in two, which may lead to weeks of wild winter weather
A dramatic spike in temperatures is occurring at high altitudes above the North Pole, where the air is thin and typically frigid ... may have profound influences on the weather in the United States and Europe, possibly increasing the potential for paralyzing snowstorms and punishing blasts of Arctic air ... If the polar vortex is strong and stable, as it was last winter, that cold air will stay bottled up over the Arctic, and snow chances may be few and far between for regions such as the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. But when the polar vortex weakens and wobbles off the pole, pieces of it can split off and swirl southward, affecting the United States, Europe and Asia. And that’s exactly what’s begun to happen.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/01/05/polar-vortex-split-cold-snow/Climate Change Threatens Glaciers in Afghanistan
“Almost 14 percent of the total area of glaciers was lost between 1990 and 2015, a direct result of climate change” ... From the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan and the Tian Shan in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and China, stretching southeast to the eastern Himalayas of Nepal, Pakistan and India, is the area known as the High Mountain Asia Region, says the export. The report says that it contains one of the highest concentrations of snow and glaciers outside the polar regions on the planet. It is the source of South Asia’s freshwater; meltwater from the snow and glaciers feeds the ten largest river systems in Asia, which together support some 1.3 billion people in their downstream basin areas, in India, China, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, says the report.
https://tolonews.com/node/169105France's largest glacier is sliding down due to global warming
France's largest glacier once looked so mighty sliding down the granite slopes of the Mont Blanc ... Today, the Mer de Glace remains the biggest glacier in France, and the second largest in the Alps. But it’s also become a symbol of the rapid pace of global warming. Mont Blanc is heating up more than twice as fast as the rest of the world. The Mer de Glace has been shrinking since the beginning of the 20th century, but the loss has accelerated over the past two decades.
https://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/travel/2021/01/04/france039slargest-glacier-is-sliding-down-due-to-global-warmingBolivia's Tuni glacier is disappearing, and so is the water it supplies
Bolivia’s Tuni glacier is disappearing faster than initially anticipated, according to scientists in the Andean nation, a predicament that will likely make worse water shortages already plaguing the capital La Paz, just 60 km away. Scientists from the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA), who monitor the Tuni and other regional glaciers, told Reuters the once sprawling glacier had been reduced to just one square kilometer. Where once they had predicted it would last through 2025, now they say its disappearance is imminent.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-bolivia-environment-glacier-idUKKBN29929U10 steamy signs in 2020 that climate change is speeding up
Climate change has been simmering since the Industrial Revolution, but 2020 was a year that really drove home how fast it's accelerating. We blazed past ominous milestones that were supposed to take decades to arrive, broke records every month, and watched the frozen North melt even faster than anticipated. From record wildfires to a bumper crop of hurricanes to melting poles, here are some of the biggest signs in 2020 that climate change is speeding up.
https://www.livescience.com/climate-change-worsening-2020.htmlStudy: Warming already baked in will blow past climate goals
The amount of baked-in global warming, from carbon pollution already in the air, is enough to blow past international agreed upon goals to limit climate change, a new study finds [unless] the world quickly stops emitting extra greenhouse gases from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas ... For decades, scientists have talked about so-called “committed warming” or the increase in future temperature based on past carbon dioxide emissions ... But Monday’s study in the journal Nature Climate Change [concludes] the carbon pollution already put in the air will push global temperatures to about 2.3 degrees Celsius (4.1 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming since pre-industrial times ... “If we don’t [get to net zero carbon emissions soon] we’re going to blow through (climate goals) in a few decades,” Dessler said. “It’s really the rate of warming that makes climate change so terrible ... a few degrees over 100 years is really bad.”
https://apnews.com/article/climate-climate-change-pollution-3f226aed9c58e36c69e7342b104d48bfSeven years to ground zero for the climate crisis?
Within the next seven years, the world could undergo irretrievable change. It could emit enough greenhouse gases from fossil fuel combustion to cross the threshold for dangerous global heating ... last year alone, scientists found that conditions initially proposed as the unlikely “worst case outcome” are already taking shape. On the evidence of the latest study in the journal Climate Dynamics, however, they now have even less time in which to enforce dramatic cuts to fossil fuel use. [The researchers] based their simulation not on the theoretical relationships suggested by atmospheric physics but on historical climate data. “Our approach allows climate sensitivity and its uncertainty to be estimated from direct observations with few assumptions,” said Raphaël Hébert, once of McGill University in Montreal and now at the Alfred-Wegener Institute in Potsdam, Germany.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/seven-years-to-ground-zero-for-the-climate-crisis/Study pins toxic algae blooms at Oregon’s southern border on climate change
New research from West Coast oceanographers provides insight into the cause of toxic algae blooms that caused shellfish closures and marine mammal deaths near the Oregon-California border. The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Climate, shows climate change and a 2013-2015 Pacific Ocean heatwave, often called “the blob,” have together increased the growth of toxic algae off the coastline from Cape Mendocino, California to Cape Blanco, Oregon. “The 2015 warm anomaly populated or seeded this new site, which now is a new source of toxin to contaminate shellfish on our coast,” said Dr. Vera Trainer, a research oceanographer at NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center and the study’s lead author.
https://www.opb.org/article/2021/01/02/study-pins-toxic-algae-blooms-at-oregons-southern-border-on-climate-change/Planet-warming trend continues: 2020 closes hottest decade on record – UN weather agency
Since the 1980s each decade has been warmer than the previous one. And because of record levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the trend is expected to persist. In particular, carbon dioxide is driving the planet to future warming because it remains in the atmosphere for many decades. According to WMO’s Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update, there is a one-in-five chance that the average global temperature will temporarily exceed 1.5 °C by 2024
https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/12/1080882Mass die-off of birds in south-western US 'caused by starvation'
The [September 2020] mass die-off of thousands of songbirds in south-western US was caused by long-term starvation, made worse by unseasonably cold weather probably linked to the climate crisis, scientists have said ... migratory birds “falling out of the sky” ... “They became so emaciated they actually had to turn to wasting their major flight muscles.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/26/mass-die-off-of-birds-in-south-western-us-caused-by-starvation-aoeCarbon Capture Is Not a Climate Savior
Existing “carbon capture” technologies and techniques can today capture only 0.1 percent of global emissions. Banking on them to pick up the slack amounts to a big gamble ... Removing just a single metric gigaton of carbon per year would require a land area bigger than Texas. Stabilizing temperatures at the same level through BECCS alone, per many IAMs, is estimated to require a landmass five times the size of India ... direct-air capture technologies have their own feasibility and affordability issues. For one, they depend on an enormous amount of electricity; if the grid powering DAC is still carbon-intensive, its carbon savings look a lot more ambiguous. And if such technologies are patented by private companies, onerous intellectual property statutes could make it virtually impossible for them to proliferate widely.
https://newrepublic.com/article/160754/carbon-capture-not-climate-saviorA groggy climate giant: subsea permafrost is still waking up after 12,000 years
[T]he researchers estimated that the subsea permafrost region currently traps 60 billion tons of methane and contains 560 billion tons of organic carbon in sediment and soil. For reference, humans have released a total of about 500 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution ... subsea permafrost is already releasing substantial amounts of greenhouse gas. However, this release is mainly due to ancient climate change rather than current human activity. They estimate that subsea permafrost releases approximately 140 million tons of CO2 and 5.3 million tons of CH4 to the atmosphere each year [but this] could increase substantially ... under a business-as-usual scenario, warming subsea permafrost releases four times more additional CO2 and CH4 compared to when human emissions are reduced to keep warming less than 2°C.
https://ioppublishing.org/news/a-groggy-climate-giant/
reporting on a study at https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abcc29Sea-level rise from climate change could exceed the high-end projections, scientists warn
The new paper, titled "Twenty-first century sea-level rise could exceed IPCC projections for strong-warming futures," takes issue with that upper estimate, saying it is likely too low. The paper was published by a who's who of the most well known glaciologists and sea-level rise experts ... "a world in which warming exceeds 4º Celsius [7.2º Fahrenheit] presents a much more challenging situation [with] reactions and feedbacks in the atmosphere-ocean-ice systems that cannot be adequately modeled at present" ... sea-level rise has been running on the high end of IPCC projections for decades ... actual measurements are above the top end of past expectations ... substantial sea-level rise is already baked in, regardless of whether we stop global warming ... as we emerged from the last Ice Age, sea level rose at remarkable rates — as fast as 15 feet per century at times ... to reduce the potential impacts, it is better to be prepared for a worst-case scenario.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-rising-sea-levels-worst-case-projections/The stormy, fiery year when climate disasters wouldn't stop
"Nature is sending us a message. We better hear it," United Nations Environment Programme Director Inger Andersen told The Associated Press in an interview. "Wherever you go, whatever continent, we see Nature socking it at us" ... Extremes, including heat waves and droughts, hit all over the world. Siberia reached a record 100 degrees (38 degrees Celsius) as much of the Arctic was 9 degrees (5 degrees Celsius) warmer than average and had an exceptionally bad wildfire season ... The pace of disasters is noticeably increasing, said disaster experts and climate scientists.
https://phys.org/news/2020-12-stormy-fiery-year-climate-disasters.htmlForests in Brazil emitting more carbon than they absorb due to climate change: Study
Tropical forests in Brazil have begun to release more carbon than they absorb as the warming climate kills more of the trees, researchers said ... forests in southeastern Brazil have been progressively absorbing less carbon while releasing more over time, with the region transitioning "from a carbon sink to a carbon source" in 2013, according to a study published Friday in Science.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/forests-brazil-emitting-carbon-absorb-due-climate-change/story?id=74716578Hunting for 'Disease X'
Humanity faces an unknown number of new and potentially fatal viruses emerging from Africa's tropical rainforests, according to Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum, who helped discover the Ebola virus in 1976 and has been on the frontline of the hunt for new pathogens ever since. "We are now in a world where new pathogens will come out ... that's what constitutes a threat for humanity." ... Experts say the rising number of emerging viruses is largely the result of ecological destruction and wildlife trade ... "If you go in the forest ... you will change the ecology; and insects and rats will leave this place and come to the villages ... so this is the transmission of the virus, of the new pathogens" ... in most of the scientific publications there is an assumption that there will be more contagions coming as humans continue to destroy wilderness habitats. It's not an "IF" it's a "WHEN".
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/22/africa/drc-forest-new-virus-intl/index.htmlVirologist Marion Koopmans warns that we need to brace ourselves for the next pandemic
“We have to invest now to arm ourselves against another outbreak” ... In addition to being a professor of virology, Koopmans is a member of the Outbreak Management Team and an advisor to the World Health Organization and the European Commission. She emphasizes the importance of science ... Once the coronavirus is under control, we should “not go back to normal,” urges Koopmans. “We should not make that mistake. I hope that we will think about our own role in the origin of pandemics, that due to climate change, deforestation, and our way of life, viruses are spreading more and more.”
https://nltimes.nl/2020/12/19/virologist-marion-koopmans-warns-need-brace-next-pandemicA 'frozen rainforest' of microscopic life is melting Greenland's ice sheet
"Until recently people have thought of glaciers and ice sheets ... as being relatively lifeless places," says Cook, a British glaciologist. "But when you look under a microscope, the Greenland ice sheet in particular, and other glaciers, reveal themselves to be a frozen rainforest of biodiversity." ... The spreading algae boosts ice melt, releasing more water and nutrients held in the ice, which in turn promotes algae growth -- a process Cook describes as a "vicious feedback cycle." ... adds to a growing body of evidence that ice sheet melt rates have been underestimated.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/14/world/microscopic-life-melting-greenland-ice-sheet-c2e-spc-intl/index.htmlDelayed Arctic ice advance tracked back to atmospheric conditions near Alaska months prior
“Global warming is going on, so the global mean surface air temperature is increasing, but compared to that trend, the Arctic is warming twice or more as fast” ... Despite ideal atmospheric conditions for sea ice formation, researchers recorded that the water surface remained unusually warm and ice-free ... remarkable even in an era of climate change turning extreme weather into regular events ... The unusual atmospheric blocking in September and remarkably delayed sea ice formation in November occurred during a year with a neutral PDO index. The study of Kodaira’s team also showed that seawater temperatures increase by a full 1 degree Celsius during a positive phase of PDO index. If atmospheric blocking were to occur simultaneously with a positive PDO index, researchers predict sea surface temperatures in the Arctic could rise by approximately 2 degrees Celsius, dramatically reducing — not just delaying — annual sea ice growth.
https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/en/press/z0508_00154.htmlEverest’s Rongbuk Glacier Continues to Shrink
The Rongbuk Glacier is located in the Himalaya of southern Tibet [and] is a primary source of water for major Asian rivers such as the Indus and Yangtze, so its seasonal melt is essential to millions of people in India and China ... the Middle Rongbuk Glacier has lost over 90 metres in depth and retreated two kilometres. In 2007, American mountaineer David Breashears compared the glacier in a 1921 photograph to what he saw before him. The great amounts of ice were gone, replaced by the mountain’s rocky shell.
https://explorersweb.com/2020/12/15/everests-rongbuk-glacier-continues-to-shrink/Increased Heat From Arctic Rivers Is Melting Sea Ice in the Arctic Ocean and Warming the Atmosphere
A new study shows that increased heat from Arctic rivers is melting sea ice in the Arctic Ocean and warming the atmosphere. The study published recently in Science Advances [shows that] major Arctic rivers contribute significantly more heat to the Arctic Ocean than they did in 1980 ... much more river heat energy enters the atmosphere than melts ice or heats the ocean. Since air is mobile, this means river heat can affect areas of the Arctic far from river deltas. The impacts were most pronounced in the Siberian Arctic, where several large rivers flow onto the relatively shallow shelf region extending nearly 1,000 miles offshore ... Rivers are just one of many heat sources now warming the Arctic Ocean. The entire Arctic system is in an extremely anomalous state as global air temperatures rise and warm Atlantic and Pacific water enters the region, decaying sea ice even in the middle of winter.
https://scitechdaily.com/increased-heat-from-arctic-rivers-is-melting-sea-ice-in-the-arctic-ocean-and-warming-the-atmosphere/Antarctica’s Melting Ice Shelves Are Dangerous
As meltwater rushes through the cracks in the Antarctic ice shelves, it can destroy the ice shelves in minutes or hours. This is amplified by the warming atmosphere, and as the warming continues, this phenomenon may happen more often than not. A study published back in August ... suggested that around 50% to 70% of the ice shelves holding Antarctic glaciers in place could become weak and even collapse ... meltwater “can punch through the ice to the ocean in a matter of minutes to hours, as long as there’s enough water available to keep on filling the crevasse and keep up the pressure,” adding that “the crack in the ice then fills up with ocean water.” This could lead to the shelf breaking apart, which is what scientists believe happened to an ice shelf named Larsen B — it lost 1,255 square miles of ice over a period of a few weeks in 2002.
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/12/12/antarcticas-melting-ice-shelves-are-dangerous/"Alarming" and "extraordinary" rate of change as the Arctic warms, NOAA report says
The Arctic is warming and changing rapidly, with record or near-record conditions documented across the region in 2020. That's according to an international team of 133 researchers from over a dozen countries who contributed to the 15th annual NOAA Arctic Report Card, released on Tuesday. The report is a comprehensive year-in-review of Arctic conditions — what NOAA calls vital signs — that characterize the health and stability of the Arctic ecosystem ... in recent years the transformation has been occurring at a breakneck speed [due to] human-caused climate change ... the Arctic will not be settling into a "new normal," or back to what used to be considered normal, anytime soon, because the only constant at the moment in the Arctic is change.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-arctic-noaa-report-cardThree Signs a ‘New Arctic’ Is Emerging
Temperatures are rising, ice is melting, snow is disappearing and the region’s delicate ecosystems are rapidly evolving. It’s already not the same place it was a few decades ago, and it won’t be the same place a few more decades into the future. That’s the stark conclusion of this year’s Arctic Report Card, an annual update on the Arctic climate from NOAA ... “Nearly everything in the Arctic, from ice and snow to human activity, is changing so quickly that there’s really no reason to think that in 30 years much of anything will be as it is today.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/three-signs-a-new-arctic-is-emerging/Newly Identified Jet-Stream Pattern Could Imperil Global Food Supplies
A new study finds a 20-fold increase in the risk of simultaneous heat waves in major crop-producing regions when the pattern is in place An April 26 paper ... found that the 2018 extremes were associated with a particular mode of “stuck in place” jet stream behavior—one that has increased in frequency and persistence in recent decades. A just-published December 9 follow-up study ... found that stuck jet stream patterns like seen in 2018 are prone to bringing simultaneous heat waves and associated drought conditions to multiple important grain-producing regions of the world ... a number of other studies have found evidence of an increase in stuck jet stream patterns in recent years [finding that] our future climate is likely to bring a significant increase in stuck summertime jet stream patterns capable of bringing a rise in extreme destructive weather events like we experienced in 2018 [and] will bring a significant threat to global food security.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/eye-of-the-storm/newly-identified-jet-stream-pattern-could-imperil-global-food-supplies/Global human-made mass exceeds all living biomass
We find that Earth is exactly at the crossover point; in the year 2020 (± 6), the anthropogenic mass, which has recently doubled roughly every 20 years, will surpass all global living biomass. On average, for each person on the globe, anthropogenic mass equal to more than his or her bodyweight is produced every week. This quantification of the human enterprise gives a mass-based quantitative and symbolic characterization of the human-induced epoch of the Anthropocene.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-3010-5
see also https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2020/12/human-made-materials-now-equal-weight-of-all-life-on-earth/European colonization accelerated erosion tenfold
In a paper published today in Nature Communications, the researchers show how humans have altered the North American landscape at a rate far in excess of what nature alone can achieve ... "when European colonizers started farming in North America there was an increase in erosion. This led to the deposition of large amounts of river and floodplain sediment, known as alluvium ... an order of magnitude jump in rates of alluvium deposition soon after Europeans arrived" ... "for the past 40,000 years, rates of alluvium accumulation hardly changed at all and the landscape was quite stable. It was only in the last 200 years that the rates suddenly increased."
https://phys.org/news/2020-12-european-colonization-erosion-tenfold.htmlBacteria release climate-damaging carbon from thawing permafrost
"With permafrost thaw, microbes become active and are able to decompose the peat," says Professor Kappler ... The research team examined how much organic material was bound to reactive iron minerals [and] found that microorganisms are apparently able to use the iron as a food source, thereby releasing the bound organic carbon into the water in the soil. That means the rusty carbon sink cannot prevent the organic carbon from escaping from the thawing permafrost. Based on data available from elsewhere in the northern hemisphere, researchers expect their findings will be applicable for permafrost environments worldwide.
https://phys.org/news/2020-12-bacteria-climate-damaging-carbon-permafrost.htmlHow Climate Change Is Ushering in a New Pandemic Era
“We have entered a pandemic era,” wrote Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases ... Through intensive agriculture, habitat destruction, and rising temperatures, we are forcing creatures to [move] to more hospitable environments ... During this wild exodus, these animals are likely to bump into new animals and humans they have never crossed paths with before ... encounters where viruses jump species and new diseases are often born. The vast majority of the new infectious diseases that have emerged in recent decades have come [in this way] ... What’s next? “It’s really a roll of the dice” ... an estimated 1.7 million currently undiscovered viruses are thought to exist in mammal and avian hosts. Of these, more than 800,000 could have the ability to infect humans.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/climate-change-risks-infectious-diseases-covid-19-ebola-dengue-1098923/
see also https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52775386Investors can now trade water futures
Futures tied to the Nasdaq Veles California Water Index, which measures the volume-weighted average price of water, began trading under the ticker NQH2O on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Monday. Water has never been traded this way before ... the new futures market could also invite speculation from financial players, including hedge funds ... California's water market is four times larger than in any other state ... Sounds a bit dystopian? Perhaps. At the end of the day, water is just another scarce resource ... two-thirds of the world's population will face water shortages by 2025. Experts think the California index, as well as the new futures, could only be the first of its kind, with more local indexes to come as water scarcity is forcing innovation in the field.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/07/investing/water-futures-trading/index.html
see also https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-06/water-futures-to-start-trading-amid-growing-fears-of-scarcityMelting of Antarctica’s Larsen C Ice Shelf at 40-year record high, study says
The unprecedented melt at Larsen C, which is Antarctica’s fourth-largest ice shelf, coincided with record-breaking summer temperatures at a weather station in the Antarctic Peninsula, the research says ... Dr Suzanne Bevan, a research officer at Swansea University in Wales and lead author of the new research, which is published in the Cryosphere journal [said] “Repeated years of melt similar to 2019/2020 would cause melt ponds to become widespread across the shelf. This was the scenario that led to the collapse of Larsen B in 2002.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/antarctica-ice-shelf-larsen-c-melt-b1642993.html
reporting on a study at https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/3551/2020/tc-14-3551-2020-discussion.htmlLast Month Was the Hottest November Ever
This past November was the hottest ever recorded [at] close to 0.8° Celsius above the average temperature between 1981 to 2010 ... “These records are consistent with the long-term warming trend of the global climate,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service. “All policy-makers who prioritize mitigating climate risks should see these records as alarm bells.” Global temperatures from January to October were already 1.2°C above pre-industrial levels, according to the World Meteorological Organization. No matter what happens over the rest of the year, this decade will be the hottest on record, with the warmest six years all happening since 2015.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-07/last-month-was-the-hottest-november-everDeep Frozen Arctic Microbes Are Waking Up
In the last 10 years, warming in the Arctic has outpaced projections so rapidly that scientists are now suggesting that the poles are warming four times faster than the rest of the globe ... Permafrost covers 24 percent of the Earth’s land surface, and the soil constituents vary with local geology. Arctic lands offer unexplored microbial biodiversity and microbial feedbacks, including the release of carbon to the atmosphere. In some locations, hundreds of millions of years’ worth of carbon is buried. The layers may still contain ancient frozen microbes, Pleistocene megafauna and even buried smallpox victims ... Organisms that co-evolved within now-extinct ecosystems from the Cenozoic to the Pleistocene may also emerge and interact with our modern environment in entirely novel ways ... With the coalescence of microbes reawakening from the deep and surface conditions unprecedented in human history, it is challenging to assess risks accurately ... one thing is clear: as climate change warms this microbial repository during the 21st century, the full range of consequences is yet to be told.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/deep-frozen-arctic-microbes-are-waking-up/Climate change threatens 'most Alps glaciers'
Up to 92% of glaciers in the Alps could be lost by the end of the century due to climate change, say researchers. The mountain range's 4,000 glaciers include popular skiing resorts such as Zermatt in Switzerland and Tignes in France. The findings by Aberystwyth University suggest those ski resorts' glaciers would be all but gone. Water run-off, storage and Alpine eco-systems would also be affected ... by 2050 almost all the glaciers below 3,500 metres in the Alps are likely to have melted.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-55206215The glaciers of the Greenland Ice Sheet are running away
Greenland’s massive ice sheet will continue shrinking even if snowfall rates return to the higher levels of decades ago, when the ice sheet was stable, a new study shows. Rates of ice loss climbed dramatically in the early 2000s before settling at a higher, sustained state of decline. For each kilometer that Greenland’s glaciers retreat, their rate of ice loss speeds up by 4 to 5 percent—a bleak trend that will accelerate sea-level rise ... it will continue to shrink, according to new research published in Communications Earth and Environment ... These glaciers act like dams that control how much ice flows into the ocean, said Michael Wood, a postdoctoral researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who was not involved in the study. “What’s happened is that a lot of those dams have burst.” The new study, he said, shows this process “is fully or mostly responsible for the extra ice flooding into the ocean.” As Greenland’s thick shield of ice melts, it is the single largest contributor to global sea level rise.
https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/the-glaciers-of-the-greenland-ice-sheet-are-running-away/[Canada Northwest Territories] temperatures soar above zero, breaking a record and causing some problems
Norman Wells hit a tropical 11.1 C ... Wrigley also hit 11 degrees Thursday, while Fort Simpson, Sambaa K'e and the South Slave region all saw temperatures above zero. "It's not normal," said Gruben, commenting on the heavy rain he was seeing in Tuktoyaktuk.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/nwt-temperatures-soar-above-zero-1.5827852Researchers Connect Antarctic Melt and Northern Hemisphere Sea Level Shift
Climate researchers discovered that changes in Northern Hemisphere sea levels contribute to the shrinking of the Antarctic ice sheet, according to a study published in Nature on Nov. 25 ... expands the scientific understanding of the global interconnectedness of climate change ... the team’s findings highlight the importance of considering the “bigger picture” of regional warming. “The implication of this study is that under our warming world, we have now two remaining ice sheets in Greenland and in the Southern Hemisphere,” Han said. “Once an ice sheet in one hemisphere starts to go, then the ice sheet in the other hemisphere is also in danger.”
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/12/4/sea-level-ice-sheet-research/An escape route for seafloor methane
[H]igh pressure and low temperature of these deep-sea environments should create a solid frozen layer that would be expected to act as a kind of capstone, preventing gas from escaping. So how does the gas get out? A new study helps explain how and why columns of the gas can stream out of these formations, known as methane hydrates. Using a combination of deep-sea observations, laboratory experiments, and computer modeling, researchers have found phenomena that explain and predict the way the gas breaks free from the icy grip of a frozen mix of water and methane. The findings are reported today in the journal PNAS ... not only does the frozen hydrate formation fail to prevent methane gas from escaping into the ocean column, but in some cases it actually facilitates that escape.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201130155832.htmGlobal soils underpin life but future looks ‘bleak’, warns UN report
Global soils are the source of all life on land but their future looks “bleak” without action to halt degradation, according to the authors of a UN report. A quarter of all the animal species on Earth live beneath our feet and provide the nutrients for all food. Soils also store as much carbon as all plants above ground and are therefore critical in tackling the climate emergency. But there also are major gaps in knowledge, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) report, which is the first on the global state of biodiversity in soils. The report was compiled by 300 scientists, who describe the worsening state of soils as at least as important as the climate crisis and destruction of the natural world above ground ... “few things matter more to humans because we rely on the soil to produce food. There’s now pretty strong evidence that a large proportion of the Earth’s surface has been degraded as a result of human activities” ... The main causes of damage to soils are intensive agriculture, with excessive use of fertilisers, pesticides and antibiotics killing soil organisms and leaving it prone to erosion. The destruction of forests and natural habitats to create farmland also degrades soil.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/04/global-soils-underpin-life-but-future-looks-bleak-warns-un-reportWestern monarch butterfly numbers critically low for second straight year
The latest annual count of western monarch butterfly numbers at their overwintering sites on California’s Pacific coast has revealed a second consecutive tally of less than the critical threshold of 30,000. The group behind the count says that figure may be the tipping point for the species, below which the population decline would accelerate into a downward spiral. A major threat to the butterflies is the loss of suitable habitat ... “For an animal that ranges across the entire West and has historically been in the millions, we just don’t know how low it can go ... If they do collapse it would look like a downward spiral of the population … it would never really recover” ... The world is facing an insect apocalypse, and monarch butterflies are no exception. Monarch populations have been declining for decades, threatened by insecticides, climate change, parasites and diseases spread by agriculture, and habitat loss.
https://news.mongabay.com/2020/02/western-monarch-butterfly-numbers-critically-low-for-second-straight-year/The Rising Tide Underfoot
Changing sea levels are pushing groundwater into new and problematic places
The broken water main, likely corroded from the rising salty groundwater, was just the latest indicator that climate change is striking Honolulu — and urban coastal environments everywhere — in unanticipated ways. “Sea level rise does not look like the ocean coming at us,” says Dolan Eversole, the Waikīkī Beach management coordinator with the University of Hawai‘i Sea Grant College Program (Hawai‘i Sea Grant). “It looks like the groundwater coming up.” Rising groundwater has the potential to debilitate many low-elevation coastal cities worldwide ... One threat posed by rising groundwater that receives little attention is its ability to dislocate industrial contaminants ... the ground beneath Honolulu is riddled with decommissioned storage tanks that still hold petroleum or other toxic contents ... Currently, no building regulations or construction codes are in place to address sea level or groundwater rise ... But the recent scale of flooding during big tides, exacerbated by groundwater flooding in unexpected places, has begun to convince many of the coming reality. Locals will eventually start asking what’s going to be done about it. And, says Usagawa, “We better have a plan in place.”
https://www.hakaimagazine.com/features/the-rising-tide-underfoot/Beautiful Yet Unnerving Photos of the Arctic Getting Greener
A third of the carbon stored in the soils of the world is in the Arctic permafrost ... as the Arctic warms, the period between when the snow melts and when it returns is getting longer, so plants are greening up earlier in the year ... as temperatures rise, taller shrub species are becoming more abundant, trapping thicker layers of snow [which] prevents the chill of winter from penetrating the soil enough to keep it frozen. And that’s a problem, because if the permafrost doesn’t get cold enough to stay frozen—well, permanently—it will start to release that trapped carbon dioxide and methane, an extremely potent greenhouse gas.
https://www.wired.com/story/beautiful-yet-unnerving-photos-of-the-arctic-getting-greener/
reporting on a study at https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abbf7d19% of Antarctic ice sheet surface melted in past 20 years: report
Over the 1999-2019 period, more than 2.63 million square kilometers of the Antarctic ice sheet surface had experienced observable melting, which is nearly one-fifth of the total area, said the MOST 2020 annual report of remote sensing monitoring on the global ecological environment ... the melting conditions of the Antarctic ice sheet surface will continue to increase, especially in West Antarctica and Antarctic Peninsula. Its impact on the sea level rise will become significant.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-11-29/19-of-Antarctic-ice-sheet-surface-melted-in-past-century-report-VOw8A1z0bu/index.htmlTop official: This is what Arctic climate change will cost Russia
Unprecedented warming in the far north is having its toll on Russian towns, industry and infrastructure, and consequences could be dire unless the temperature increase is halted, the Russian Ministry of the Far East and Arctic makes clear. According to Deputy Minister Krutikov, the direct damage inflicted on installations in the region could amount to 9 trillion rubles (€99 billion) ... The Russian part of the Arctic is the part of the planet with the most dramatic warming. Over the last decades, the average temperature has increased by more than five degrees Celsius [with] grave effects on the permafrost that is melting rapidly across the region. The year 2020 has beaten most temperature records.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/climate-crisis/2020/11/top-official-what-arctic-climate-change-will-cost-russia"Take action" or face a grim future, warns climate scientist after a year locked in Arctic ice
It was a scientific mission on an unprecedented scale, and the people who took part say their findings should serve as a warning that if action isn't taken, humans in every corner of the world will pay the price ... Dr. Alison Fong told CBS News that she and her colleagues on the Polarstern were "looking at creating a whole picture of what the Arctic is going to do in the coming years." The picture that emerged [is] devastating proof, the scientists say, of a dying Arctic Ocean ... "We know that what we have done [has] caused an increase in temperature and carbon dioxide on Earth, and that causes warming, and that ... is causing major changes to the way the climate functions." Scientists say it's fueling intensified wildfires in the U.S., stronger hurricanes, and more extreme floods and drought around the world.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-warming-arctic-ice-scientists-spent-year-locked-in-ice-polarstern-research-missionWitnessing ice habitat collapse in the Arctic
Over a 2-day period at the end of July 2020, the Milne Ice Shelf underwent fracturing and collapse, losing 43% of its vast expanse ... one of many recent events along Canada's far northern coastline ... considered the ultimate refuge for ice-dependent species in the rapidly warming North ... Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, the largest platform of thick landfast ice in Arctic Canada, experienced several fracturing events in recent decades ... The lake dammed by the Milne Ice Shelf, with its distinctive microbial community is the last of this ecosystem type in Canada and may be similarly close to disappearance.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/370/6520/1031Record-shattering Warmth Pushes Arctic Temperatures to 12 Degrees F Above Normal
Temperatures last weekend across the entire Arctic basin hit 12 degrees Fahrenheit above normal, scientists announced, with some areas measuring as high as 30 degrees F or more above the norm. These extraordinary temperatures come on the heels of an exceptionally warm summer and fall in the Arctic that saw temperatures exceed 100 degrees F above the Arctic Circle in Siberia and cause an unprecedented delay in the Arctic Ocean refreezing this autumn ... rapidly disappearing sea ice, the volume of which has decreased by two-thirds in the past 40 years, is enabling the dark waters of the Arctic Ocean to absorb heat in the summer and then radiate it back into the atmosphere until deep into the fall ... Siberia’s extreme heat in 2020 would have been effectively impossible without human-caused climate change.
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/record-shattering-warmth-pushes-arctic-temperatures-to-12-degrees-f-above-normalGrowing ‘heat blob’ from Atlantic driving sea ice loss in Arctic, study says
An underwater heat blob from the Atlantic is delivering more and more warmth to the Arctic, causing sea ice to rapidly melt, a study has found ... likely playing a major role in the warming of the Arctic Ocean and the rapid disappearance of Arctic sea ice ... Arctic sea ice reached its second-lowest level on record this September and took much longer than usual to begin refreezing for the winter. In addition, the last 14 years have seen the 14 lowest levels of Arctic sea ice in the modern satellite record. Ocean heat is not the only contributor to Arctic sea ice melt. Air temperatures are rising twice as fast in the Arctic than the global average. In some parts of the Arctic, temperature rise is four times higher than the global average.
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/arctic-sea-ice-atlantic-ocean-b1760392.htmlSydney records hottest November night on record
Sydney has recorded its hottest November night on record, with daytime temperatures expected to hit 40C on Sunday ... heat has prompted the New South Wales Fire Service to issue a total fire ban for most of the eastern and northeastern parts of the state. Temperatures over the weekend have also soared in other parts of the country including South Australia and Victoria.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-55118406‘Feedback Loop’ in Central East Asia Threatens Disturbing Changes to Mongolia's Climate
New research published today in Science is painting an alarming picture of the current climate situation ... heatwaves and droughts in the region are happening more often ... current climate situation in the region has no precedent ... the new paper reached this conclusion after analyzing tree-rings, which document droughts and heatwaves dating back to the mid-18th century ... The kind of climate that’s being predicted, in which the region will suffer though even more heatwaves and droughts, could make the region as dry and barren as parts of the U.S. southwest.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/feedback-loop-in-central-east-asia-threatens-disturbi-1845761575More than 3 billion people affected by water shortages, data shows
Water shortages are now affecting more than 3 billion people around the world ... About 1.5 billion people are suffering severe water scarcity or even drought ... UN warned on Thursday that billions of people would face hunger and widespread chronic food shortages as a result of failures to conserve water resources, and to tackle the climate crisis.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/26/more-than-3-billion-people-affected-by-water-shortages-data-showsSolar geoengineering may not prevent strong warming from direct effects of CO2 on stratocumulus cloud cover
[W]e demonstrate that solar geoengineering ... does not mitigate risks to the climate system ... clouds thin as greenhouse gases build up, even when warming is modest ... can eventually lead to breakup of the clouds, triggering strong [5°C] global warming, despite the solar geoengineering.
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/11/10/2003730117
see also https://www.sciencealert.com/solar-geoengineering-won-t-be-able-to-hold-off-global-warming-forever-scientists-warnEverest region glaciers thinning at high altitudes
The behavior of glaciers around Mount Everest over the last six decades is now revealed in research published today in the multidisciplinary journal One Earth. The project [is] part of the 2019 National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition ... Dr. Owen King, of the School of Geography and Sustainable Development at the University of St Andrews, who led the study said: "Our results show that ice mass loss rates have consistently increased since the early 1960s and are now similar to the average global rate of ice loss, despite the regions extreme elevation."
https://phys.org/news/2020-11-everest-region-glaciers-thinning-high.htmlMethane Hits Record High in Atmosphere as Fossil Fuel Companies Diverge
World Meteorological Organization [said] methane reached a new high in 2019 and has increased 161% above preindustrial levels “due to increased emissions from anthropogenic sources,” including the fossil fuel industry. Roughly 60% of methane emitted into the atmosphere comes from man-made sources, like the development of fossil fuels, landfills, biomass burning and agriculture, the WMO report said. According to Brownstein, methane emission estimates based on engineering calculations by industry often understate the true amount of emissions coming from oil and gas operations.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/methane-hits-record-high-in-atmosphere-as-fossil-fuel-companies-diverge/CO2 hits new record despite Covid-19 lockdowns
Climate-heating gases have reached record levels in the atmosphere despite the global lockdowns caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization has said ... WMO report said the monthly average CO2 for September at the benchmark station of Mauna Loa in Hawaii was 411.3ppm, up from 408.5ppm in September 2019 ... CO2 in the atmosphere is now 50% higher than in 1750, before the Industrial Revolution. CO2 traps two-thirds of the heat retained on the Earth’s surface by greenhouse gases, and this warming effect has increased by 45% since 1990.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/23/climate-crisis-co2-hits-new-record-despite-covid-19-lockdownsShocking temperatures across the Arctic
Heating is continuing to accelerate at an unprecedented speed in the north. The anomaly high temperatures this weekend are following a row of bad news this autumn. November 21 came with temperatures 10-12°C higher than normal 30 years ago, according to the Climate Change Institute with the University of Maine. For the entire Arctic, the heat was on average 6,7°C higher than normal. A belt of warm air is currently stretching from northern Greenland across the North Pole to the Laptev and East Siberian Seas north of the Russian mainland. Northeast of Svalbard via Franz Josef Land to Severnaya Zemlya see similar heat.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/climate-crisis/2020/11/shocking-temperatures-across-arcticSlight Arctic Warming Could Trigger Abrupt Permafrost Collapse – Study
A few degrees of warming in the Arctic could trigger an abrupt thaw of the permafrost [per a] study published Friday in the Science Advances journal ... “Arctic warming by only a few degrees may suffice to abruptly activate large-scale permafrost thawing,” the study's authors wrote. The warming works like “a sensitive trigger for a threshold-like permafrost climate change feedback ... Our study indeed suggests that abrupt permafrost thawing represents a tipping point in the climate system.”
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/10/20/slight-arctic-warming-could-trigger-abrupt-permafrost-collapse-study-a71805Bubbling methane craters and super seeps - is this the worrying new face of the undersea Arctic?
Scientists have shared the first results of a trip to the world’s largest deposit of subsea permafrost and shallow methane hydrates. Fields of methane discharge continue to grow all along the East Siberian Arctic Ocean Shelf, with concentration of atmospheric methane above the fields reaching 16-32ppm. This is up to 15 times above the planetary average ... A second discovery is pockmarks and craters sunk deep in shelf sediments of both the Laptev and East Siberian seas, actively venting bubbles and strong methane signals ... The expedition mapped over 1,000 large seep fields (areas of massive methane discharge over 100 metres or 328 ft) and mega seep fields, each over 1,000 metres in linear dimension.
https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/bubbling-methane-craters-and-super-seeps-is-this-the-worrying-new-face-of-the-undersea-arctic/Slew of rapidly intensifying hurricanes portends trouble in a warming world
Rapid intensification typically occurs in high-end hurricanes that reach Category 3 or above. Scientists now say this is happening more frequently, as storms are given a turbo boost from rising ocean temperatures ... According to Kerry Emanuel, a hurricane scientist at MIT, the 2020 Atlantic season provides a warning: The increasing tendency for hurricanes to rapidly intensify is a better gauge for how climate change is influencing them rather than how strong they ultimately get ... Based on recent peer-reviewed studies he co-wrote, meteorologist Jim Kossin of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said it’s clear that the odds of a storm rapidly intensifying have increased compared with what they were just a few decades ago.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/11/18/hurricane-season-rapid-intensification/Scientists link record-breaking hurricane season to climate crisis
“The warmer ocean waters that climate change brings are expected to make the stronger storms stronger and make them rapidly intensify more frequently and at a greater rate,” said Dr Jeff Masters, a meteorologist and contributor to Yale Climate Connections. “These things have already been observed, particularly in the Atlantic, and it’s going to be increasingly so in coming decades” ... “I don’t see a lot of options for Central America to deal with the global warming issue,” said Masters. “There are going to be a lot migrants and in fact, a lot of the migration that’s already happening in recent years is due to the drought that started affecting Central America back in 2015.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/15/scientists-link-record-breaking-hurricane-season-to-climate-crisisWe’re already past critical climate tipping points. Here’s why we still need to cut emissions now
If every country in the world cuts global greenhouse gas emissions to zero ... even if they managed to do it by the end [of] 2020 the planet would still keep warming for hundreds of years ... humans would have had to stop all emissions sometime between 1960 and 1970 to stop the global temperature and sea levels from continuing to rise. The study, published in Scientific Reports, modeled the global climate from 1850 to the year 2500, and found that we’ve already passed critical tipping points. The permafrost in the Arctic—which holds nearly twice as much carbon as the atmosphere now—is starting to melt, releasing both CO2 and methane, locking it into a cycle of warming even if emissions stop.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90574545/were-already-past-critical-climate-tipping-points-heres-why-we-still-need-to-cut-emissions-nowMore avoidable pandemics await a heedless world
Covid-19 is an instance of a disease transferred from wild mammals to humans [and such diseases] threaten to arrive more often, spread more rapidly, do more damage to the global economy, and kill more people ... A new report by a team of 22 global experts warns that Covid-19 is at least the sixth global health pandemic since the Great Influenza Epidemic of 1918: all had their origins in microbes carried by animals, and all were awakened and spread by human interaction with the wilderness ... “The same human activities that drive climate change and biodiversity loss also drive pandemic risk through their impacts on our environment. Changes in the way we use land; the expansion and intensification of agriculture; and unsustainable trade, production and consumption disrupt nature and increase contact between wildlife, livestock, pathogens and people. This is the path to pandemics.”
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/more-avoidable-pandemics-await-a-heedless-world/Carbon dioxide removal sucks
Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) systems - touted as techno-fixes for global warming - usually put more greenhouse gases into the air than they take out, a recent study has confirmed. Carbon capture and storage (CCS), which grabs carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by coal or gas fired power stations, and then uses it for enhanced oil recovery (EOR), emits between 1.4 and 4.7 tonnes of the gas for each tonne removed, the research shows. Direct air capture (DAC), which sucks CO2 from the atmosphere, emits 1.4-3.5 tonnes for each tonne it recovers, mostly from fossil fuels used to power the handful of existing projects. If DAC was instead powered by renewable electricity – as its supporters claim it should be – it would wolf down other natural resources. And things get worse at large scale. To capture 1 gigatonne of CO2 (1 GtCO2, just one-fortieth of current global CO2 emissions) would need nearly twice the amount of wind and solar electricity now produced globally ... Claims made that CCS could be “green” – by generating the energy from biofuels, and/or storing the carbon instead of using it for oil production – do not stand up to scrutiny either.
https://theecologist.org/2020/nov/13/carbon-dioxide-removal-sucksAn earth system model shows self-sustained melting of permafrost even if all man-made GHG emissions stop in 2020
The risk of points-of-no-return which, once surpassed, lock the world into new dynamics, have been discussed for decades ... In this paper we report that in the ESCIMO [Earth System Chemistry Integrated Model] climate model the world is already past a point-of-no-return for global warming. In ESCIMO we observe self-sustained melting of the permafrost for hundreds of years, even if global society stops all emissions of man-made GHGs immediately ... the result of a continuing self-sustained rise in the global temperature. This warming is the combined effect of three physical processes: (1) declining surface albedo (driven by melting of the Arctic ice cover), (2) increasing amounts of water vapour in the atmosphere (driven by higher temperatures), and (3) changes in the concentrations of the GHG in the atmosphere (driven by the absorption of CO2 in biomass and oceans, and emission of carbon (CH4 and CO2) from melting permafrost) ... To stop the self-sustained warming in ESCIMO, enormous amounts of CO2 have to be extracted from the atmosphere.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-75481-zRecord November warmth at Svalbard
“It is the highest temperature officially recorded in Svalbard during November,” says Climate Scientist Ketil Isaksen with the Norwegian Meteorological Institute ... peak temperature last night reached 9,2 °C ... Historically, average November temperature for Longyearbyen is a low of -10,1 °C and high of -5,1 °C. The sun is now under the horizon for a Polar Night that last until early March. Last night’s heat follows a pattern of extreme temperatures for the European and Russian Arctic this summer and fall. Average temperature at the Russian archipelago of Severnaya Zemlya north of the Siberian mainland was as much as ten degrees Celsius warmer than normal in October. In July, Longyearbyen at Svalbard had new heat record ever for the Norwegian Arctic with 21,7°C.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/climate-crisis/2020/11/record-november-warmth-svalbardHurricanes are staying stronger even over land as oceans warm from climate change, study finds
[A] new study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, shows that storms such as Michael that extend their damaging path far inland are becoming more likely to occur as ocean temperatures increase in response to human-caused global warming ... whereas a storm occurring 50 years ago held onto just 24 percent of its intensity after spending 24 hours over land, that has now doubled, to 48 percent ... the slower decay rate, which exposes inland areas to greater wind and flood damage, is correlated with how quickly ocean temperatures are increasing.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/11/11/hurricanes-weaken-slowly-landfall/Wildfires Are Close to Torching the Insurance Industry in California
A severe hazard zone for fires is similar to a severe hazard zone for floods. The government draws the boundaries, and any new developments within them are required to submit to unforgiving building codes and are subject to steep risk-based increases to their insurance premiums. This is the kind of thing that determines where people try to build and live ... Climate change is making wildfires more extreme. Scientifically, that argument is settled. Researchers have shown that human-induced temperature and humidity changes in the first decade-and-a-half of the 21st century led to a 75% increase in Western forest area with high potential for fires ... The financial fallout was unprecedented. From 1964 to 1990, the American insurance industry paid less than $100 million a year toward wildfire losses, on average. In the next two decades, that figure jumped to an average $600 million annually. From 2011 to 2018, it was almost $4 billion a year ... the [2017-18] seasons wiped out more than a quarter-century of underwriting profits for the California insurance market ... other states are close behind. Sapsis says he’s gotten calls from several other Western states after unprecedented fires this year consumed more than 700,000 acres in Washington and more than 1 million acres in Oregon. Risk analytics company Verisk Analytics Inc. estimates that more than 4.5 million U.S. properties are at high to extreme wildfire risk, but this number is very likely to rise, and quickly, even in places that used to be essentially immune ... In California, nonrenewals of home insurance policies climbed 31% from 2018 to 2019, with ZIP codes that had a “moderate to very high fire risk” seeing a 61% uptick, according to a recent report from the California Department of Insurance. This change caused more residents to turn to the FAIR Plan, a Los Angeles-based association of insurers that provides fire insurance as a [very expensive] “last resort.” The number of policies issued under FAIR climbed 36% last year and more than doubled in higher-risk areas, according to state insurance regulators. Insurers insist that unless they’re able to raise their rates in California to account for future risk, they’ll stop writing policies.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-11-10/wildfires-are-torching-california-s-insurance-industry-amid-climate-changeDevastating 2020 Atlantic hurricane season breaks all records
There have been so many big storms in 2020 that meteorologists exhausted their English-language list of names and had to turn to the Greek alphabet ... The frequency of major storms making damaging landfall is the “big story for 2020” in terms of the hurricane season, said Phil Klotzbach, an atmospheric scientist at Colorado State University ... well beyond the bounds of normal expectations ... “Rapid intensification seems to be the name of the game right now,” Trepanier said. “We should expect to see events intensify quickly when conditions are as warm as they are presently” ... climate scientists warn there will be more and stronger hurricanes as the world heats up further.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/10/devastating-2020-atlantic-hurricane-season-breaks-all-recordsChinese glaciers melting at 'shocking' pace, scientists say
Glaciers in China's bleak Qilian mountains are disappearing at a shocking rate as global warming brings unpredictable change and raises the prospect of crippling, long-term water shortages ... Equally alarming is the loss of thickness, with about 13 meters (42 feet) of ice disappearing as temperatures have risen, said Qin Xiang, the director at the monitoring station. "The speed that this glacier has been shrinking is really shocking," Qin told Reuters on a recent visit to the spartan station in a frozen, treeless world, where he and a small team of researchers track the changes ... since the 1950s, average temperatures in the area have risen about 1.5 Celsius, Qin said, and with no sign of an end to warming, the outlook is grim for the 2,684 glaciers in the Qilian range.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/09/china/china-glaciers-melting-climate-change-intl-hnk/index.htmlClimate change ‘bigger risk than Covid’, says Andrew Bailey
The Governor of the Bank of England warns the climate threat is more complex than the financial crisis too
Climate change poses a bigger risk to the world than the coronavirus pandemic or the financial crisis, Andrew Bailey has warned, ordering banks to act now to protect themselves and the economy. The Governor said the Bank of England and financial markets must all take radical steps to analyse the scale of the challenges ahead, identify the risks facing them, and work out how to avoid disaster.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/11/09/climate-change-bigger-risk-covid-says-andrew-bailey/Rivers melt Arctic ice, warming air and ocean
A new study shows that increased heat from Arctic rivers is melting sea ice in the Arctic Ocean and warming the atmosphere. The study published this week in Science Advances [shows that] major Arctic rivers contribute significantly more heat to the Arctic Ocean than they did in 1980 ... "If Alaska were covered by 1-meter thick ice, 20% of Alaska would be gone," explained Igor Polyakov, co-author and oceanographer at the University of Alaska Fairbanks' International Arctic Research Center and Finnish Meteorological Institute ... The impacts were most pronounced in the Siberian Arctic, where several large rivers flow onto the relatively shallow shelf region extending nearly 1,000 miles offshore ... All these components work together, causing positive feedback loops that speed up warming in the Arctic. "It's very alarming because all these changes are accelerating," said Polyakov. "The rapid changes are just incredible in the last decade or so."
https://phys.org/news/2020-11-rivers-arctic-ice-air-ocean.htmlEmerald ash borer puts trees on path to functional extinction
Emerald ash borer, a beetle native to northeast Asia, was first detected in Michigan in 2002. Its western range has reached South Dakota in the north down to Texas in the south. It's in every state east of that line except for Mississippi and Florida ... "negative population trajectories on plots that have been invaded for more than 10 years," according to the authors' findings, which will be published in the January issue of Forest Ecology and Management. "This trend suggests that ash will continue to decline in abundance and may become functionally extinct across the invaded range of emerald ash borer."
https://phys.org/news/2020-11-emerald-ash-borer-trees-path.htmlSevere forest fires have increased eightfold in western US since 1985, study finds
The rise in area burned by high-severity fires is linked to hotter and drier weather across the region, said scientists. Researchers expect the frequency of blazes will continue to increase as such conditions are becoming more likely and more extreme as a result of the climate crisis ... Published in Geophysical Research Letters, the research looks specifically at how the area burned by high-severity fires has changed across the western US, rather than just how the total number of all fires has changed.
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/forest-fires-wildfires-climate-crisis-california-b1591680.htmlGermany is already two degrees warmer
Climate researcher Stefan Rahmstorf explains why it is already warmer than is often stated
The answer is simple: The German Weather Service gives the linear trend [but] if you describe a non-linear development, that doesn't make sense ... model simulations with climate models suggest a non-linear course of global temperature - which also agrees well with the observed temperature course ... The graph confirms that we have already had two degrees Celsius warming ... two degrees global warming means three or even four degrees warming for most land areas, with correspondingly more serious consequences for our well-being. (translated from German)
https://www.spektrum.de/kolumne/deutschland-ist-schon-zwei-grad-waermer/1786148Warming of 2°C would release billions of tons of soil carbon
Global soils contain two to three times more carbon than the atmosphere, and higher temperatures speed up decomposition -- reducing the amount of time carbon spends in the soil ... The new international research study, led by the University of Exeter, reveals the sensitivity of soil carbon turnover to global warming and subsequently halves uncertainty about this in future climate change projections. The estimated 230 billion tonnes of carbon released at 2°C warming (above pre-industrial levels) is more than four times the total emissions from China, and more than double the emissions from the USA, over the last 100 years.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201102072915.htmDepths of the Weddell Sea are warming five times faster than elsewhere
Over the past several decades, the world's oceans have absorbed more than 90 percent of the heat trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse-gas emissions, effectively slowing the rise in air temperatures around the globe. In this regard, the Southern Ocean is pivotal [because] it absorbs roughly three-fourths of the heat. Until recently, very little was known about what happens to this heat ... researchers have produced the only time series of its kind on the South Atlantic and the Weddell Sea, which has now allowed them to precisely reconstruct the warming ... Once the heat reaches the depths of the Weddell Sea, the major bottom water currents distribute it to all ocean basins. "Our time series confirms the pivotal role of the Southern Ocean and especially the Weddell Sea in terms of storing heat in the depths of the world's oceans" ... If the warming of the Weddell Sea continues unchecked, he explains, it will have far-reaching consequences not only for the massive ice shelves on the southern coast of the Weddell Sea, which extend far out into the ocean, and as such, for sea-level rise in the long term, but also for the conveyor belt of ocean circulation as a whole.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-10/awih-dot102020.phpIn the Arctic, 'everything is changing,' massive animal tracking study finds
Animals across the Arctic are changing where and when they breed, migrate and forage in response to climate change, says a new study unveiling the massive scale of the change ... "There's changes everywhere you look — everything is changing," said Gil Bohrer, corresponding author of the new study published online Thursday in the journal Science.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/arctic-animal-archive-climate-1.5790992"Insanely Warm" Arctic Ocean Waters Are Delaying Freeze-Up and Pouring Heat Into the Atmosphere In September, Arctic sea ice reached its second lowest extent on record. Now, in one significant way, the situation has only gotten worse. With the onset of winter, large swaths of Arctic waters that should be frozen over by now remain ice-free. As a result, the extent of the ice is currently running at record lows for this time of year. "The main factor is ocean heat," says Walt Meier, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center. In September, sea surface temperatures in the Laptev Sea off Siberia climbed higher than 5 degrees Celsius, or 41 degrees Fahrenheit. "That’s insanely warm for the Arctic Ocean, especially in that region, far away from any warmer inflow from the Atlantic or Pacific," he says.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/insanely-warm-arctic-ocean-waters-are-delaying-freeze-up-and-pouring-heat'Sleeping giant' Arctic methane deposits starting to release, scientists find
Scientists have found evidence that frozen methane deposits in the Arctic Ocean – known as the “sleeping giants of the carbon cycle” – have started to be released over a large area of the continental slope off the East Siberian coast ... sediments in the Arctic contain a huge quantity of frozen methane and other gases – known as hydrates. Methane has a warming effect 80 times stronger than carbon dioxide over 20 years. The United States Geological Survey has previously listed Arctic hydrate destabilisation as one of four most serious scenarios for abrupt climate change ... raises concerns that a new tipping point has been reached that could increase the speed of global heating ... The 60-member team on the Akademik Keldysh believe they are the first to observationally confirm the methane release is already under way across a wide area of the slope.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/oct/27/sleeping-giant-arctic-methane-deposits-starting-to-release-scientists-findGlobalized economy making water, energy and land insecurity worse: study
Over the past several decades, the worldwide economy has become highly interconnected through globalisation [which] allows companies to make their products almost anywhere in the world in order to keep costs down ... the researchers have quantified the global water, land and energy use of 189 countries and shown that countries which are highly dependent on trade are potentially more at risk from resource insecurity, especially as climate change continues to accelerate and severe weather events such as droughts and floods become more common.
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-globalized-economy-energy-insecurity-worse.htmlNew Climate Warnings in Old Permafrost: 'It’s a Little Scary Because it’s Happening Under Our Feet.'
The study, published today in Science Advances, shows that only a few degrees of warming in the Arctic is enough "to abruptly activate large-scale permafrost thawing," suggesting a "sensitive trigger" for greenhouse gas emissions from thawing permafrost ... "We're very, very close, and when it does, a lot of dramatic things will happen to landscapes and infrastructure, including roads and oil and gas developments. We will see huge changes."
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16102020/permafrost-study-arctic-ocean-climate-changeArctic Sea Ice is not freezing In October for the first time since measurements began
The sea ice is refreezing back, but at a much slower rate than normal ... Comparing the years by the current date, we are well the lowest for this time of year ... [growth] rate was rather weak and is not increasing with time ... the east Arctic Ocean is unusually warm and prevents fast sea-ice expansion ... the Laptev Sea has been at record low levels for quite some time now. In the previous decade, the Laptev Sea has been entirely frozen over by this time of year, while this year it [has virtually no ice] ... the Arctic is not as cold as it is supposed to be ... overall Arctic temperatures are getting warmer.
https://www.severe-weather.eu/news/arctic-ocean-sea-ice-2020-jet-stream-effect-winter-fa/Dwindling Arctic Sea Ice and Impacts to Permafrost Health
Permafrost refers to frozen ground, which covers nearly one-fourth of the Northern Hemisphere landmass. Arctic sea ice supports the resilience of permafrost, which impacts multiple climate pathways. A study at the University of Oxford determined that past permafrost thaws correlated to time periods with ice-free summers ... With concern over nearing Arctic “ice-free” summers, and significant permafrost loss, it is important to understand and communicate the potentially expansive effects this occurrence could present ... sea ice and permafrost loss appears inevitable ... Arctic communities are already feeling the impacts of climate change, and immediate action is necessary to lessen and slow the progression.
https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/dwindling-arctic-sea-ice-impacts-permafrost-health/The World’s Largest Tropical Wetland Has Become an Inferno
This year, roughly a quarter of the vast Pantanal wetland in Brazil, one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, has burned in wildfires worsened by climate change ... The wetland, which is larger than Greece and stretches over parts of Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia, also offers unseen gifts to a vast swath of South America by regulating the water cycle upon which life depends. Its countless swamps, lagoons and tributaries purify water and help prevent floods and droughts ... But this year, drought worsened by climate change turned the wetlands into a tinderbox ... “The extent of fires is staggering,” said Douglas C. Morton, who leads the Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and studies fire and food production in South America. “When you wipe out a quarter of a biome, you create all kinds of unprecedented circumstances” ... “We are digging our grave,” said Karl-Ludwig Schuchmann, an ecologist with Brazil’s National Institute of Science and Technology.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/13/climate/pantanal-brazil-fires.htmlImpacts of Climate Change as Drivers of Migration
[E]nvironmental migration is already here ... analysts have identified changes to the climate as a major driver of migration from sub-Saharan Africa to Europe as well as a factor for some of the movements from Central America to the United States in recent years ... cascading impacts on ice sheets, ecosystems, and productive systems that will fundamentally alter habitability when spread over the entire land surface of the planet. The effects will not be spread evenly, and already high latitudes are warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world while drylands are expanding ... Climate can be seen as the envelope in which all economic activities take place, and these changes could spell significant disruptions for modern society.
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/impacts-climate-change-drivers-migrationAlarm as Arctic sea ice not yet freezing at latest date on record
For the first time since records began, the main nursery of Arctic sea ice in Siberia has yet to start freezing in late October. The delayed annual freeze in the Laptev Sea has been caused by freakishly protracted warmth in northern Russia and the intrusion of Atlantic waters, say climate scientists who warn of possible knock-on effects across the polar region. Ocean temperatures in the area recently climbed to more than 5C above average, following a record breaking heatwave and the unusually early decline of last winter’s sea ice ... sea-ice extent in the Laptev Sea, which usually show a healthy seasonal pulse, appear to have flat-lined. As a result, there is a record amount of open sea in the Arctic.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/22/alarm-as-arctic-sea-ice-not-yet-freezing-at-latest-date-on-recordEven if deniers don’t recognize the cost of climate change, insurance companies do
Reinsurance companies who underwrite retail insurers simply can’t afford to ignore the link between warming temperatures and ever-more-expensive, ever-more-costly catastrophes caused by superstorms, wildfires, inland and coastal flooding. Risks have increased, financial losses multiply, so up goes the price of reinsurance. The Sun Sentinel reported last week that 46 Florida property insurance companies suffered combined losses of about $400 million a year from 2016 to 2019. The companies lost $454 million in just the first six months of 2020 with an expectation of even more brutal numbers when the stormy third quarter results are calculated. The Sun Sentinel reported that reinsurers had jacked up underwriting rates by 20% to 30% earlier this year and plan another hefty jump in 2021. Consumers face increases of 30% to 40%.
https://www.theinvadingsea.com/2020/10/19/even-if-deniers-dont-recognize-the-cost-of-climate-change-insurance-companies-do/Vast majority of Europe's key habitats in poor or bad condition – report
80% of key habitats are rated as being in poor or bad condition across the continent, in the State of Nature in the EU 2013-2018 assessment by the European Environment Agency. Just under half of all bird species are thriving, at 47%, but this is a decline of five percentage points since 2015, showing that the trend is going in the wrong direction.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/19/vast-majority-europe-key-habitats-poor-bad-condition-reportThere was no ice on the water, says captain of tall ship Sedov about Arctic voyage
The Sedov on Tuesday passed the southern tip of archipelago Novaya Zemlya and is expected in Murmansk in the course of the week. The voyage would have been unthinkable only few years ago. But this year’s unprecedented low levels of sea-ice has made sailing on the route smooth and easy. According to the expedition diary, there has hardly been minus degrees during the voyage and sea-ice has hardly been spotted.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/climate-crisis/2020/10/there-was-no-ice-water-says-captain-tall-ship-sedov-about-arctic-voyageSea 'Boiling' with Methane Discovered in Siberia: 'No One Has Ever Recorded Anything like This Before'
Scientists in Siberia have discovered an area of sea that is "boiling" with methane, with bubbles that can be scooped from the water with buckets. Researchers on an expedition to the East Siberian Sea said the "methane fountain" was unlike anything they had seen before, with concentrations of the gas in the region to be six to seven times higher than the global average. The team, led by Igor Semiletov, from Tomsk Polytechnic University in Russia, traveled to an area of the Eastern Arctic previously known to produce methane fountains. They were studying the environmental consequences of permafrost thawing beneath the ocean.
https://www.newsweek.com/methane-boiling-sea-discovered-siberia-1463766Arctic researcher warns the 'the ice is dying' after landmark expedition
"This world is threatened. We really saw how the ice is disappearing," said Markus Rex, leader of the largest-ever Arctic expedition ... Rex, an atmospheric scientist with the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany, said researchers pushed boundaries and battled the extreme landscape to gather data that "will change climate research forever" ... While years of analysis of the data lay ahead, Rex said researchers are already alarmed by the evidence they've gathered. "The ice is dying," Rex said ... researchers witnessed wide areas of open water that should have been covered in thick ice. Even at the North Pole, the ice was melting and had holes, sending a clear message of the consequences of climate change. "It was very evident, you could see it all around," he said.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/arctic-researcher-warns-ice-dying-after-landmark-expedition-n1243073Great Barrier Reef has lost half of its corals since 1995
Scientists found all types of corals had suffered a decline across the world's largest reef system. The steepest falls came after mass bleaching events in 2016 and 2017. More mass bleaching occurred this year. "There is no time to lose - we must sharply decrease greenhouse gas emissions ASAP," the researchers said. The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, was conducted by marine scientists at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies in Queensland.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-54533971As Waters Warm, Ocean Heatwaves Are Growing More Severe
Water, covering two-thirds of the Earth’s surface, absorbs more than 90 percent of the energy from climate change ... That warming is ramping up: 2019 saw warmer oceans than any year on record ... One study showed that the count of annual marine heatwave days increased globally by over 50 percent from 1925 to 2016, with heatwaves becoming 34 percent more frequent and lasting 17 percent longer ... Another study showed that by 2100, no matter whether humanity follows a high emissions path or a low one, the oceans will be in a “near-permanent heat-wave state” ... The hints that heatwaves can trigger tipping points are disturbing. This means a single heatwave “can have ecosystem impacts that resonate for decades,” says NOAA’s Elliot Hazen.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/as-waters-warm-ocean-heatwaves-are-growing-more-severeCarbon capture 'moonshot' moves closer, as billions of dollars pour in
Carbon capture is a controversial idea, attacked as a costly distraction from stopping emissions occurring in the first place. But last month, the International Energy Agency said ... it would be “virtually impossible” for the world to hit climate targets without capturing and storing emissions generated from factories, power plants, transportation and other sources. The transition to renewable energy, such as solar and wind, would not cut emissions in time ... Carbon capture is still in its infancy – there are only about 20 projects in commercial use worldwide, according to the IEA – but billions of dollars in investment is flowing into the sector ... “Carbon capture and storage is not a solution to the climate crisis, it is part of the problem,” said Karen Orenstein, the climate and energy programme director at Friends of the Earth. “This extraordinarily expensive pipe dream is just false rhetoric propagated by the fossil fuel industry in an attempt to save itself.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/07/carbon-capture-moonshot-moves-closer-as-billions-of-dollars-pour-inHimalayan glaciers melting because of high-altitude dust
Dust, climate change and air pollution are triple threat to water source for a billion people
Prior to the study, which is published in the journal Nature Climate Change, experts did not believe dust to be a significant driver of snowmelt in the region ... Though dust is a natural part of Earth’s systems, the amount of it in the atmosphere has steadily increased since the Industrial Revolution, when humans expanded into desert areas and broke through surface crust that held large amounts of dust in place. The darker or dustier an object is, the more heat it absorbs ... “In theory, we have two ways to limit the dust that ends up in High Mountain Asia. We can weaken the west wind in the high atmosphere or make the Middle East green. But either way is difficult, probably more difficult than reducing greenhouse gases emissions.”
https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/dust-in-the-wind-is-making-himalayan-glaciers-melt
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-00909-3Fifth of countries at risk of ecosystem collapse, analysis finds
Trillions of dollars of GDP depend on biodiversity, according to Swiss Re report
One-fifth of the world’s countries are at risk of their ecosystems collapsing because of the destruction of wildlife and their habitats, according to an analysis by the insurance firm Swiss Re. Natural “services” such as food, clean water and air, and flood protection have already been damaged by human activity. More than half of global GDP – $42tn (£32tn) – depends on high-functioning biodiversity, according to the report, but the risk of tipping points is growing ... “A staggering fifth of countries globally are at risk of their ecosystems collapsing due to a decline in biodiversity and related beneficial services,” said Swiss Re, one of the world’s biggest reinsurers and a linchpin of the global insurance industry. “If the ecosystem service decline goes on [in countries at risk], you would see then scarcities unfolding even more strongly, up to tipping points,” said Oliver Schelske, lead author of the research.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/12/fifth-of-nations-at-risk-of-ecosystem-collapse-analysis-finds
reporting on a study at https://www.swissre.com/media/news-releases/nr-20200923-biodiversity-and-ecosystems-services.htmlCalifornia wildfires spawn first ‘gigafire’ in modern history
California’s extraordinary year of wildfires has spawned another new milestone – the first “gigafire”, a blaze spanning 1m acres, in modern history ... fire heads a list of huge fires that have chewed through 4m acres of California this year, a figure called “mind-boggling” by Cal Fire and double the previous annual record. Five of the six largest fires ever recorded in the state have occurred in 2020 ... Vast, out-of-control fires are increasingly a feature in the US west due to the climate crisis ... “If you don’t like all of the climate disasters happening in 2020, I have some bad news for you about the rest of your life,” said Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/06/california-wildfires-gigafire-firstThe West’s Infernos Are Melting Our Sense of How Fire Works
42,000-foot plumes of ash. 143-mph firenadoes. 1,500-degree heat. These wildfires are a new kind of hell on earth, and scientists are racing to learn its rules.
By the time California’s 2018 fire season was over, it had burned more than 1.6 million acres to become the most destructive on record—a title it maintained for slightly less than 20 months, when it was overtaken not by the 2020 fire season but by a mere four weeks in late summer 2020 ... The final elephant in the room, of course, is climate change—and the likelihood that it is already pushing even our current nightmares toward holocausts beyond imagining ... climate-change patterns suggest we are headed for ever-less winter snowfall in the West, with hotter summers, ever-worsening droughts, and ever-more acute spells of extreme fire weather—long periods of dry heat that bake moisture out of grass and trees, combined with winds ferocious enough to whip even a small spark into a conflagration ... every future fire season in the American West is likely to be worse than the last, on average. “How do you adapt to that? It’s not just California,” he says. “It would be the whole West Coast and the Rockies and parts of Canada and Alaska all going off on a regular basis.”
https://www.wired.com/story/west-coast-california-wildfire-infernos/California fire season shatters record with more than 4 million acres burned
California’s biggest wildfire season reached a new milestone Sunday, with state officials announcing that the state has now surpassed 4 million acres burned, more than double the state’s previous record ... the sheer magnitude is staggering. Of the 20 largest wildfires in California’s history, five burned within the space of a couple of months this year.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-10-04/california-fire-season-record-4-million-acres-burnedExxon’s Plan for Surging Carbon Emissions Revealed in Leaked Documents
[I]nternal documents show for the first time that Exxon has carefully assessed the direct emissions it expects from the seven-year investment plan adopted in 2018 by Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods. A chart in the documents lists Exxon’s direct emissions for 2017—122 million metric tons of CO₂ equivalent—as well as a projected figure for 2025 of 143 million tons ... The internal estimates reflect only a small portion of Exxon’s total contribution to climate change. Greenhouse gases from direct operations, such as those measured by Exxon, typically account for a fifth of the total at a large oil company; most emissions come from customers burning fuel in vehicles or other end uses, which the Exxon documents don’t account for.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-05/exxon-carbon-emissions-and-climate-leaked-plans-reveal-rising-co2-outputAntarctic Peninsula at warmest in decades: study
2020 is the hottest in the Antarctic Peninsula in the past three decades, a study by the University of Santiago de Chile out Friday found ... "more than 2 degrees Celsius over typical values," climatologist Raul Cordero said in a statement released by the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH) ... He called that fact "alarming," since it could indicate that the rapid rate of ocean warming observed in the area at the end of the 20th century is resuming.
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-antarctic-peninsula-warmest-decades.htmlAs cities bake on a warming planet, insurers cook up heatwave cover
Longer and hotter heatwaves driven by climate change are becoming an increasingly dangerous - and costly - menace ... But a new way to cut the financial risks is emerging: heatwave insurance ... a wider range of heat insurance offerings - likely aimed initially at city authorities or similar government buyers around the world - are now being explored as the risks and costs of heatwaves rise ... Michael Spranger, of the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF), said insurance cannot fix the problem of heatwaves, which will increase in frequency if climate-heating emissions continue to rise. But “insurance helps to absolve some of the financial consequences”, said Spranger.
https://www.reuters.com/article/heatwave-insurance-climatechange/analysis-as-cities-bake-on-a-warming-planet-insurers-cook-up-heatwave-cover-idUKL8N2GS56KTwo-fifths of plants at risk of extinction, says report
New estimates suggest two-fifths of the world's plants are at risk of extinction. The assessment of the State of the World's Plants and Fungi is based on research from more than 200 scientists in 42 countries.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54344309Antarctic sea ice may not cap carbon emissions as much as previously thought
Scientists thought that the vast swaths of sea ice around Antarctica can act as a lid for upwelling carbon [but] researchers at MIT have now identified a counteracting effect that suggests Antarctic sea ice may not be as powerful a control on the global carbon cycle as scientists had suspected. In a study published in the August issue of the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, the team has found that ... this shading effect is almost equal and opposite to that of sea ice's capping effect. Taken together, both effects essentially cancel each other out.
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-antarctic-sea-ice-cap-carbon.htmlExtreme Heat And Extreme Drought Are Occurring Together With Terrifying Frequency
A new study found that these two hazards are occurring concurrently with startling frequency in recent years, a combination that will put enormous strain on regions already facing long-term worries over dangers like wildfires and dwindling resources ... California saw five of its six largest wildfires on record in just the last couple of months. The five fires combined were responsible for consuming more than 2.2 million acres of land.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dennismersereau/2020/09/26/extreme-heat-and-extreme-drought-are-occurring-together-with-terrifying-frequency/Increasingly extreme autumn wildfire conditions in California due to climate change
[I]s climate change contributing to California’s escalating wildfire crisis? ... yes: we found that climate change has already more than doubled the frequency of extreme autumn wildfire conditions in California over the past ~40 years ... large increase in both mean and extreme fire weather conditions was driven by a combination of warming temperature and decreased precipitation.
https://weatherwest.com/archives/7550New Study Shows a Vicious Circle of Climate Change Building on Thickening Layers of Warm Ocean Water
A new study shows more heat is building up in the upper 600 feet of the ocean than deeper down. That increasingly distinct warm layer on the surface can intensify tropical storms, disrupt fisheries, interfere with the ocean absorption of carbon and deplete oxygen ... The research suggests that some of the worst-case global warming scenarios outlined in major international climate reports can't be ruled out ... If the current slows, more hot water could build up along the East Coast of the United States, leading to more coastal heat waves and rising sea levels. And if less warm water is transported northward, the climate in northwestern Europe would become more volatile ... Equally important is how the layering affects the amount of carbon dioxide going into the ocean. For now, oceans take up about a quarter of the CO2 emissions from human activity, "but prospects are for less of that as time goes on" ... the effect on hurricanes is also clear. The heat in the top 300 to 400 feet of the ocean is what fuels tropical storms. Strong storms churn up the ocean, bringing colder water to the surface that can limit strengthening, or even weaken a storm. But nowadays, "that cold water is warmer than it used to be," which enables storms to build and maintain intensity," he said. "This is why hurricanes are bigger and longer-lasting and more intense than before."
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28092020/ocean-stratification-climate-changeYukon River, beset by salmon woes and mercury threats, signals broader Arctic climate change
The Yukon River fall chum salmon run has been the lowest on record, according to federal officials. There is not even enough chum salmon to allow for subsistence harvests ... Thaw of permafrost in the California-sized Yukon River basin is threatening to loosen long-frozen mercury that exists naturally in the soil, studies have shown. There are signs that mercury levels are already increasing as the climate warms and permafrost thaws ... Long-term climate warming is demonstrated in the expanding ice-free seasons on the Yukon and other Alaska rivers, which have cascading effects. The free-flowing waters allow more heat to be carried into the riverbanks, hastening the thaw that is releasing sequestered mercury and changing the water’s chemistry in other ways.
https://www.arctictoday.com/yukon-river-beset-by-salmon-woes-and-mercury-threats-signals-broader-arctic-climate-change/New study warns: We have underestimated the pace at which the Arctic is melting
Over the past 40 years, temperatures have risen by one degree every decade, and even more so over the Barents Sea and around Norway's Svalbard archipelago, where they have increased by 1.5 degrees per decade throughout the period. This is the conclusion of a new study published in Nature Climate Change. "Changes are occurring so rapidly during the summer months that sea ice is likely to disappear faster than most climate models have ever predicted."
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-08/uoc-nsw082620.phpMelting Antarctic ice will raise sea level by 2.5 metres – even if Paris climate goals are met, study finds
Even if temperatures were to fall again after rising by 2C (3.6F), the temperature limit set out in the Paris agreement, the ice would not regrow to its initial state, because of self-reinforcing mechanisms that destabilise the ice, according to the paper published in the journal Nature. “The more we learn about Antarctica, the direr the predictions become,” said Anders Levermann, co-author of the paper from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “We get enormous sea level rise [from Antarctic melting] even if we keep to the Paris agreement, and catastrophic amounts if we don’t.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/23/melting-antarctic-ice-will-raise-sea-level-by-25-metres-even-if-paris-climate-goals-are-met-study-finds'Worst-case' CO2 emissions scenario is best for assessing climate risk and impacts to 2050
The RCP 8.5 C02 emissions pathway, long considered a "worst case scenario" by the international science community, is the most appropriate for conducting assessments of climate change impacts by 2050, according to a new article published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ... the paper argues that is actually the closest approximation of both historical emissions and anticipated outcomes of current global climate policies, tracking within 1% of actual emissions. "Not only are the emissions consistent with RCP 8.5 in close agreement with historical total cumulative CO2 emissions (within 1%), but RCP 8.5 is also the best match out to mid-century under current and stated policies ... Not using RCP8.5 to describe the previous 15 years assumes a level of mitigation that did not occur, thereby skewing subsequent assessments by lessening the severity of warming and associated physical climate risk."
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-08/whrc-ce073020.phpOcean acoustics confirm rising sea temperatures
Sound waves [underwater] speed depends on the temperature of the water in which they travel. In a new study published in Science ... Wenbo Wu, a geophysicist at Caltech, and his collaborators discovered that they could use a natural source to record sound waves: earthquakes ... the study’s results confirm what climate scientists already know: The ocean is heating up ... “It’s a big problem ... even the ocean — Earth’s vast thermal reservoir, covering 70% of the planet — is starting to feel the heat."
https://temblor.net/earthquake-insights/ocean-acoustics-confirm-rising-sea-temperatures-11777/Edge of Arctic sea-ice never seen this far north
After a record warm summer, bad records for the sea-ice follows. Especially so north of Norway and Russia, according to recognized National Snow & Ice Data Center with the University of Colorado. The Center’s latest satellite studies ... have never seen a greater loss rate any other year for the same week ... The Norwegian Meteorological Institute confirms the dramatic developments in September in the European Arctic waters.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/climate-crisis/2020/09/edge-arctic-sea-ice-never-seen-far-northFierce, frequent, climate-fueled wildfires may decimate forests worldwide
“When you get these large areas burned there are no surviving trees to reseed these areas,” said Jon Keeley, a research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey. “It is causing a shift from forest to other vegetation types, mostly shrublands and grasslands.” ... Scientists in Australia are already seeing evidence that fire is reshaping landscapes ... Even more worrying, scientists say, is an apparent increase in wildfires in the Siberian Arctic, which can thaw permafrost and release climate-warming methane from the frozen land.
https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-wildfires-climatechange-idUSL2N2GI22THumans Wiped Out Two-Thirds of the World’s Wildlife in 50 Years
In half a century, human activity has decimated global wildlife populations by an average of 68 percent. The study ... found that populations in Latin America and the Caribbean fared the worst, with a staggering 94 percent decline in population ... habitat destruction caused by humans [is] the main threat to the world’s biodiversity ... the ever-growing population of humans has led to an “ecological imbalance,” where society requires more resources to survive than can be produced.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/humans-wiped-out-two-thirds-worlds-wildlife-50-years-180975824/Wildfires, hurricanes and vanishing sea ice: the climate crisis is here
[S]cientists say this year’s sequence of natural disasters and record temperatures have exceeded their worst fears. “We were speculating 40 years ago about things that might happen, and I don't think that any of us expected that in our lifetimes, we would see these things unfolding,” said Chris Rapley, a 73-year-old professor of climate science at University College London. “It has become a real problem of today, rather than a predicted problem of tomorrow.” The natural disasters have brought home the great economic and social costs of a hotter planet ... “All of these things that are happening, are predicted consequences of climate change,” said Philip Duffy, head of the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Massachusetts. “People ask if this is the new normal, and I say, no, it will keep getting worse, as long as we keep adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.”
https://www.ft.com/content/6a6bab93-21fc-4bd6-b309-86e394e3869bBritish Military Prepares for Climate-Fueled Resource Shortages
The British government is planning for the inevitability of a catastrophic rise in global temperatures of nearly 4 degrees Celsius due to business-as-usual carbon emissions. The revelation comes from new research commissioned by the Ministry of Defence (MOD) in November 2019 to inform the MOD’S climate change strategy ... notable is that the report to the MOD doesn’t treat this as merely one potential worst-case scenario out of many, for the purpose of contingency planning. Instead, it puts forward the scenario unequivocally as an outcome which the UK government should simply expect to happen ... the report warns that as early as 2030, the world would face a perfect storm of food, water and energy crises ... What the MOD report neglects to acknowledge is that a 3.5°C global temperature rise represents the level of warming we would see if governments meet the inadequate emissions goals they signed up to under the Paris agreement. But as a team of climate policy scholars recently observed: “All major industrialized countries are failing to meet the pledges they made to cut greenhouse-gas emissions.” This means that the catastrophic scenario expected by the MOD could still be conservative.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ep4w5j/british-military-prepares-for-climate-fueled-resource-shortagesRisk of Colorado River shortage is on the rise, could hit within 5 years, officials say
The risks of water shortages continue to grow along the Colorado River, which supplies about 40 million people from Wyoming to Arizona. Federal water managers released projections Tuesday showing higher odds of shortages occurring within the next five years. The Colorado River is in the 21st year of a severe drought that’s being compounded by hotter temperatures influenced by climate change, and the river’s flows have increasingly been insufficient to meet all the demands of cities and farms across the region ... the Bureau of Reclamation’s latest projections show that in a scenario of continuing drought between now and 2025, the chances of Lake Mead falling into a shortage has increased to nearly 80% ... Water deliveries were reduced last year to Arizona and Nevada under those states’ agreement with California ... Arizona gets nearly 40% of its water from the Colorado River. The state will see its water take reduced by 6.9% of its total allotment for a second year in 2021.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environment/2020/09/16/risks-water-shortage-loom-along-colorado-river-officials-warn/5804337002/Russia’s permafrost is melting
A large share of Russia’s oil, gas, diamonds and metals are produced in cities that sit on the permafrost. And thousands of kilometres of roads, rails and pipelines could sink into a bog, while some of the buildings and processing plants will simply fall over if the ground melts ... these regions are key to Russia’s economy, producing the bulk of its raw materials that account for almost half of the country’s GDP ... The total value of all these fixed assets – buildings, factories, pipelines, roads, etc. – in just the nine most at risk regions is $1.29 trillion, or about 17% of Russia’s entire fixed assets [and] about a sixth are in immediate danger from the subsidence of the ground if it melts ... [plus] there is some 1 trillion tonnes of CO2 locked up in the permafrost [and] if the ground temperature reaches zero degrees then all that CO2 gas could be released ... Permafrost occupies nearly 65% of the territory of the Russian Federation.
https://www.intellinews.com/russia-s-permafrost-is-melting-190398/Ice shelves propping up two major Antarctic glaciers are breaking up and it could have major consequences for sea level rise
The Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers, which sit side by side in West Antarctica on the Amundsen Sea, are among the fastest changing glaciers in the region, already accounting for 5% of global sea level rise. Scientists say the glaciers are highly sensitive to climate change. A new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, found that the glaciers are weakening at their foundations and this damage over the past few decades is speeding up their retreat and the possible future collapse of their ice shelves ... damage sped up dramatically in 2016. Similarly, the damage to Thwaites Glacier began moving further upstream in 2016 and fractures rapidly started opening up near the glacier's grounding line ... the process is creating a feedback loop -- where the weakening ice shelf is speeding up the damage to the glacier's vulnerable shear margins, which in turn leads to more damage and disintegration of the ice shelf ... These recent findings from Antarctica show that the glaciers are "weakening from all angles," Lhermitte said.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/15/weather/antarctica-pine-island-thwaites-glacier-climate-intl-hnk/index.htmlHuge cavities threaten glacier larger than Great Britain
British scientists have mapped cavities half the size of the Grand Canyon that are allowing warm ocean water to erode the vast Thwaites glacier in the Antarctic, accelerating the rise of sea levels across the world. Like decay in a tooth, the channels of warm water are melting the ice from below, threatening the stability of a glacier that is larger than Great Britain ... The results were published this week in the Cryosphere journal ... Over the past 30 years, ice loss from Thwaites and its neighbouring glaciers has increased more than fivefold.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/09/cavities-threaten-glacier-great-britain-thwaitesThe Arctic Is Shifting to a New Climate Because of Global Warming
The effects of global warming in the Arctic are so severe that the region is shifting to a different climate, one characterized less by ice and snow and more by open water and rain, scientists said Monday. Already, they said, sea ice in the Arctic has declined so much that even an extremely cold year would not result in as much ice as was typical decades ago. Two other characteristics of the region’s climate, seasonal air temperatures and the number of days of rain instead of snow, are shifting in the same way ... sea ice has declined by about 12 percent per decade since satellite measurements began in the late 1970s, and the 13 lowest sea-ice years have all occurred since 2007 ... scientists have known for a long time that fundamental changes were occurring in the region. “We know what used to be,” Dr. Kay said. “We call it the ‘new Arctic’ because it’s not the same.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/14/climate/arctic-changing-climate.htmlProPublica/NY Times: Climate Change Will Force a New American Migration
Across the United States, some 162 million people - nearly 1 in 2 - will most likely experience a decline in the quality of their environment, namely more heat and less water ... Policymakers, having left America unprepared for what’s next, now face brutal choices about which communities to save - often at exorbitant costs - and which to sacrifice ... At least 28 million Americans are likely to face megafires like the ones we are now seeing in California, in places like Texas and Florida and Georgia. At the same time, 100 million Americans - largely in the Mississippi River Basin from Louisiana to Wisconsin - will increasingly face humidity so extreme that working outside or playing school sports could cause heatstroke. Crop yields will be decimated from Texas to Alabama and all the way north through Oklahoma and Kansas and into Nebraska ... From Maine to North Carolina to Texas, rising sea levels are not just chewing up shorelines but also raising rivers and swamping the subterranean infrastructure of coastal communities, making a stable life there all but impossible ... even far inland, saltwater will seep into underground drinking-water supplies ... Hurricane Andrew reduced parts of [Florida] cities to landfill and cost insurers nearly $16 billion in payouts. Many insurance companies, recognizing the likelihood that it would happen again, declined to renew policies and left the state. So the Florida Legislature created a state-run company to insure properties itself, preventing both an exodus and an economic collapse by essentially pretending that the climate vulnerabilities didn't exist. As a result, Florida’s taxpayers by 2012 had assumed liabilities worth some $511 billion - more than seven times the state’s total budget ... in Santa Rosa [California], houses are being rebuilt in the very same wildfire-vulnerable zones that proved so deadly in 2017 ... 70% more buildings in the United States were vulnerable to flood risk than previously thought ... a new class of dangerous debt - climate-distressed mortgage loans - might already be threatening the financial system. Lending data analyzed by Keenan and his co-author, Jacob Bradt, for a study published in the journal Climatic Change in June shows that small banks are liberally making loans on environmentally threatened homes, but then quickly passing them along to federal mortgage backers. At the same time, they have all but stopped lending money for the higher-end properties worth too much for the government to accept, suggesting that the banks are knowingly passing climate liabilities along to taxpayers as stranded assets. Once home values begin a one-way plummet, it’s easy for economists to see how entire communities spin out of control ... A Dust Bowl event will most likely happen again. Crop yields will drop sharply with every degree of warming ... the future looks like this: With time, the bottom half of the country grows inhospitable, dangerous and hot. Something like a tenth of the people who live in the South and the Southwest - from South Carolina to Alabama to Texas to Southern California - decide to move north in search of a better economy and a more temperate environment. Those who stay behind are disproportionately poor and elderly ... The most affected people, meanwhile, will pay 20% more for energy, and their crops will yield half as much food or in some cases virtually none at all. That collective burden will drag down regional incomes by roughly 10%, amounting to one of the largest transfers of wealth in American history, as people who live farther north will benefit from that change and see their fortunes rise. The millions of people moving north will mostly head to the cities of the Northeast and Northwest.
https://www.propublica.org/article/climate-change-will-force-a-new-american-migration
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/15/magazine/climate-crisis-migration-america.htmlNew Climate Maps Show a Transformed United States [with table of all US counties ranked by climate risk]
Under even a moderate carbon emissions scenario (known as RCP 4.5), by 2070 much of the Southeast becomes less suitable and the [habitability] niche shifts toward the Midwest. In the case of extreme warming (represented as RCP 8.5), the niche moves sharply toward Canada, leaving much of the lower half of the U.S. too hot or dry for the type of climate humans historically have lived in. Both scenarios suggest massive upheavals in where Americans currently live and grow food ... under the RCP 8.5 scenario, between 2040 and 2060 extreme temperatures will become commonplace in the South and Southwest ... humidity and heat will collide to form “wetbulb” temperatures that will disrupt the norms of daily existence ... by 2050, parts of the Midwest and Louisiana could see conditions that make it difficult for the human body to cool itself for nearly one out of every 20 days in the year ... some parts of the U.S. will see a number of issues stack on top of one another.
https://projects.propublica.org/climate-migration/Summer was hottest on record in Northern Hemisphere
The Northern Hemisphere experienced its warmest summer on record, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said on Monday ... surpassing both 2019 and 2016 which were previously tied for hottest, the NOAA said in a statement ... For the world as a whole, it was the second-hottest August in the 141-year record behind August 2016. "Globally, the 10 warmest Augusts have all occurred since 1998 — with the five warmest occurring since 2015," the NOAA added.
https://www.euronews.com/2020/09/14/summer-was-hottest-on-record-in-northern-hemisphere
see also https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/northern-hemisphere-summer-was-hottest-record-scientists-say-n1240049World fails to meet a single target to stop destruction of nature – UN report
The world has failed to meet a single target to stem the destruction of wildlife and life-sustaining ecosystems in the last decade, according to a devastating new report from the UN on the state of nature ... The Global Biodiversity Outlook 5, published before a key UN summit on the issue later this month, found that despite progress in some areas, natural habitats have continued to disappear, vast numbers of species remain threatened by extinction from human activities, and $500bn (£388bn) of environmentally damaging government subsidies have not been eliminated.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/15/every-global-target-to-stem-destruction-of-nature-by-2020-missed-un-report-aoe
see also https://www.dw.com/en/global-biodiversity-outlook-targets-extinction/a-54932895Arctic sea ice melt marks a new polar climate regime
From the deck of a research ship under a bright, clear sky, “ice pilot” Paul Ruzycki mused over how quickly the region was changing since he began helping ships spot and navigate between icebergs in 1996. “Not so long ago, I heard that we had 100 years before the Arctic would be ice free in the summer,” he said. “Then I heard 75 years, 25 years, and just recently I heard 15 years. It’s accelerating” ... the long-frozen region is already shifting to an entirely new climate regime, marked by the escalating trends in ice melt, temperature rise and rainfall days, according to new research published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change. Those findings, climate scientist Laura Landrum said, were “unnerving.” All three variables — sea ice, temperatures and rainfall — are now being measured well beyond the range of past observations. That makes the future of the Arctic more of a mystery. “The new climate can’t be predicted by the previous climate,” Landrum explained.
https://www.arctictoday.com/arctic-sea-ice-melt-marks-a-new-polar-climate-regime/Will Extreme Weather Keep Getting Worse? Scientists Say Yes.
One by one, climate and disaster records and milestones have been shattered in 2020 ... Scientists and climate experts resoundingly agree that we're likely to see more years like 2020, with more intense, destructive and deadly weather events. "These are all things we should expect to see more and more of as climate change takes a deeper hold on our climate and on the extremities that it creates in our weather," Jeff Schlegelmilch, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University [said]. These extremes are being driven by temperature increases brought on by global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions. Things like heat, drought and fire are especially influenced by climate change ... Many of the phenomena happening now have been predicted for years by agencies like NASA, NOAA and the United Nations, as well as researchers and scientists around the world ... "It seems like this is what we always were talking about a decade ago," North Carolina State climatologist Kathie Dello told the Associated Press. "A lot of people want to blame it on 2020, but 2020 didn't do this" ... "It’s going to get a lot worse," Georgia Tech climate scientist Kim Cobb told the AP. "I say that with emphasis because it does challenge the imagination. And that’s the scary thing to know as a climate scientist in 2020."
https://weather.com/news/climate/news/2020-09-11-extreme-weather-climate-change-disasters-wildfires-flooding-hurricanesWarmth shatters section of Greenland ice shelf
A big chunk of ice has broken away from the Arctic's largest remaining ice shelf - 79N, or Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden - in north-east Greenland. The ejected section covers about 110 square km; satellite imagery shows it to have shattered into many small pieces. The loss is further evidence say scientists of the rapid climate changes taking place in Greenland.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54127279Heatwaves are becoming more deadly as nights warm faster than days
The U.S. this summer has experienced stifling hot temperatures that have set all-time records and put millions of people under excessive heat warnings ... The stifling heat is becoming more dangerous with climate change. One reason is because global heating is not occurring evenly: Lower nighttime temperatures that typically provide critical relief from the hot days are disappearing. Summer night temperatures are warmer now, and they are warming at a faster rate than daytime temperatures, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This marks a dangerous and potentially deadly combination of high daytime and high nighttime temperatures that doesn’t give the human body a chance to cool down during the night.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/12/climate-change-why-heatwaves-are-more-deadly-as-nights-warm-faster.htmlThe Arctic is burning like never before — and that’s bad news for climate change
Peatlands are carbon-rich soils that accumulate as waterlogged plants slowly decay, sometimes over thousands of years. They are the most carbon-dense ecosystems on Earth; a typical northern peatland packs in roughly ten times as much carbon as a boreal forest. When peat burns, it releases its ancient carbon to the atmosphere, adding to the heat-trapping gases that cause climate change. Nearly half the world’s peatland-stored carbon lies between 60 and 70 degrees north, along the Arctic Circle. The problem with this is that historically frozen carbon-rich soils are expected to thaw as the planet warms, making them even more vulnerable to wildfires and more likely to release large amounts of carbon ... peatlands, unlike boreal forest, do not regrow quickly after a fire, so the carbon released is permanently lost to the atmosphere ... the shift has already arrived, says Amber Soja, an environmental scientist who studies Arctic fires at the US National Institute of Aerospace in Hampton, Virginia. “What you would expect is already happening,” she says. “And in some cases faster than we would have expected.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02568-yEarth barreling toward 'Hothouse' state not seen in 50 million years
[The paper] details Earth's climate swings across the entire Cenozoic era — the 66 million-year period that began with the death of the dinosaurs and extends to the present epoch of human-induced climate change ... the current pace of anthropogenic global warming far exceeds the natural climate fluctuations ... human greenhouse gas emissions are causing temperatures to rise to an extent not seen in tens of millions of years. This rise is well beyond the natural variations triggered by Earth's changing orbit, the researchers concluded. And if current greenhouse emissions hold steady, the climate could skyrocket back to levels not seen since the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum [16C above modern levels].
https://www.livescience.com/oldest-climate-record-ever-cenozoic-era.html
see also https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-hasnt-warmed-this-fast-in-tens-of-millions-of-years/
reporting on a study at https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6509/1383Humans exploiting and destroying nature on unprecedented scale – report
Wildlife populations are in freefall around the world, driven by human overconsumption, population growth and intensive agriculture, according to a major new assessment of the abundance of life on Earth. On average, global populations of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles plunged by 68% between 1970 and 2016 ... The research is one of the most comprehensive assessments of global biodiversity available and was compiled by 134 experts from around the world. It found that from the rainforests of central America to the Pacific Ocean, nature is being exploited and destroyed by humans on a scale never previously recorded.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/10/humans-exploiting-and-destroying-nature-on-unprecedented-scale-report-aoeOcean carbon uptake widely underestimated
The world's oceans soak up more carbon than most scientific models suggest, according to new research. Previous estimates of the movement of carbon (known as "flux") between the atmosphere and oceans have not accounted for temperature differences at the water's surface and a few metres below. The new study, led by the University of Exeter, includes this—and finds significantly higher net flux of carbon into the oceans. It calculates CO2 fluxes from 1992 to 2018, finding up to twice as much net flux in certain times and locations, compared to uncorrected models.
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-ocean-carbon-uptake-widely-underestimated.htmlMassive release of methane gas from the seafloor discovered for the first time in the Southern Hemisphere
Gas hydrate is an ice-like substance formed by water and methane at depths of several hundred meters at the bottom of our oceans at high pressure and low temperatures. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, roughly 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide, and it is estimated that methane frozen in these sediments constitute the largest organic carbon reservoir on Earth. The fact that methane gas has now started leaking out through gas hydrate dissociation is not good news for the climate. "It has been estimated that there [is] more organic carbon in the form of methane in hydrates than in all fossil fuels combined. The leakage of methane could lead to a feedback loop in which the ocean warming melts gas hydrates resulting in the release of methane from the ocean floor into the water. The warmer it gets, the more methane leaks out," explains Marcelo Ketzer, professor of environmental science at Linnaeus University.
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-massive-methane-gas-seafloor-southern.htmlNew study reveals cracks beneath giant, methane gushing craters
A paper published in Science in 2017 described hundreds of massive, kilometer–wide, craters on the ocean floor in the Barents Sea. Today more than 600 gas flares are identified in and around these craters, releasing the greenhouse gas steadily into the water column. Another study, published in PNAS, mapped several methane mounds, some 500m wide, in the Barents Sea. The mounds were considered to be signs of soon-to-happen methane expulsions that have created the said craters. The most recent study in Scientific Reports looks into the depths far beneath the sediment in the ocean floor and reveals the geological structures that have made the area prone to crater formation and subsequent methane expulsions. “It turns out that this area has a very old fault system – essentially cracks in bedrock that likely formed 250 million years ago. Craters and mounds appear along different fault structures in this system. These structures control the size, placement, and shape of the craters. The methane that is leaking through the seafloor originates from these deep structures and is coming up through these cracks.”
https://cage.uit.no/2020/06/03/new-study-reveals-cracks-beneath-giant-methane-gushing-craters/Intense heat wave breaks numerous records, fuels dangerous fires across California
An intense heat wave broiled large swaths of California on Saturday, shattering numerous records, causing thousands to lose power and fueling several brush fires that were threatening communities from Yucaipa to the Sierra foothills ... The heat, combined with bone-dry conditions, helped several huge fires explode out of control Saturday, with firefighters struggling to keep up. A brush fire in the Sierra National Forest consumed more than 36,000 acres in just hours and threatened numerous mountain communities ... The new blazes came as 12,400 firefighters continued to fight 22 large fires that have together scorched more than 1.5 million acres since they were sparked by a series of dry lightning strikes last month. The National Weather Service has issued a red-flag warning, which indicates critical fire weather conditions ... “You never read very much about low temperature records ... Whenever there’s a record, it’s always a new high.”
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-09-05/heres-where-record-breaking-heat-is-forecastWildfires Hasten Another Climate Crisis: Homeowners Who Can’t Get Insurance
As wildfires burn homes across California, the state is also grappling with a different kind of climate predicament: How to stop insurers from abandoning fire-prone areas, leaving countless homeowners at risk. Years of megafires have caused huge losses for insurance companies, a problem so severe that, last year, California temporarily banned insurers from canceling policies on some 800,000 homes in or near risky parts of the state. However, that ban is about expire and can’t be renewed, and a recent plan to deal with the problem fell apart in a clash between insurers and consumer advocates. Insurers are widely expected to continue their retreat, potentially devastating the housing market if homes become essentially uninsurable. “The marketplace has largely collapsed” in those high-risk areas, said Graham Knaus, executive director of the California State Association of Counties, which has pushed state officials to address the problem. “It’s a very large geographic area of the state that is facing this.” The insurance crisis is making California a test case for the financial dangers of climate change nationwide, as wildfires, floods and other disasters create economic shocks well beyond the physical damage of the disasters themselves. Those changes have already started to affect home prices, the mortgage industry and the bond market ... data suggests that insurers have continued to drop customers ... there are physical and political limits to how much governments can do to reduce that risk, which means insurance will become more expensive. “It’s only going to get worse.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/climate/wildfires-insurance.htmlZombie fires spark record Arctic CO2 emissions
This summer’s carbon emissions from Arctic wildfires were a third higher than last year’s previous record levels, research suggests. The atmospheric monitoring service Copernicus says the fires which blazed during summer’s heatwaves are a cause for concern. They say some so-called zombie fires are smouldering through the winter in peat below the frozen surface. These underground fires then re-ignite surface vegetation in the Spring. This spells double trouble: not just CO2 emissions from the burning vegetation, but also from the peat which is naturally a store for CO2 ... "The Arctic is in meltdown. Large areas are burning in front of our eyes.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54013966Winter sea ice in Bering Sea reached lowest levels in millennia - study
The Bering Sea ice cover during the winters of 2018 and 2019 hit new lows not seen in thousands of years, scientists reported on Wednesday, adding to concerns about the accelerating impact of climate change in the Arctic ... the scientists were able to estimate atmospheric and ocean conditions that would have affected rainfall and sea ice over some 5,500 years, according to the study published in the journal Science Advances ... "Obviously, if we lose the sea ice you are completely changing the temperatures of the Arctic," said Julienne Stroeve, a climatologist with National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Boulder Colorado not involved in the study. "If you lose it all, you're going to warm up the region even faster" ... The study noted that changes in sea ice appeared to lag at least several decades behind changes in atmospheric greenhouse gases. That implies that the recent lows in winter sea ice were a response to greenhouse gas levels decades ago.
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/reuters/winter-sea-ice-in-bering-sea-reached-lowest-levels-in-millennia---study/46008626Canada endangered species face 'staggering losses'
Canadian wildlife at risk of extinction has undergone "staggering" losses over the past 50 years, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) conservation group says. In a report, the charity says that species at risk of global extinction have seen their Canadian populations fall by over 40% between 1970 and 2016. Populations of species that are at risk of extinction in Canada itself fell even more dramatically - by 59%. The report said human activity was mostly to blame.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54004835Queen of the Dolomites glacier could vanish within 15 years
The largest and most symbolic glacier in the Dolomites could vanish within 15 years because of global heating, Italian scientists have warned. The 3343m Marmolada, located on the border of the Trentino and Veneto regions and known as the Queen of the Dolomites, has already lost more than 80% of its volume over the last 70 years.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/01/marmolada-queen-of-dolomites-glacier-could-vanish-within-15-yearsIce Sheet Melting Is Perfectly in Line With Our Worst-Case Scenario, Scientists Warn
The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, which hold enough frozen water to lift oceans 65 metres, are tracking the UN's worst-case scenarios for sea level rise, researchers said Monday ... would have a devastating impact worldwide, increasing the destructive power of storm surges and exposing coastal regions home to hundreds of millions of people to repeated and severe flooding ... nearly three times more than mid-range projections from the IPCC's last major Assessment Report ... A new generation of climate models that better reflects how ice sheets, the oceans and the atmosphere interact will underpin the IPCC's next major report, which will be completed next year ... In another study published earlier this month in The Cryosphere, a journal of the European Geosciences Union, Slater and colleagues calculated that Earth's ice masses ... lost nearly 28 trillion tonnes of mass between 1994 and 2017 ... rate of ice loss, they found, has increased nearly 60 percent [during] that time period.
https://www.sciencealert.com/ice-sheet-melting-is-perfectly-in-line-with-our-worst-case-scenario-scientists-warn
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0893-yArctic wildfires emit 35% more CO2 so far in 2020 than for whole of 2019
The latest data, provided by the EU’s Copernicus atmosphere monitoring service, shows that up to 24 August 245 megatonnes of CO2 had been released from wildfires this year. The figure for the whole of last year was 181 megatonnes ... Dr Thomas Smith, assistant professor in environmental geography at the London School of Economics, said 2019 had already been an anomalous year in the Arctic circle. “We have seen two years of anomalously high activity” ... Smith also warned that some fires were destroying ancient peat bogs containing carbon that has accumulated over thousands of years, a process similar to fossil fuel burning. Analysis performed by Smith, covering May and June of this year, suggested that about 50% of the fires in the Arctic Circle were burning on peat soils.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/31/arctic-wildfires-emit-35-more-co2-so-far-in-2020-than-for-whole-of-2019Giant new 50-metre deep 'crater' opens up in Arctic tundra [many photos]
The recently-formed new hole or funnel is the latest to be seen in northern Siberia since the phenomenon was first registered in 2014. It was initially spotted by chance from the air by a Vesti Yamal TV crew en route from an unrelated assignment. A group of scientists then made an expedition to examine the large cylindrical crater which has a depth of up to 50 metres. Such funnels are believed to be caused by the build up of methane gas in pockets of thawing permafrost under the surface.
https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/giant-new-50-metre-deep-crater-opens-up-in-arctic-tundra/
see also https://phys.org/news/2020-06-methane-scientists-gaping-permafrost-crater.html
see also: similar hole on Mars https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200301.htmlRampant destruction of forests ‘will unleash more pandemics’
Rampant deforestation, uncontrolled expansion of farming and the building of mines in remote regions – as well as the exploitation of wild animals as sources of food, traditional medicines and exotic pets – are creating a “perfect storm” for the spillover of diseases from wildlife to people ... Almost a third of all emerging diseases have originated through the process of land use change ... five or six new epidemics a year could soon affect Earth’s population ... tens of millions of hectares of rainforest and other wild environments are being bulldozed every year to cultivate palm trees, farm cattle, extract oil and provide access to mines and mineral deposits. This leads to the widespread destruction of vegetation and wildlife that are hosts to countless species of viruses and bacteria, most unknown to science. Those microbes can then accidentally infect new hosts, such as humans and domestic livestock.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/30/rampant-destruction-of-forests-will-unleash-more-pandemicsEverything Is Unprecedented. Welcome To Your Hotter Earth
The upshot of climate change is that everyone alive is destined to experience unprecedented disasters. The most powerful hurricanes, the most intense wildfires, the most prolonged heat waves and the most frequent outbreaks of new diseases are all in our future. Records will be broken, again and again ... Climate scientist Camilo Mora of the University of Hawaii says if our collective future were a movie, this week would be the trailer. "There is not a single ending that is good," he says. "There's not going to be a happy ending to this movie." Mora was an author of a study examining all the effects of climate change. The researchers concluded that concurrent disasters will get more and more common as the Earth gets hotter.
https://www.kpcw.org/post/everything-unprecedented-welcome-your-hotter-earthHalf of Antarctic ice shelves could collapse in a flash, thanks to warming
At least half of the ice shelves on the continent are vulnerable to this process, a new study suggests. These floating ice sheets ring Antarctica's glaciers and prevent them from sliding into the ocean. Without these icy barriers, glaciers would flow more quickly into the water, causing the continent to shrink and accelerating sea level rise. The new study, published today (Aug. 26) in the journal Nature, suggests that about 50% to 70% of ice shelves that hold Antarctic glaciers in place could become weak and potentially collapse with surges of meltwater ... The melt water "can punch through the ice to the ocean in a matter of minutes to hours, as long as there's enough water available to keep on filling the crevasse and keep up the pressure," Dow said. "The crack in the ice then fills up with ocean water," and the shelf may begin to break apart ... some scientists predict that climate change may drive massive hydrofracturing events within a matter of decades, according to a 2015 report in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
https://www.livescience.com/antarctic-ice-shelf-cracks-melting.htmlMeltwater may fracture Antarctic ice shelves and speed sea level rise
Almost two-thirds of the ice shelves crucial to stopping the collapse of Antarctica’s ice sheets are at risk of fracturing by water, according to an analysis that warns of “major consequences” for sea level rise from the vulnerability. Most of the continent’s ice is held back from the ocean by buttressing, floating tongues, known as ice shelves. These are melting from below due to warming oceans, but scientists are also striving to better understand how meltwater on top of the shelves affects them.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2252946-meltwater-may-fracture-antarctic-ice-shelves-and-speed-sea-level-rise/Growing underwater heat blob speeds demise of Arctic sea ice
Summer ice covers half the area it did in the 1980s, and because it is thinner, its volume is down 75%. With the Arctic warming three times faster than the global average, most scientists grimly acknowledge the inevitability of ice-free summers ... Unlike the Atlantic or Pacific oceans, the Arctic gets warmer as it gets deeper ... at greater depths sits a warm blob of salty Atlantic water, thought to be safely separated from the sea ice. As the reflective ice melts, however, it is replaced by darker water, which absorbs more of the Sun’s energy and warms. Those warming surface waters are likely migrating down into the blob ... With enough heat to melt the Arctic’s ice three to four times over, the blob could devour the ice from below [as] the blob, usually found 150 meters below or deeper, has recently moved up to within 80 meters of the surface ... “This heat has become, regionally, the key forcing for sea ice decay” ... The invasion shows no sign of stopping.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/growing-underwater-heat-blob-speeds-demise-arctic-sea-iceIce melting fast below East Antarctica's Shirase Glacier tongue
Scientists from Hokkaido University identified an unusual hot-spot of sub-glacier melting in East Antarctica. Their findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, could further understandings and predictions of sea level rise caused by mass loss of ice sheets from the southernmost continent ... "Our data suggests that the ice directly beneath the Shirase Glacier Tongue is melting at a rate of seven to 16 meters (23 - 52 feet) per year," says Assistant Professor Daisuke Hirano of Hokkaido University's Institute of Low Temperature Science ... "This is equal to or perhaps even surpasses the melting rate underneath the Totten Ice Shelf, which was thought to be experiencing the highest melting rate in East Antarctica."
http://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-and-science/science/ice-melting-fast-below-east-antarctica-s-shirase-glacier-tongue/article/576847Species 'pushed out of the tropics' by climate change
The world's tropical regions are home to the widest range of plants and animals, but research from The University of Queensland reveals that climate change is pushing species away, and fast ... 69 percent of the tropical species show, on average, negative responses to temperature increases ... "Waterbirds can be observed relatively easily, offering an early proxy for climate change impacts on other species. They help us assess the status of biodiversity in wetland ecosystems, which has been lost at higher rates than other ecosystems." Dr. Amano said he hoped this evidence would help strengthen the case for real action on a warming climate. The research has been published in Nature Climate Change.
https://phys.org/news/2020-08-species-tropics-climate.htmlClimate change is causing more rain in the North. That’s bad news for permafrost
“Thawing is happening even faster than we thought,” said Thomas Douglas, an environmental engineer with the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory and lead author of the study. “We’ve had these crazy wet summers. It’s gonna be bad for permafrost.” The study, published in Nature’s Climate and Atmospheric Science journal, found that between 0.6 and 0.8 centimetres of permafrost thawed for every centimetre of above-average rainfall in Alaska between 2013 and 2017.
https://thenarwhal.ca/climate-change-rain-arctic-permafrost-thaw/Greenland's ice sheet melted away at record levels in 2019, scientists fear it will continue
Greenland's ice sheet lost a record amount of mass in 2019 ... That loss of 532 gigatonnes of ice — equivalent to about 66 tonnes of ice for each person on Earth — was 15 per cent more than the previous record in 2012. [Greenland's ice] holds enough water to raise sea levels by at least 6 metres if it were to melt away entirely. The study added to evidence that Greenland's icy bulk has been melting more quickly than anticipated due to global warming. Another study last week indicated the island was no longer getting enough annual snowfall to replace ice lost to melting and calving at the edges of glaciers.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-21/study-finds-greenlands-ice-sheet-saw-record-mass-loss-in-2019/12581428Pliocene and Eocene provide best analogs for near-future climates
We compare climates of the coming decades with climates drawn from six geological and historical periods spanning the past 50 million years. Our study suggests that climates like those of the Pliocene will prevail as soon as 2030 CE and persist under climate stabilization scenarios. Unmitigated scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions produce climates like those of the Eocene ... mean global surface temperature is expected to rise by 0.3 °C to 4.8 °C relative to 1986–2005 CE averages.
https://www.pnas.org/content/115/52/13288Mark Lynas’s ‘Final warning’ on climate: ‘It’s all on us, here, now,’ says reviewer
The motto for 21st-century climate science might be, “That happened faster than I expected” ... Lynas’s essential new book, Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency (HarperCollins-Fourth Estate, 2020) [is] an update of his 2007 book Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, also a must-read for anyone concerned about the future of our civilization and our planet. Both books give us a ladder of chapters, each reporting findings for what scientists expect to happen at a given level of global warming. Lynas starts with one degree above pre-industrial temperatures, a level not reached in 2007 but passed in 2016. He continues through two, three ... up to six degrees, a planet so catastrophically different from the present that science can barely imagine it ... In his 2007 chapter on three degrees of warming, Lynas wrote about monster storms. A fine writer, he brought the science alive with a vivid description of an imaginary 2045 hurricane dumping enormous amounts of rain on – well, a random American city, he picked Houston. In his present book, he repeats the description, now moved up to the one-degree chapter, to remind us of what already happened in 2017 when hurricane Harvey devastated Houston ... at three degrees above our grandparents’ climate, it’s hard to see how the world could sustain a broadly prosperous and tolerant civilization such as many now enjoy. At four degrees, maintaining any kind of civilization at all becomes problematic. And it’s more likely than not that today’s young people will experience such global temperatures (or worse) in their lifetimes ... The world has temporized for so long that decisive action must begin – ahem, twenty years ago ... even if nations all meet their pledges for the Paris Climate Agreement (which few of them are doing), our destiny is three degrees or more ... It sounds like we’ve wandered into a science-fiction movie. But it’s just geophysics.
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/08/mark-lynas-final-warning-on-climate-its-all-on-us-here-now/Colorado Wildfires Are Climate Change ‘In The Here And Now’ — And A Sign Of Summers To Come
So far, 2020 is Colorado’s third driest year on record and the 12th warmest, according to the state climatologist. Nearly a fourth of the state is in an extreme drought, and more than 175,000 acres have burned this summer ... Colorado climate scientists say we should expect more summers like these, and worse if carbon emissions aren’t reduced. “What we're seeing here is indicative of the fact that when the hot, dry years come around, they're hotter than most of the time when they've occurred in the past,” state climatologist Russ Schumacher said. “And that's pretty well in line with what climate projections have been saying for some time. ... the frequency of these kinds of summers where we get in these hot, dry conditions is probably going to increase. When the pattern sets up for these hot, dry periods of time, they're going to be more intense.”
https://www.cpr.org/2020/08/20/colorado-wildfires-climate-change-drought-snowpack/Warming Greenland ice sheet passes point of no return
Nearly 40 years of satellite data from Greenland shows that glaciers on the island have shrunk so much that even if global warming were to stop today, the ice sheet would continue shrinking. The finding, published in the journal Nature Communications Earth and Environment, means that Greenland's glaciers have passed a tipping point ... Before 2000, the ice sheet would have about the same chance to gain or lose mass each year. In the current climate, the ice sheet will gain mass in only one out of every 100 years ... even if humans were somehow miraculously able to stop climate change in its tracks, ice lost from glaciers draining ice to the ocean would likely still exceed ice gained from snow accumulation, and the ice sheet would continue to shrink.
https://phys.org/news/2020-08-greenland-ice-sheet.htmlExpedition shares scary photos from the North Pole
Loose and weak ice with lots of melt ponds, partly open water, and no signs of multiyear ice. The powerful photos from the MOSAiC expedition reaching the North Pole on August 19 show the dramatic impact of climate changes
The expedition ship Polarstern sailed from the northern Fram Strait between Greenland and Svalbard to the North Pole this week. “I’m very surprised to see how soft and easy to traverse the ice up to 88° North is this year, having thawed to the point of being thin and porous,” said Captain Thomas Wunderlich. “Even after passing 88° North we mostly maintained a speed of 5-7 knots; I’ve never seen that so far north,” the Polarstern captain said. “The current situation is historic.” ... The MOSAiC expedition is the largest science voyage into polar waters in history. Hundreds of researchers from 20 countries are involved gathering data aimed at getting a much better understanding of the Arctic climate impact ... A study published last week in the journal Nature Climate Change could tell the serious negative path for Arctic summer sea ice. The study points to exactly what can be seen on the photos from this August’s MOSAiC voyage.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/2020/08/mosaic-climate-expedition-shares-scary-photos-north-poleCalifornia’s Heat Wave Just Set a Global Temperature Record
It was a California weekend for the history books, adding to 2020’s global tally of extremes — including fires, heatwaves and tropical storms. This year has arguably offered a glimpse into the future of our climate-changed world. But as far as the Golden State is concerned, that future may be here — now. “These are things we have in the projections for mid-century, not 2020,” said Nik Steinberg, head of research at Moody’s Four Twenty Seven, an analytics company that provides climate risk assessments for business and government. “They are becoming part of the norm and happening much quicker than anticipated” ... These weather patterns are likely to be more common as the jet stream, that river of air that circles the globe, becomes weaker. Why is it weakening? The difference between summer temperatures at the equator and the North Pole is shrinking ... “Climate change is catching up to us,” Moody’s Steinberg said. “There is no denying that.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-18/californians-sweat-in-the-dark-underneath-a-weakened-jet-streamAntarctica’s Ice Shelves Have Lost Millions of Metric Tons of Ice
Antarctic ice shelves have lost nearly 4 trillion metric tons of ice since the mid-1990s, scientists say. Ocean water is melting them from the bottom up, causing them to lose mass faster than they can refreeze. That's according to a new study analyzing satellite data from 1994 to 2018. The results were published yesterday in the journal Nature Geoscience. That spells bad news for the hundreds of glaciers spread out along the Antarctic coastline ... Research suggests that the continent is losing billions of tons of ice each year.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/antarcticas-ice-shelves-have-lost-millions-of-metric-tons-of-ice/Warming Tropical Soil Emits Unexpectedly Large Amounts of CO2, New Study Finds
One of the concerns about a warming planet is the feedback loop that will emerge. That is, as the planet warms, it will melt permafrost, which will release trapped carbon and lead to more warming and more melting. Now, a new study has shown that the feedback loop won't only happen in the nether regions of the north and south, but in the tropics as well, according to a new paper in Nature ... When they heated the soil 4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, they found that the soil released 55 percent more carbon dioxide than the control soil.
https://www.ecowatch.com/tropical-soil-warming-carbon-emissions-2646968008.htmlScientists mapped the world’s frozen peatlands – what they found was very worrying
Large areas of perennially frozen (permafrost) peatlands are thawing, causing them to rapidly release the freeze-locked carbon back into the atmosphere ... peatlands cover approximately 3.7 million square kilometres [and store as much carbon] as is stored in all the world’s forests and trees together ... There are no geoengineering solutions that can be deployed in these vast and remote areas.
https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/map-frozen-peatlands-023432/Last decade was Earth's hottest on record as climate crisis accelerates
Every decade since 1980 has been warmer than the preceding decade, with the period between 2010 and 2019 the hottest yet ... The increase in average global temperature is rapidly gathering pace ... The past six years, 2014 to 2019, have been the warmest since global records began, a period that has included enormous heatwaves in the US, Europe and India, freakishly hot temperatures in the Arctic, and deadly wildfires ... The report, compiled by 520 scientists from more than 60 countries and published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, outlines the myriad ways that rising temperatures are altering the planet and human life.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/12/hottest-decade-climate-crisis-2019New study warns: We have underestimated the pace at which the Arctic is melting
Temperatures in the Arctic Ocean between Canada, Russia and Europe are warming faster than researchers' climate models have been able to predict [is] the conclusion of a new study published in Nature Climate Change ... "we have been clearly underestimating the rate of temperature increases in the atmosphere nearest to the sea level, which has ultimately caused sea ice to disappear faster than we had anticipated," explains Jens Hesselbjerg Christensen, a professor at the University of Copenhagen's Niels Bohr Institutet (NBI) and one of the study's researchers ... Until now, climate models predicted that Arctic temperatures would increase slowly and in a stable manner. However, the researchers' analysis demonstrates that these changes are moving along at a much faster pace than expected.
https://phys.org/news/2020-08-underestimated-pace-arctic.htmlNASA/NOAA Satellites Observe Surprisingly Rapid Increase in Scale and Intensity of Fires in Siberia
Abnormally warm temperatures have spawned an intense fire season in eastern Siberia this summer ... around half of the fires in Arctic Russia this year are burning through areas with peat soil—decomposed organic matter that is a large natural carbon source. Warm temperatures (such as the record-breaking heatwave in June) can thaw and dry frozen peatlands, making them highly flammable. Peat fires can burn longer than forest fires and release vast amounts of carbon into the atmosphere ... fires in Arctic Russia released more carbon dioxide (CO2) in June and July 2020 alone than in any complete fire season.
https://scitechdaily.com/nasa-noaa-satellites-observe-surprisingly-rapid-increase-in-scale-and-intensity-of-fires-in-siberia/Pools of Water Atop Sea Ice in the Arctic May Lead it to Melt Away Sooner Than Expected
The thickening atmospheric stew of greenhouse gases is punching holes in Arctic sea ice, leading it to crumble at a rapidly increasing rate. Last spring, ponds of meltwater on the ice sped the melting of the glossy shield that reflects incoming heat from the sun back to space. By July, the ice had dwindled to a record low extent for that month ... The loss of sea ice buffers is probably also speeding up the melting of land-based ice sheets and glaciers that flow into the ocean.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/10082020/arctic-sea-ice-melt-pools-warming-climateWhile we fixate on coronavirus, Earth is hurtling towards a catastrophe worse than the dinosaur extinction
Before industrial times began at the end of the 18th century, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere sat at around 300 parts per million ... In February [2020] atmospheric carbon dioxide reached 414.1 parts per million. Total greenhouse gas level – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide combined – reached almost 500 parts per million of carbon dioxide-equivalent ... annual carbon dioxide emissions are now faster than after both the asteroid impact that eradicated the dinosaurs (about 0.18 parts per million CO2 per year), and the thermal maximum 55 million years ago (about 0.11 parts per million CO2 per year).
https://theconversation.com/while-we-fixate-on-coronavirus-earth-is-hurtling-towards-a-catastrophe-worse-than-the-dinosaur-extinction-130869NOAA's Annual Greenhouse Gas Index (AGGI)
The AGGI in 2019 was 1.45, which means that we’ve turned up the warming influence by 45% since 1990. It took ~240 years for the AGGI to go from 0 to 1, i.e., to reach 100%, and 29 years for it to increase by another 45%. In terms of CO2 equivalents, the atmosphere in 2019 contained 500 ppm, of which 410 is CO2 alone. The rest comes from other gases.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/Trends in global CO2 and total greenhouse gas emissions
In 2018, the growth in total global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (excluding those from land-use change) resumed at a rate of 2.0% ... emissions of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) increased by 1.8% and 0.8%, respectively. Global emissions of fluorinated gases (so-called F-gases) continued to grow by an estimated 6% in 2018, thereby also contributing to the 2.0% growth in total GHG emissions.
https://www.pbl.nl/sites/default/files/downloads/pbl-2020-trends-in-global-co2-and-total-greenhouse-gas-emissions-2019-report_4068.pdfThe next virus pandemic is not far away
Scientists blame the increase in the spillover of pathogens from animals on two trends: rapid globalisation and humanity’s cavalier interaction with nature. This means disease outbreaks and pandemics are likely to emerge regularly unless the trends can be checked or reversed, they warn. “The coronavirus pandemic is completely unsurprising,” said Aaron Bernstein, director of the Center for Climate, Health and Global Environment at Harvard University. “We knew before this happened that two-thirds, if not three-quarters, of emerging infections were occurring because of the spillover of pathogens from wild animals into people.” Dr Bernstein said the primary reason for the crossover was the change in how people engaged with nature, such as rapid deforestation and the global wildlife trade ... Construction of logging roads to extract timber created access to deeply forested areas previously largely untouched by humans, bringing them into contact with disease-carrying wildlife. Displacement of animals that lived in those forests also forced them to find new habitats, increasing the chance of them spreading pathogens to other species, including humans ... “Knowing the frequency with which new viruses are occurring and what climate change does to animal ecosystems, it’s safe to assume we’re likely to have more of these,” said Helene Gayle, chief executive of the Chicago Community Trust and a former government health official at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
https://www.ft.com/content/dc33f21b-740f-4be8-9947-b47439f557d2Extreme droughts in central Europe likely to increase sevenfold
Extreme droughts are likely to become much more frequent across central Europe, and if global greenhouse gas emissions rise strongly they could happen seven times more often, new research has shown. The area of crops likely to be affected by drought is also set to increase, and under sharply rising CO2 levels would nearly double in central Europe... The paper is published on Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports. The study adds to an increasing body of research showing the impacts of global heating on Europe. Previous studies have suggested that southern and central Europe will experience more drought, with one study projecting that European cities will become much hotter, with London forecast to have a climate more like Barcelona by 2050 and southern and central European cities seeing more extreme levels of heat.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/06/co2-extreme-droughts-in-central-europe-likely-to-increase-seven-foldNew Zealand's melting glaciers show the human fingerprints of climate change
New research just published in the journal Nature Climate Change has found that extreme melting of the country’s glaciers in 2018 was at least ten times more likely to have happened because of human-caused global heating. Loss of ice across New Zealand’s glaciers in 2011, which was another extreme melt year, was six times more likely because of the planet’s warming, the study found, caused by an accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere mostly from burning fossil fuels ... “When I started as a glaciologist I thought things happened slowly but this was like taking a laser gun and just taking out all the snow and ice … it points to a bleak future for glaciers.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/04/theres-still-a-choice-new-zealands-melting-glaciers-show-the-human-fingerprints-of-climate-changeThe Worst-Case Scenario for Global Warming Tracks Closely With Actual Emissions
[A] new study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences argues that the high-end projection for greenhouse gas concentrations is still the most realistic for planning purposes through at least 2050, because it comes closest to capturing the effects "of both historical emissions and anticipated outcomes of current global climate policies, tracking within 1 percent of actual emissions" ... The worst-case pathway (RCP 8.5) would result in warming of more than 8 degrees Fahrenheit (4.3 Celsius) by 2100, probably killing nearly all the world's reefs and definitely pushing vast areas of polar ice sheets to melt ... "What happened over the last 15 years has been about exactly right compared to what was projected by RCP 8.5" ... the study grew out of some work his research institution was doing with the McKinsey Global Institute exploring the socioeconomic consequences of global warming out to about 2040 or 2050.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03082020/climate-change-scenarios-emissions
reporting on a study at https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/07/30/2007117117Canada's last intact Arctic ice shelf collapses, losing 40% of area in two days
The last fully intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic has collapsed, losing more than 40 percent of its area in just two days at the end of July, researchers said Thursday ... “Entire cities are that size. These are big pieces of ice,” said Luke Copland, a glaciologist at the University of Ottawa who was part of the research team studying the Milne Ice Shelf. The shelf’s area shrank by about 80 square kilometers. By comparison, the island of Manhattan in New York covers roughly 60 square kilometers ... “We saw them going, like someone with terminal cancer. It was only a matter of time,” said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/08/07/world/science-health-world/canada-arctic-ice-shelf/Peat fires, like those raging in Siberia, will become more common in Canada
The notion of wildfires in Siberia, an area known for its blustery, snow-capped landscapes, seems counterintuitive. The recent blazes have been driven by a record heat wave in the Russian Arctic, but ... they're actually peat fires, a natural phenomenon that scientists have only recently begun to understand ... Peat, the moist, mossy substance that covers the ground in most Arctic ecosystems and Canadian boreal forests, is made up of decomposing biomass from plants, animals and microbes ... "For thousands of years, [peat] has been a natural stockpile of carbon — removing carbon and keeping it out of the atmosphere" ... But as a result of climate change, peatlands are becoming hotter and drier, and thus more susceptible to the type of blazes we're witnessing in Siberia ... Peat fires not only release CO2, but other, more potent greenhouse gases such as methane ... A study published earlier this year in the journal Nature showed that peatlands in Canada are drying up ... peat fires happen largely underground [so] can be "very hard to extinguish ... can creep underground and pop back up along your control lines."
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/whatonearth/peat-fires-like-those-raging-in-siberia-will-become-more-common-in-canada-1.5670662Hot ocean waters along East Coast are drawing in ‘weird’ fish and supercharging hurricane season
Ocean temperatures along the East Coast are near or above their warmest levels on record for this time of year ... helping to fuel the busiest Atlantic hurricane season on record ... Due to human-caused buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, marine heat waves have increased dramatically ... oceans are absorbing the vast majority of the extra heat pumped into the climate by the highest levels of greenhouse gases in human history, and marine heat waves and altered ocean currents are just some of the consequences ... Warm waters are oozing north farther than they have in modern records, says Kris Karnauskas, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Colorado [who] showed that water temperatures as high as 82F (28C) were about as far north as they've been since such data began in 1982. This is just above the temperature threshold for fueling and sustaining hurricanes [and] are fueling what is the most active hurricane season on record to date.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/07/31/marine-heat-wave-hurricanes/Extensive gas leaks in the North Sea: Abandoned wells
At abandoned oil and gas wells in the North Sea, considerable quantities of the potent greenhouse gas methane escape uncontrolled into the water. These leaks account for the dominant part of the total methane budget of the North Sea.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200730113055.htmFears grow for Brazilian Amazon after thousands of fires in July
The number of forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon rose 28% last month compared to July 2019 ... even more worrying for researchers because 2019 was a devastating year for the Amazon, provoking protests around the world ... Bolsonaro administration has cut the budget, staff and programmes of Brazil's environmental agency, Ibama. “Everything that worked was thrown out the window,” Erika Berenguer, an ecologist specialising in the Amazon who does research at the universities of Oxford and Lancaster, told AFP.
https://www.euronews.com/2020/08/02/fears-grow-for-brazilian-amazon-as-thousands-of-fires-burn-in-julyAlaska Enveloped in Siberia Wildfire Smoke as Heatwave Causes Irreversible Damage to Permafrost
The damage being caused by Siberia's ongoing heatwave may be causing irreversible damage to the landscape, causing the loss of permafrost that in some cases has been frozen for thousands of years. The heatwave, which has lasted for months, has exacerbated the wildfires burned across the country. Greenpeace Russia estimates that over 19 million hectares of land has now burned since the start of the year—equivalent to an area bigger than Greece. On Monday, Russia's state run news agency Tass said the area of forest on fire has more than doubled in a week ... Siberia's latest heatwave has been attributed to climate change. A report published earlier this month found anthropogenic warming had made the prolonged heat 600 times more likely.
https://www.newsweek.com/alaska-smoke-siberia-fire-permafrost-damage-1521711'Everything is burning': Argentina's delta fires rage out of control
A raging fire described as “completely out of control” is threatening one of South America’s major wetland ecosystems. The fire has been burning for months now, and is visible from the balconies of luxury apartments along the shoreline of the Paraná River in Argentina’s central city of Rosario ... “Everything is burning, it’s completely out of control ... Once a fire reaches that scale, it becomes virtually impossible to stop.” The Paraná is South America’s second largest river after the Amazon and the eighth longest river in the world ... the real problem is that 2020 has been one of the driest of recent years.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/30/argentina-delta-fires-rage-out-of-control-parana-riverLoss of bees causes shortage of key food crops, study finds
Of seven studied crops grown in 13 states across America, five showed evidence that a lack of bees is hampering the amount of food that can be grown ... researchers found that wild native bees contributed a surprisingly large portion of the pollination despite operating in intensively farmed areas largely denuded of the vegetation that supports them. Wild bees are often more effective pollinators than honeybees but research has shown several species are in sharp decline ... as farming becomes more intensive to churn out greater volumes to feed a growing global population, tactics such as flattening wildflower meadows, spraying large amounts of insecticide and planting monocultural fields of single crops are damaging the bee populations crucial for crop pollination.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/29/bees-food-crops-shortage-studyA Front-Row Seat for the Arctic’s Final Summers With Ice
Scientists are certain that the Arctic ice is disappearing. The shrinking ice cap accelerates warming globally ... Nearly every dramatic, headline-grabbing effect of climate change, from alarming coastal erosion to intense and frequent fires, is already happening in the Arctic, at a fast pace and at a giant magnitude ... only two or three decades ago the summer navigation period in the Russian Arctic lasted just 80 days a year. “Now, it's 120, and most recently even as many as 150 days” ... The Arctic is currently on track to record the lowest-ever ice coverage for the whole season ... The heat is speeding up the thawing of permafrost, the frozen ground that covers much of Russia’s Siberia, Alaska in the U.S. and the Yukon territories in Canada. When permafrost thaws, the organic matter that has been stored there since the ice age releases greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-arctic-sea-ice-crossing/Germany's forests decimated by insects, drought
Around 32 million cubic meters (1,130 million cubic feet) of wood damaged by insects had to be removed from Germany's forests in 2019, the Federal Statistical Office reported Monday. That total is three times higher than the 11 million cubic meters that was destroyed in 2018, and an almost sixfold increase on the 6 million cubic meters felled due to pests in 2017. "In recent years, the native forests have suffered from drought and hot spells," the Wiesbaden-based statisticians said ... Experts have warned that climate change and the proliferation of insects like the bark beetle are having a catastrophic impact on native forests. "This combination did not exist before," Michael Müller, forest protection expert at the Technical University of Dresden, said. "We are currently experiencing the most serious forest damage … since the beginning of regulated sustainable forest care and management, so more than 200 years ago."
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-forest-dying/a-54330242Many freshwater fish species have declined by 76 percent in less than 50 years
The global assessment, described as the first of its kind, found that populations of migratory freshwater fish have declined by 76 percent between 1970 and 2016—a higher rate of decline than both marine and terrestrial migratory species. “We think migratory freshwater fish might be in even greater peril” than the dramatic drop the report indicates, says the report’s lead author, Stefanie Deinet of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). “Adding currently missing information from tropical regions where threats of habitat loss and degradation, overexploitation, and climate change have been increasing, will surely bend the curve of loss downwards.” ... The report points to habitat degradation, alteration, and loss as the largest threat to all migratory fish. Increasingly, dams and other river barriers block fish from reaching their mating or feeding grounds, thereby disrupting their life cycles.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/07/migratory-freshwater-fish-decline-globally/
reporting on a study at https://www.worldfishmigrationfoundation.com/living-planet-index-2020Scientists measure Amazon drought and deforestation feedback loop: Study
While it is now well accepted that Amazon rainforest deforestation directly contributes to worsening droughts in the region, and vice versa, a recent study published in Environmental Research Letters has attempted to calculate the exact percentages of this knock-on effect for the first time. A deadly trifecta of deforestation, drought, and escalating global climate change — each impacting the others — threatens to pull the plug on the region’s plentiful precipitation, possibly crashing the biome since the Amazon rainforest depends on its rain cycle to survive and thrive. It’s a phenomenon scientists call a positive feedback loop: deforestation causes drought, which in turn, worsens deforestation, and so on, intensifying the effect. The study concluded that deforestation causes 4% of drought, while drought accounts for 0.13% of deforestation per millimeter of rain in the Amazon biome. This means that if rainfall in the region decreases by 200 millimeters (7.9 inches), it would then trigger an additional 26% increase in deforestation, according to the findings.
https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/scientists-measure-amazon-drought-and-deforestation-feedback-loop-study/Deforestation and world population sustainability: a quantitative analysis
[C]atastrophic collapse in human population, due to resource consumption, is the most likely scenario of the dynamical evolution based on current parameters ... the probability that our civilisation survives itself is less than 10% in the most optimistic scenario ... we have a few decades left before an irreversible collapse of our civilisation [and making this even worse] it is unrealistic to think that the decline of the population in a situation of strong environmental degradation would be a non-chaotic and well-ordered decline. This consideration leads to an even shorter remaining time ... the resulting mean-times for a catastrophic outcome to occur, which are of the order of 2–4 decades, make [it] hard to imagine, in absence of very strong collective efforts, big changes of these parameters to occur in such time scale.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63657-6Scientists successfully revive 100m-year-old microbes from the sea
Scientists have successfully revived microbes that had lain dormant at the bottom of the sea since the age of the dinosaurs, allowing the organisms to eat and even multiply after eons in the deep. Their research sheds light on the remarkable survival power of some of Earth’s most primitive species, which can exist for tens of millions of years with barely any oxygen or food before springing back to life in the lab ... URI Graduate School of Oceanography professor and study co-author Steven D’Hondt said the microbes came from the oldest sediment drilled from the seabed. “In the oldest sediment we’ve drilled, with the least amount of food, there are still living organisms, and they can wake up, grow and multiply,” he said.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/28/scientists-successfully-revived-mesozoic-era-microbes-from-the-seaThe Great Climate Migration
According to a pathbreaking recent study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the planet could see a greater temperature increase in the next 50 years than it did in the last 6,000 years combined. By 2070, the kind of extremely hot zones, like in the Sahara, that now cover less than 1 percent of the earth’s land surface could cover nearly a fifth of the land, potentially placing one of every three people alive outside the climate niche where humans have thrived for thousands of years ... People are already beginning to flee ... Drought helped push many Syrians into cities before the war, worsening tensions and leading to rising discontent; crop losses led to unemployment that stoked Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt and Libya; Brexit, even, was arguably a ripple effect of the influx of migrants brought to Europe by the wars that followed. And all those effects were bound up with the movement of just two million people. As the mechanisms of climate migration have come into sharper focus — food scarcity, water scarcity and heat — the latent potential for large-scale movement comes to seem astronomically larger ... in South Asia, where nearly one-fourth of the global population lives. The World Bank projects that the region will soon have the highest prevalence of food insecurity in the world ... If past patterns are a measure, many will settle in India’s Ganges Valley; by the end of the century, heat waves and humidity will become so extreme there that people without air-conditioning will simply die. If it is not drought and crop failures that force large numbers of people to flee, it will be the rising seas ... projections show high tides subsuming much of Vietnam by 2050 - including most of the Mekong Delta, now home to 18 million people - as well as parts of China and Thailand, most of southern Iraq and nearly all of the Nile Delta, Egypt’s breadbasket. Many coastal regions of the United States are also at risk ... with every degree of temperature increase, roughly a billion people will be pushed outside the zone in which humans have lived for thousands of years.
co-published at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/23/magazine/climate-migration.html
and https://features.propublica.org/climate-migration/model-how-climate-refugees-move-across-continents/After 40 years, researchers finally see Earth’s climate destiny more clearly
It seems like such a simple question: How hot is Earth going to get? Now, in a landmark effort, a team of 25 scientists has significantly narrowed the bounds on this critical factor, known as climate sensitivity. The assessment, conducted under the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and publishing this week in Reviews of Geophysics, relies on three strands of evidence: trends indicated by contemporary warming, the latest understanding of the feedback effects that can slow or accelerate climate change, and lessons from ancient climates. They support a likely warming range of between 2.6°C and 3.9°C.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/after-40-years-researchers-finally-see-earths-climate-destiny-more-clearlyClimate Change Poses ‘Systemic Threat’ to the Economy, Big Investors Warn
Climate change threatens to create turmoil in the financial markets, and the Federal Reserve and other regulators must act to avoid an economic disaster, according to a letter sent on Tuesday by a group of large investors. “The climate crisis poses a systemic threat to financial markets and the real economy, with significant disruptive consequences on asset valuations and our nation’s economic stability,” reads the letter, which was signed by more than three dozen pension plans, fund managers and other financial institutions that together manage almost $1 trillion in assets.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/21/climate/investors-climate-threat-regulators.htmlFirst active leak of sea-bed methane discovered in Antarctica
The first active leak of methane from the sea floor in Antarctica has been revealed by scientists ... Vast quantities of methane are thought to be stored under the sea floor around Antarctica. The gas could start to leak as the climate crisis warms the oceans ... The release of methane from frozen underwater stores or permafrost regions is one of the key tipping points that scientists are concerned about, which occur when a particular impact of global heating becomes unstoppable ... The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, reports the discovery of the methane seep at a 10-metre (30ft) deep site known as Cinder Cones in McMurdo Sound.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/22/first-active-leak-of-sea-bed-methane-discovered-in-antarcticaMost polar bears to disappear by 2100, study predicts
By as early as 2040, it is very likely that many polar bears will begin to experience reproductive failure, leading to local extinctions, according to a study published in Nature Climate Change ... “It’s important to highlight that these projections are probably on the conservative side,” said Steven Amstrup, chief scientist for Polar Bears International and a co-author of the study ... “The impacts we project are likely to occur more rapidly than the paper suggests.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/20/most-polar-bears-to-disappear-by-2100-study-predicts-aoeSmooth Handfish Extinction Marks a Sad Milestone
For the first time the IUCN Red List has officially declared a marine fish alive in modern times to be extinct
The smooth handfish was once common enough to be one of the first fish species described by European explorers in Australia ... Red List guidelines officially define “extinct” as meaning “there is no reasonable doubt that the last individual has died.” Edgar and the members of Australia's National Handfish Recovery Team were forced to that conclusion earlier this year, and the Red List placed it in the extinct category. Scientists are unsure exactly what finished off the species, but others in the region are threatened by trawl fishing, pollution and climate change.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/smooth-handfish-extinction-marks-a-sad-milestoneWorld’s largest plant survey reveals alarming extinction rate
The world’s seed-bearing plants have been disappearing at a rate of ... up to 500 times higher than would be expected as a result of natural forces alone, according to the largest survey yet of plant extinctions ... survey included more plant species by an order of magnitude than any other study [yet the] study’s numbers are almost certainly an underestimate of the problem [because] some plant species are “functionally extinct” [meaning they] are present only in botanical gardens or in such small numbers in the wild that researchers don't expect the population to survive.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01810-6Siberian Wildfires Cover Area Larger Than Greece
Using satellite data, Greenpeace Russia estimated that 19 million hectares (47 million acres) burned across Russia's forests, steppes and fields from January to mid-July. The country of Greece, by comparison, is more than 13 million hectares in size ... Russia's Federal Forestry Agency has identified 10.1 million hectares of wildfires raging across the country since the start of the year. More than half of the blazes were located in forests and over 90% burned in Siberia and the Russian Far East ... Last year’s wildfires in Siberia burned across an area the size of Belgium at their peak and emitted the equivalent of Sweden’s total annual carbon dioxide emissions in one month alone. Experts warn that this year’s blazes, some of which may be remnants from last summer which survived through a historically warm and dry winter, could become the most destructive in history.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/07/20/siberian-wildfires-cover-area-larger-than-greece-greenpeace-a70929Climate change: Siberian heatwave 'clear evidence' of warming
The Arctic is believed to be warming twice as fast as the global average. An international team of climate scientists, led by the UK Met Office, found the record average temperatures were likely to happen less than once every 80,000 years without human-induced climate change. That makes such an event "almost impossible" had the world not been warmed by greenhouse gas emissions, they conclude in the study. The scientists described the finding as "unequivocal evidence of the impact of climate change on the planet".
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53415297Arctic sea ice is in a downward spiral, and may break a record in 2020
If one were to design a weather pattern that’s most efficient at ridding the Arctic of its increasingly fragile ice cover during the region’s summer melt season, it would look like what occurred earlier in the month — clear skies, above-average air temperatures, a high-pressure system across the Central Arctic, and an ongoing heat wave and wildfires in Siberia. A recent study concluded that the unusual warmth in Siberia could not have happened in the absence of human-caused global warming. Sea ice loss accelerated in early- to mid-July, bringing sea ice extent — which measures the area of ocean where there’s some ice cover, down to record-low levels for this time of the year. As of Saturday, the Arctic as a region had an ice extent that was about 193,000 square miles below the previous record low for the date ... the result of the Siberian heat streak that has lasted from January through June, and into July ... “I do have a feeling we are on track to reach a new record low for September ... weather patterns could change and slow the ice melt, but given how warm the first part of July was over most of the Arctic Ocean, I’m not so sure we can stop the inevitable.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/07/20/arctic-sea-ice-is-downward-spiral-may-break-record-2020/China Floods Call Into Question Sustainability Of Massive Three Gorges Dam
Parts of China are literally up to their eyeballs in water, in what the Chinese government is calling a once in 100 years flood. The Three Gorges Dam, built to stop these things, is now in the spotlight. The Three Gorges Dam is the world’s largest hydroelectric power station, with an installed capacity of 22,500 megawatts of power generation. The thing is, that the power station is down the Yangtze River from a handful of other dams that exist at a higher elevation than the Three Gorges. And because of the floods and problems at those dams upstream, Three Gorges is buckling under the strain of massive flows of water ... All told, more than 400 Yangtze tributary rivers have overflowed.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2020/07/20/china-floods-calls-into-question-sustainability-of-massive-three-gorges-dam/Climate change: Summers could become 'too hot for humans'
When the [wetbulb temperature] reaches 29C, for example, the recommendation is to suspend exercise for anyone not acclimatised ... As global temperatures rise, more intense humidity is likely as well which means more people will be exposed to more days with that hazardous combination of heat and moisture. Prof Richard Betts of the UK Met Office has run computer models which suggest that the number of days with a WBGT above 32C are set to increase ... "This climate change will be a bigger monster and we really need a coordinated effort across nations to prepare for what is to come. If not, there'll be a price to be paid."
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53415298Alberta farmers bracing for worst harvest in 18 years: ‘The damage is done’
Farmers in parts of Alberta say their crops are under water and are bracing for a devastating harvest. It has been so wet, many fields look more like lakes. John Guelly, a farmer in Westlock County, said even if his wheat and canola crops do dry out — it’s too late ... Northeast of Edmonton near Redwater and in Thorhild County, crops are also under water ... This year’s poor conditions comes after a difficult growing season in 2019.
https://globalnews.ca/news/7175003/alberta-farmers-2020-harvest-weather-hail-rain/Great Lakes water temperatures blowing away records
You don't expect to see 75 or even 80-degree water in the Great Lakes in early July or, in most years, anytime. But an exceptionally hot weather pattern has pushed water temperatures in most of the lakes to the highest levels on record so early in the summer. Over lakes Erie and Ontario, the water is the warmest it has been since the records began, and could warm more in the coming weeks. The abnormally warm waters, consistent with climate change trends in recent decades, could compromise water quality and harm marine life in some areas ... Buffalo hit at least 90 degrees on eight straight days ending Friday, its longest streak ever observed. Muskegon, Mich., on the shores of Lake Michigan, also notched its longest 90-degree streak ... The record-setting waters this July fit into the recent warming trend observed over the Great Lakes tied to climate change.
https://www.dailyherald.com/news/20200714/great-lakes-water-temperatures-blowing-away-recordsSoaring methane emissions threaten to put climate change goals out of reach
Global emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, have soared over the past decade, according to two new studies ... "This completely overshoots our budget to stay below 1.5 to 2 degrees of warming," said Benjamin Poulter, a research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Poulter is an author on both studies published Tuesday, one in the journal Earth System Science Data and the other in the journal Environmental Research Letters ... Another author on both studies, Rob Jackson, a professor of Earth system science at Stanford University, said the amount of methane released into the atmosphere since 2000 is roughly equivalent to adding 350 million more cars on the road ... "Methane doesn't last as long in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, but it's much more efficient at trapping heat than carbon dioxide," Poulter said, which makes the gas a key factor in global warming.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/soaring-methane-emissions-threaten-put-climate-change-goals-out-reach-n1233831
see also https://earth.stanford.edu/news/global-methane-emissions-soar-record-highThe Arctic Ocean is dominated by a strong high-pressure system, rapidly melting the sea ice
Currently, the Arctic sea ice extent and volume are near or at record lowest values in the modern records ... high-pressure system has been previously present over the Siberian sector since at least early May, and has contributed to record high temperatures over Siberia and also the surrounding Polar regions ... latest data reveals rapid sea ice loss over the Arctic ... Contrary to popular belief, the Arctic sea ice is rather thin, ranging from a few centimeters to only a few meters at best ... weakening or reversing of the Transpolar drift system permanently could reduce the ice cap growth in winter. That would mean lower sea ice extent going into spring and summer, increasing the chances for a Blue Ocean Event. That is a complete absence of sea ice over the Arctic Ocean, with less than 1 million square kilometers of sea ice area.
https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/arctic-ocean-ice-melt-transpolar-fa/Fracking Firms Fail, Rewarding Executives and Raising Climate Fears
Oil and gas companies in the United States are hurtling toward bankruptcy at a pace not seen in years ... in the wake of this economic carnage is a potential environmental disaster — unprofitable wells that will be abandoned or left untended, even as they continue leaking planet-warming pollutants ... as these businesses collapse, millions of dollars have flowed to executive compensation. Whiting Petroleum, a major shale driller in North Dakota that sought bankruptcy protection in April, approved almost $15 million in cash bonuses for its top executives six days before its bankruptcy filing. Chesapeake Energy, a shale pioneer, declared bankruptcy last month, just weeks after it paid $25 million in bonuses to a group of executives ... Almost 250 oil and gas companies could file for bankruptcy protection by the end of next year, more than the previous five years combined ... Even before the current downturn, methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, was being released from production sites in America’s biggest oil field at more than twice the rate previously estimated ... estimates this year by researchers examining the immense oil fields of Texas and New Mexico suggest a substantial increase in methane concentrations.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/12/climate/oil-fracking-bankruptcy-methane-executive-pay.htmlA water crisis looms for 270 million people as South Asia’s glaciers shrink
[M]ost water in the Indus, which flows west from Mount Kangrinboqe, comes from the snows and glaciers of the Himalaya, the Karakoram, and the Hindu Kush ... Downstream, in the plains of Pakistan and northern India, the world’s most extensive system of irrigated agriculture depends on the Indus. The glaciers that feed it are a lifeline for some 270 million people. Most of those glaciers are now shrinking ... Humans already use 95 percent of the Indus, and the population of the basin is growing fast ... Given the region’s “high baseline water stress and limited government effectiveness,” it is “unlikely that the Indus ... can sustain this pressure.” Pakistan will suffer most ... India, Pakistan, and China have huge populations and abundant reasons to protect their resources. All three have nuclear weapons. We think of climate change as happening in increments, almost imperceptibly. But along the Indus, it could trigger a conflict that changes the world overnight.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2020/07/water-crisis-looms-for-270-million-people-south-asia-perpetual-feature/The Pandemic Experts Are Not Okay
Many of them told me that they feel duty-bound and grateful to be helping their country at a time when so many others are ill or unemployed. But they're also very tired, and dispirited by America’s continued inability to control a virus that many other nations have brought to heel. As the pandemic once again intensifies, so too does their frustration and fatigue. America [faces] a drought of expertise, as the very people whose skills are sorely needed to handle the pandemic are on the verge of burning out ... “running on fumes” ... Throughout March and April, she got two hours of sleep a night. Now she’s getting four. And yet “I always feel like I'm never doing enough ... I could sleep for two weeks and still feel this tired. It’s embedded in us at this point.” But the physical exhaustion is dwarfed by the emotional toll of seeing the imagined worst-case scenarios become reality. “One of the big misconceptions is that we enjoy being right ... We'd be very happy to be wrong, because it would mean lives are being saved” ... A pandemic would have always been a draining ordeal. But it is especially so because the U.S., instead of mounting a unified front, is disjointed, cavalier, and fatalistic ... “Someone said to me, ‘I hope you're getting tons of support. But there’s no feasible thing that anyone could do to make this better, no matter how much they love you. The mental toll isn’t something you can easily share.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/07/pandemic-experts-are-not-okay/613879/Never-before-seen bacteria kills 60,000 fish in California
In measures that are hard not to compare the coronavirus pandemic ravaging America, around 3 million rainbow trout and other species have been quarantined as scientists try to understand the novel pathogen that has resisted treatments to cure it. Fish pathologists do not know where the bacteria came from in the first place. “Honestly, we’re learning new things about this every single day,” Jay Rowan, an environmental program manager for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, told the Daily Press. Treatments attempting to rid the hatcheries of the infection have so far been largely futile.
https://www.sfgate.com/outdoors/article/New-bacteria-disease-kills-thousands-of-fish-in-CA-15394901.phpClimate Change Tracker: Heatwaves rising around the world
The increasing frequency of heatwaves has long been seen as a signature of global heating, and we have seen exactly that in the past few years around the world ... A new study published in Nature Communications on 3 July, titled Increasing Trends In Regional Heatwaves, finds that heatwaves across the world have increased in terms of both frequency and length since the 1950s. The cumulative heat of extreme heat events has also increased, ranging from 1-4.5 degrees Celsius per decade for 70 years. In some parts of the world, it has increased by almost 10 degrees Celsius per decade. 2019 was the second hottest year on record since 1850 and this year is on course to becoming the hottest year ever.
https://www.livemint.com/mint-lounge/features/climate-change-tracker-heatwaves-rising-around-the-world-11594354150715.htmlExtreme heat and rain: Thousands of weather stations show there's now more of both, for longer
A major global update based on data from more than 36,000 weather stations around the world confirms that, as the planet continues to warm, extreme weather events such as heatwaves and heavy rainfall are now more frequent, more intense, and longer ... When we compare 1981-2010 with 1951-80, the increase is substantial ... devastating impacts for human health, particularly for older people and those with pre-existing medical conditions. Excessive heat is not only an issue for people living in cities but also for rural communities that have already been exposed to days with temperatures above 50C.
https://phys.org/news/2020-07-extreme-thousands-weather-stations-longer.htmlThere’s no quick fix for climate change
Scientists looked for a ‘shortcut’ and didn’t find one
It could take decades before cuts to greenhouse gases actually affect global temperatures, according to a new study. 2035 is probably the earliest that scientists could see a statistically significant change in [the rate of increasing] temperature — and that’s only if humans take dramatic action to combat climate change ... policymakers need to be ready for the long haul, and we're all going to need to be patient while we wait for the changes we make now to take effect. “I foresee this kind of train wreck coming where we make all this effort, and we have nothing to show for it,” says lead author of the study, Bjørn Samset. “This will take time” ... The first line of the new study, published today in the journal Nature Communications, reads: “This paper is about managing our expectations.”
https://www.theverge.com/21315822/climate-change-global-temperature-study-decades-fixIntense Arctic Wildfires Set a Pollution Record
Intense wildfires in the Arctic in June released more polluting gases into the Earth’s atmosphere than in any other month in 18 years of data collection ... The last time fires in the Arctic were this intense or released such a large volume of emissions was last year, which itself set a record. “Higher temperatures and drier surface conditions are providing ideal conditions for these fires to burn and to persist for so long over such a large area,” Mark Parrington, a fire specialist at the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which issued the report, said in a statement. Exceptionally high temperatures in Russia’s Far North are also a harbinger of an unusually hot year worldwide.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/climate/climate-change-arctic-fires.htmlArctic Oil Infrastructure Faces Climate Karma
Temperatures at Nizhnyaya Pesha, some 840 miles (1,352 km) northeast of Moscow and just 12 miles from Arctic Ocean coast, reached 86F (24C) in early June — a disaster for anyone worried about the planet's future. Further to the east and further inland, things got even hotter ... part of a heatwave that has persisted since the end of last year ... rising Arctic temperatures strike at the heart of the Russian economy, which is largely built upon the extraction of oil and gas. Rising temperatures are melting the permafrost and impairing its ability to support structures built on it. The changes threaten the “structural stability and functional capacities” of oil industry infrastructure” ... “45% of the oil and natural gas production fields in the Russian Arctic are located in the highest hazard zone” ... temperature changes that weren't generally forecast to occur until the end of the century ... what’s true in the Arctic north of Russia may also hold in the Arctic north of the Americas. Most of Alaska is underlain by permafrost ... The risks that bedevil oil and gas infrastructure are no less severe [in Alaska, where the US plans to open a] region of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to new oil and gas development. Doing so is meant to be a boon to U.S. oil independence and Alaska’s state budget [but] it could also be a curse ... If the northern latitudes continue warming as they are, the implications will be grave for all of us.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-07-05/siberia-heatwave-climate-change-really-is-big-oil-industry-riskClimate crisis: Thawing Arctic permafrost could release deadly waves of ancient diseases, scientists suggest
[A] devastating heatwave has seen temperatures in Siberia reach a record 38C (100.4F), meanwhile, vast fires are burning ... As climate scientists ponder whether these extremes portend the dawn of a terrifying new era of supercharged heat in the Arctic, the planet also remains gripped by the coronavirus pandemic. It is at this pivotal moment a startling new risk could also be unleashed upon the world – one which binds together both the implications of an overheating planet and the tragedy of a highly contagious disease. Scientists have said the rapidly warming climate in the far north risks exposing long-dormant viruses, which may be tens or even hundreds of thousands of years old, and have been frozen in the permafrost in the Arctic. Due to the rapid heating – the Arctic is warming up at least twice as fast as the rest of the world – the permafrost is now thawing for the first time since before the last ice age, potentially freeing pathogens the like of which modern humans have never before grappled with. Jean Michel Claverie, a virologist at Aix-Marseille University [said] “There are extremely good papers that say yes, you can revive bacteria from deep permafrost” ... Dr Claverie said the risk was not only due to the thawing permafrost, but also due to the increased human and animal activity in areas which have long been very sparsely populated ... “if you put a human in a place with frozen viruses associated with pandemic, then those humans could be infected and replicate the virus and start a new pandemic.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/permafrost-release-diseases-virus-bacteria-arctic-climate-crisis-a9601431.htmlClimate crisis: Government not on track to meet net zero targets and risks are ‘bigger than coronavirus’
An inquiry into the government’s progress on reaching net zero emissions by 2050 has been told the UK is “clearly not” making sufficient progress to hit the legally binding target ... Expert witness Lord Deben, chair of the Committee on Climate Change, warned the government: “In almost every sector we are failing ... we are not reaching anywhere near the levels we have to. The government is not on track to meet the fourth and fifth carbon budgets, both of which of course are statutory requirements” ... BEIS inquiry was warned the environmental and economic impact of the government not hitting its own targets would be catastrophic.
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/government-net-zero-targets-beis-inquiry-climate-crisis-coronavirus-a9598156.htmlDespite the warnings, we're heading into a climate catastrophe utterly ill-prepared. Remind you of anything?
[In] the annual report of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) to the UK parliament ... was the advice that the government needed to start preparing for a 4C temperature rise. This is a terrifying change from the previous advice to prepare for a 2C rise. Why terrifying? As Professor Kevin Anderson, a leading climate scientist at the University of Manchester, said: “There is a widespread view that a 4C future is incompatible with an organised global community, is likely to be beyond adaptation and be devastating to the majority of ecosystems” ... the report was blunt on the failure of Boris Johnson‘s government to implement almost any of its recommendations made last year on how to get to zero carbon ... On the climate threat, we are exactly where we were last winter in relation to the impending pandemic: woefully unprepared and with a government refusing to implement the advice being given to protect us.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/climate-change-commitee-report-4c-warming-fossil-fuels-crisis-a9597511.htmlOcean Water Is Hurricane ‘Fuel’ - It’s Currently High Octane
According to the National Weather Service - Key West, July 1st marked the 46th daily warm minimum temperature record that was tied with or set during the first half of 2020. The same office also tweeted on July 2nd, “It also marks the 10th consecutive such record” ... water temperature at Virginia Key, Florida on July 2nd was the hottest recorded at that site (92.5 degrees F) ... the Atlantic hurricane season “fuel” is currently high octane.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2020/07/03/ocean-water-is-hurricane-fuelits-currently-high-octane/60% of fish species could be unable to survive in current areas by 2100 – study
In a study of nearly 700 fresh and saltwater fish species, researchers examined how warming water temperatures lower water oxygen levels ... “if we let global warming persist, it can get much worse,” said Hans-Otto Pörtner, a climatologist who co-authored the study published in the journal Science ... this assessment was conservative – it does not take into account other climate crisis factors that could affect marine life, like ocean acidification, that could amplify the effects on sensitive populations. “Some tropical fish are already living in zones at their uppermost tolerance ... Humankind is pushing the planet outside of a comfortable temperature range and we are starting to lose suitable habitat.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/02/fish-species-survival-climate-warming-study'Nowhere to hide': South Pole warms up with climate change a factor
The South Pole, the most remote part of the planet, has been warming at triple the global average ... The findings, published Tuesday in the Nature Climate Change journal ... For the 1989-2018 period, the mercury rose [at] three times the global warming rate, the researchers found.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/nowhere-to-hide-south-pole-warms-up-with-climate-change-a-factor-20200629-p55797.htmlCoronavirus: This is not the last pandemic
We have created "a perfect storm" for diseases from wildlife to spill over into humans and spread quickly around the world, scientists warn. Human encroachment on the natural world speeds up that process. This outlook comes from global health experts who study how and where new diseases emerge ... "In the last 20 years, we've had six significant threats - SARS, MERS, Ebola, avian influenza and swine flu," Prof Matthew Baylis from the University of Liverpool told BBC News. "We dodged five bullets but the sixth got us. And this is not the last pandemic we are going to face."
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52775386Could invasive alien species cause another coronavirus?
Invasive alien species are increasing the threat of emerging infectious diseases, a new study from a global research team has warned ... numbers of invasive alien species are rapidly increasing, with more than 18,000 currently listed around the world. The study was published last week in the journal Biological Reviews. Professor Laura Meyerson, who researches invasion biology and restoration ecology at the University of Rhode Island and was part of the global study, said that it’s highly likely the number is much greater. “These are the ones that we’ve detected and recorded,” Prof. Meyerson told The Independent. “But there are a lot of species that are introduced and become established that we don't even notice” ... last year, the Trump administration cut the budget of the National Invasive Species Council (NISC) by 50 per cent. Their annual budget, reportedly $1m, Prof Meyerson said, is a small price to pay “when we know invasions cause $100bn a year in damage”. She said that the threat of invasive species, in terms of policy and financial resources, needed to be elevated to “a biosecurity issue”. “It’s costing us hundreds of millions of dollars and it’s harming our health,” she said. “Covid-19 is an invasive species issue. We knew what to do and we didn’t do it.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/stop-the-wildlife-trade-invasive-species-climate-crisis-disease-coronavirus-a9598966.htmlSigns of Drought in European Groundwater
For the third year in a row, Europe is facing potential water woes. According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), meteorological drought conditions started in eastern Europe in early spring 2020 and migrated across the continent with drier-than-normal weather in April and May. Tributaries and main stems of some of the continent’s rivers—such as the Elbe, Warta, and Danube—fell below normal seasonal flow ... all of this occurred as 2020 continued to be one of the hottest years on record globally.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146888/signs-of-drought-in-european-groundwaterRecord Temperatures and Record Low Sea Ice in Siberian Arctic
Western Siberia recorded its hottest spring on record this year ... The ice along the shores of Siberia has the appearance of Swiss cheese right now in satellite images, with big areas of open water that would normally still be covered. The sea ice extent in the Laptev Sea, north of Russia, is the lowest recorded for this time of year since satellite observations began ... a big concern is warming permafrost ... When permafrost thaws under homes and bridges, infrastructure can sink, tilt and collapse. Alaskans have been contending with this for several years. Near Norilsk, Russia, thawing permafrost was blamed for an oil tank collapse in late May that spilled thousands of tons of oil into a river. Thawing permafrost also creates a less obvious but even more damaging problem. When the ground thaws, microbes in the soil begin turning its organic matter into carbon dioxide and methane. Both are greenhouse gases that further warm the planet ... also raises the risk of wildfires.
https://www.maritime-executive.com/editorials/record-temperatures-and-record-low-sea-ice-in-siberian-arcticFivefold growth of forest fires in Siberia reported
Forest fires in Siberia have grown nearly fivefold over the past week. The fires come amid a notable heat wave in parts of the sprawling region. A high temperature of 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 F) was reported a week ago in the town of Verkhoyansk ... hottest day ever recorded in the Arctic ... 1.15 million hectares (2.85 million acres) were burning in Siberia in areas that cannot be reached by firefighters.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/fivefold-growth-forest-fires-siberia-reported-71490782Rapid Arctic meltdown in Siberia alarms scientists
Wildfires are raging amid record-breaking temperatures. Permafrost is thawing, infrastructure is crumbling and sea ice is dramatically vanishing ... Shifts that once seemed decades away are happening now, with potentially global implications. “We always expected the Arctic to change faster than the rest of the globe,” said Walt Meier, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “But I don’t think anyone expected the changes to happen as fast as we are seeing them happen.” ... The temperatures occurring in the High Arctic during the past 15 years were not predicted to occur for 70 more years ... “When we develop a fever, it’s a sign. It’s a warning sign that something is wrong and we stop and we take note ... Literally, the Arctic is on fire. It has a fever right now, and so it’s a good warning sign that we need to stop, take note and figure out what’s going on.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/rapid-arctic-meltdown-in-siberia-alarms-scientists/2020/07/03/4c1bd6a6-bbaa-11ea-bdaf-a129f921026f_story.htmlSiberian Fires Have Released a Record Amount of Carbon This Year
Siberia has been the most abnormally hot place on Earth all year ... As a result of the widespread fire activity, the region has sent carbon streaming into the atmosphere ... highest level of carbon emissions from Siberian fires on record ... roughly equivalent to the entire annual emissions of Portugal ... aren't just burning forest (though they are doing that). They’re also burning through the tundra north of the Arctic Circle ... The fact that fires are burning in the tundra is a huge cause for concern, because the area contains vast stores of carbon-rich landscapes that include peatlands and frozen (for now) soil known as permafrost. Fires have been known to overwinter in peatlands, smoldering underground only to explode in the spring and summer. At least some of the fires in Siberia have done that ... “The thawing of permafrost is increasing the potential fuel loading for fires ... I have a new dataset from [the National Snow and Ice Data Center] that also confirms that many of these fires are burning on supposedly ‘continuous permafrost extent with high ground ice content.’ Given that this ground should be frozen or at least boggy all year round, it should not be available to burn. But it is burning, which implies that it has thawed out and has dried.”
https://earther.gizmodo.com/siberian-fires-have-released-a-record-amount-of-carbon-1844245153New Data Reveals Hidden Flood Risk Across America
Across much of the United States, the flood risk is far greater than government estimates show, new calculations suggest, exposing millions of people to a hidden threat — and one that will only grow as climate change worsens ... homeowners, builders, banks, insurers and government officials nationwide have been making decisions with information that understates their true physical and financial risks ... climate change has worsened the dangers ... a vast increase in risk compared with official estimates.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/29/climate/hidden-flood-risk-maps.htmlArctic sea ice witnessed massive decline in 2019: Scientists
The National Centre of Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR) has found a dramatic decline in the Arctic sea ice due to global warming ... NCPOR noted that the largest decline in Arctic sea ice in the past 41 years happened in July 2019. Between 1979 and 2018, the sea ice has been declining at a rate of -4.7 per cent per decade, while its rate was found to be -13 per cent in July 2019. "The sea-ice loss at this rate, concerning all the lives on earth, can have a catastrophic impact due to rising global air temperature and slowing down of global ocean water circulation," Avinash Kumar, a senior scientist at NCPOR, who is involved in the research, said ... the loss of ice cover in the Arctic sea has had strong feedback effects on other components of the climate system ... volume of ice formation during winters is unable to keep pace with the volume of ice loss during summers.
https://www.indiatvnews.com/science/arctic-sea-ice-witnessed-massive-decline-in-2019-scientists-629136Glaciers in Sikkim are melting fast, so are in other regions
Among the most dramatic evidence that Earth’s climate is warming is the dwindling and disappearance of mountain glaciers around the world. Scientists from Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology have found that glaciers in Sikkim are melting at a higher magnitude as compared to other Himalayan regions. The study ... revealed that glaciers in Sikkim have retreated and de-glaciated significantly.
http://tehelka.com/glaciers-in-sikkim-are-melting-fast-so-are-in-other-regions/Stocks of vulnerable carbon twice as high where permafrost subsidence is factored in
New research from a team at Northern Arizona University suggests that subsidence ... is causing deeper thaw than previously thought and making vulnerable twice as much carbon as estimates that don't account for this shifting ground. These findings, published this week in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, suggest traditional methods of permafrost thaw measurement underestimate the amount of previously-frozen carbon unlocked from warming permafrost by over 100 percent ... Due to the widespread nature of subsidence—about 20 percent of the permafrost zone is visibly subsided, and contains approximately 50 percent of all carbon stored in permafrost—failing to account for subsidence could lead to significant underestimates of future carbon release in global climate change projections.
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-stocks-vulnerable-carbon-high-permafrost.htmlThe Ticking Time Bomb of Arctic Permafrost
Arctic communities have long known that warming temperatures will undermine buildings, roads, and other infrastructure [but] communities don't have time to wait for research to catch up ... Permafrost is “the glue that holds northern ecosystems together,” said Turetsky, but climate change is thawing wide swaths of it.
https://eos.org/articles/the-ticking-time-bomb-of-arctic-permafrostStudy: Pace of Warming is Set to Accelerate in the Deep Ocean
A new study published in Nature Climate Change suggests that the deep ocean may not be as invulnerable to warming as once thought. By looking at the pace and horizontal movement of temperature rise over time (climate velocity), a team led by Isaac Brito-Morales of the University of Queensland predicted that life in the deep ocean will experience accelerated change in the second half of this century, even under a best-case climate action scenario. According to the study, the mesopelagic - the region between 200-1000 meters in depth - will be most affected, especially in high latitudes. This band could experience temperature changes at a rate four times higher than surface waters ... The study's most concerning finding is that these deep-ocean temperature shifts will likely occur even if society takes aggressive climate action in line with the Paris Climate Accord.
https://maritime-executive.com/article/study-pace-of-warming-is-set-to-accelerate-in-the-deep-oceanRising Tides, Troubled Waters: The Future of Our Ocean
Until now, the ocean has been the hero of the climate crisis — about 90 percent of the additional heat we’ve trapped from burning fossil fuels has been absorbed by it. But the heat the ocean absorbed has not magically vanished — it’s just stored in the depths [and] will continue to seep out for centuries to come, slowing any human efforts to cool the planet ... We are dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere about 10 times faster than volcanoes did 250 million years ago, which cooked the planet, triggering the End-Permian extinction that wiped out 96 percent of the species on Earth and turned the ocean into a lifeless, slimy Jacuzzi. “No one knows where our modern experiment with geochemistry will lead, but in the End-Permian, massive injections of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere led straight to the cemetery.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/oceans-and-climate-change-2020-report-jeff-goodell-967980/More than 58 000 ha (143 000 acres) of rice damaged as 'worst' drought in history hits Mekong Delta
The increase in saline intrusion was due to the water shortage from the upper Mekong River. During the 2019/20 dry season, the water to the Mekong Delta was lower than that in previous years, affecting 10 out of 13 provinces in the region. The area affected by salinity was 1.68 million ha (4.15 million acres) ... due to prolonged drought, 96 000 families or about 430 000 individuals suffered water shortage for daily living ... Landslides occurred in many areas in the Mekong Delta as drought and prolonged shortage of water resulted in low water levels on the canals ... Nguyen considered the drought and saltwater intrusion in the 2019/20 dry season as the most severe in history.
https://watchers.news/2020/06/23/mekong-delta-worst-drought-history/Glacial retreat in European Alps
A team of researchers at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) has now investigated changes to the area and height of all glaciers in the European Alps over a 14 year period in their recent study. The result: approximately 17 percent of the entire volume of the ice has been lost since the start of the new millennium. The findings were published in the journal Nature Communications ... meltwater from Alpine glaciers accounts for a considerable portion of water runoff in large European river systems during the summer months.
https://www.miragenews.com/glacial-retreat-in-european-alps/A Record Number of Bees Died Last Summer
According to the preliminary results of the University of Maryland’s annual survey, U.S. beekeepers lost 43.7% of their honey bees from April 2019 to April 2020. That’s the second highest rate of decline the researchers’ have observed since they started the survey in 2006. Striking summertime losses drove this high annual rate of loss ... The study is the latest in a slew of research showing that bees in the U.S. are under threat. Another February report found that due to climate breakdown, bumblebee populations’ chance of survival in any given place declined by an average of over 30 percent over the course of just one human generation.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/a-record-number-of-bees-died-last-summer-1844120999Study shows today's atmospheric carbon dioxide levels greater than 23 million-year record
The team used the fossilized remains of ancient plant tissues to produce a new record of atmospheric CO2 that spans 23 million years of uninterrupted Earth history. They have shown elsewhere that as plants grow, the relative amount of the two stable isotopes of carbon, carbon-12 and carbon-13 changes in response to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. This research, published this week in Geology, is a next-level study measuring the relative amount of these carbon isotopes in fossil plant materials and calculating the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere under which the ancient plants grew. Furthermore, Schubert and colleagues' new CO2 "timeline" revealed no evidence for any fluctuations in CO2 that might be comparable to the dramatic CO2 increase of the present day, which suggests today's abrupt greenhouse disruption is unique across recent geologic history.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-06/gsoa-sst060120.phpCOVID-19 is the quiz, climate change the final exam
Nations like South Korea, New Zealand, and Taiwan, which studied for the quiz and heeded the expertise of their tutors (i.e., scientists), have done much better on the quiz than nations that rejected the expertise of their scientists – like the U.S. and Brazil ... government officials have sought to shift the blame, including, in particular, silencing scientists attempting to communicate their evidence-based science ... While the stakes for flunking the COVID-19 quiz have been crushing – over 425,000 people dead globally by mid-June, economies crippled, and an as-yet unrealized catastrophe looming for many nations in the developing world – the cost of failing our inevitable collective climate change final exam will be apocalyptic for civilization. When the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica melt, the forests of the Amazon transition to scrubland, and vast swaths of once-fertile land become inhospitable desert, there will be no climate change vaccine that will suddenly bring an end to these essentially irreversible catastrophes ... Science governs the rules of the final exam, and ignoring and suppressing the information scientists give about our upcoming final exam ensures we will fail it.
https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/06/commentary-covid-19-is-the-quiz-climate-change-the-final-exam/Government report forecasts worrying climate change outlook for India
Casting dark clouds on India's climate change assessment, a government report has said the nation's average temperature by the end of this century could be as much as 4.4 deg C higher than the 1976-2005 average. India's average temperature, it adds, has already increased by around 0.7 deg C between 1901 and 2018, mainly due to greenhouse gas emissions ... warns of a high likelihood of more frequent droughts ... This first-of-its-kind comprehensive climate change assessment for India, authored by scientists at Pune's Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, added that these rapid climatic changes will put increasing stress on the country's natural ecosystems, agricultural output and freshwater resources, and also cause greater damage to infrastructure.
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/south-asia/government-report-forecasts-worrying-climate-change-outlook-for-india100 degrees Fahrenheit! Eastern Siberian town shatters record for hottest-ever temperature inside Arctic Circle
The small town of Verkhoyansk, home to 1,000 people in Russia's Yakutia region, broke the record on Saturday for the highest temperature ever recorded within the Arctic Circle, hitting a maximum of 38 degrees Celsius.
https://www.rt.com/russia/492463-siberia-hot-temperature-record/Rising Seas Threaten an American Institution: The 30-Year Mortgage
The change has already begun. It’s not only along the nation’s rivers and coasts where climate-induced risk has started to push down home prices ... as the world warms, that long-term nature of conventional mortgages might not be as desirable as it once was, as rising seas and worsening storms threaten to make some land uninhabitable ... In 2016, Freddie Mac’s chief economist at the time, Sean Becketti, warned that losses from flooding both inland and along the coasts are “likely to be greater in total than those experienced in the housing crisis and the Great Recession.” If climate change makes coastal homes uninsurable, Dr. Becketti wrote, their value could fall to nothing [and after that] “What happens when the water starts lapping at these properties, and they get abandoned?”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/19/climate/climate-seas-30-year-mortgage.htmlOcean acidification will be worse than expected in the Arctic
In the coming decades, the Arctic Ocean will absorb significantly more carbon dioxide than what has been predicted by current climate models, according to new research from the University of Bern. The increased rate of ocean acidification, combined with other rapidly changing chemical conditions ... could threaten the entire Arctic food web all the way up to fish and marine mammals. The study is published in the journal Nature.
https://www.earth.com/news/ocean-acidification-will-be-worse-than-expected-in-the-arctic/
see also https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200617145947.htmCoastal erosion on Yukon’s only Arctic island exposes looming climate threat
Permafrost holds huge stores of carbon — it’s made up of layers of compounded plant and animal matter that’s been encased in the ice-sediment mix for thousands of years. In a frozen state, this carbon-rich matter doesn’t decay to create carbon dioxide. But as permafrost meets warmer temperatures and crashing waves, a thaw follows, allowing carbon dioxide to be produced. Along the coast and in nearshore waters, this production is happening at a faster rate than on land, researchers have found ... there is twice the amount of carbon in permafrost than currently in the atmosphere [and] the average rate of coastal erosion in the Arctic is 0.5 metres per year, Lantuit said. And notably, 34 per cent of the earth’s coastlines are found in the Arctic. “If it goes to one metre per year, which is now in the realm of real possibility for the Arctic, it sounds like little, but it’s going to be 100 per cent more carbon released into the ocean, mathematically,” Lantuit said. “The magnitude of change is enormous.”
https://thenarwhal.ca/erosion-yukons-arctic-island-exposes-looming-climate-threat/Huge forest fires put health at risk
Siberia—Russia's northernmost region—is experiencing wildfires after record spring heat, with temperatures sometimes exceeding 30 degrees in May and an average of 10 degrees above seasonal standards ... "They have the potential to accelerate warming in the Arctic, which is already heating up much more quickly than the rest of the planet. The vast Arctic peatlands, which are sustained by permafrost, are now thawing. This can release huge amounts of carbon back into the atmosphere. Peat is also flammable. Once ignited by a lightning strike, it can burn for weeks to months. The embers can even survive the winter, reigniting a large fire the following summer. Fires have a dual effect: as well as melting permafrost directly, they also darken the surface. This further accelerates the melting of permafrost and ice because a darker surface absorbs more of the sun's heat. Decaying peatlands can also emit large quantities of methane, which is a very potent greenhouse gas."
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-huge-forest-health.htmlCarbon emission from permafrost soils underestimated by 14%
According to a University of Michigan study, organic carbon in thawing permafrost soils flushed into lakes and rivers can be converted to carbon dioxide by sunlight, a process known as photomineralization. The research, led by aquatic geochemist Rose Cory, has found that organic carbon from thawing permafrost is highly susceptible to photomineralization by ultraviolet and visible light, and could contribute an additional 14% of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Her team’s study is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. “Only recently have global climate models included greenhouse gases from thawing permafrost soils. But none of them contain this feedback pathway,” said Cory, an associate professor of earth and environmental sciences.
https://news.umich.edu/carbon-emission-from-permafrost-soils-underestimated-by-14/Emissions from 13 dairy firms match those of entire UK, says report
The biggest dairy companies in the world have the same combined greenhouse gas emissions as the UK, the sixth biggest economy in the world, according to a new report. The analysis shows the impact of the 13 firms on the climate crisis is growing, with an 11% increase in emissions in the two years after the 2015 Paris climate change agreement, largely due to consolidation in the sector ... The report [is] by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) in the US.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/15/emissions-from-13-dairy-firms-match-those-of-entire-uk-says-reportClimate worst-case scenarios may not go far enough, cloud data shows
Modelling results from more than 20 institutions are being compiled for the sixth [IPCC] assessment. Compared with the last assessment in 2014, 25% of them show a sharp upward shift from 3C to 5C in climate sensitivity ... This has shocked many veteran observers [because] climate sensitivity above 5C would reduce the scope for human action to reduce the worst impacts of global heating ... Worst-case projections in excess of 5C have been generated by several of the world’s leading climate research bodies [yet] climate models might still be underestimating the problem because they did not fully take into account tipping points in the biosphere.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/13/climate-worst-case-scenarios-clouds-scientists-global-heatingThe vultures aren't hovering over Africa – and that's bad news
In the early 1990s, observers in India began to notice that vultures, which usually gathered in huge flocks around animal carcasses, were declining at an unprecedented rate ... from 1992 to 2007, India’s most common three vulture species declined by between 97% and 99.9%. The consequences were catastrophic: only once the vultures had gone did people realise the crucial job they had been doing in clearing up the corpses of domestic and wild animals. Rotting carcasses contaminated water supplies, while rats and feral dogs multiplied, leading to a huge increase in the risk of disease for humans. More than a decade after the crisis began, the key cause was confirmed. Asia’s vultures were feeding on animal carcasses containing diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug routinely given to domestic cattle but poisonous to birds. Now, a similar story is unfolding in Africa, which is home to 11 of the world’s 16 old world vulture species.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/13/the-vultures-arent-hovering-over-africa-and-thats-bad-news-aoeClimate crisis to blame for $67bn of Hurricane Harvey damage – study
At least $67bn of the damage caused by Hurricane Harvey in 2017 can be attributed directly to climate breakdown, according to research that could lead to a radical reassessment of the costs of damage from extreme weather ... Conventional economic estimates attributed only about $20bn of the destruction to the direct impacts of global heating [but] in a study published in the journal Climatic Change, researchers used the emerging science of climate change attribution to calculate the odds of such a hurricane happening naturally or under increased carbon dioxide levels, and applied the results to the damage caused. Similar methods were used in a separate study, published last month in the same journal, that found that droughts in New Zealand between 2007 and 2017 cost the economy about NZ$4.8bn, of which $800m was directly linked to climate change ... researchers say the new tools are a more accurate way of estimating the economic damage caused by climate breakdown.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/12/climate-crisis-to-blame-for-67bn-of-hurricane-harvey-damage-studyWarning from eco inspectors: more tundra oil reservoirs could collapse
Russian Environmental Control Authority calls on Nornickel ... to close down a major fuel storage park and empty the reservoirs According to Rosprirodnadzor, the environmental catastrophe happened after the concrete foundation on which the reservoir rests began to sink. Following the sinking, the bottom of the reservoir detached from its walls whereupon the diesel oil spilled into the surroundings ... On site are another four similar reservoirs, three of which are in operation ... the environmental watchdog now warns that the remaining reservoirs could ultimately get the same fate as the first collapsed tank ... The Russian Arctic has over many years been among the regions in the world with the most rapid warming, and climate changes in the area are today increasingly dramatic. Among the changes unfolding is a rapid reduction of the permafrost, which results in major risks for settlements, industry and infrastructure in the region.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/ecology/2020/06/warning-eco-inspectors-more-tundra-oil-reservoirs-could-collapseMutated coronavirus shows significant boost in infectivity
A tiny genetic mutation in the SARS coronavirus 2 variant circulating throughout Europe and the United States significantly increases the virus’ ability to infect cells, lab experiments performed at Scripps Research show. “Viruses with this mutation were much more infectious than those without the mutation in the cell culture system we used ,” says Scripps Research virologist Hyeryun Choe, PhD, senior author of the study ... Now undergoing peer review, it is being posted prior to publication to the pre-print site bioRxiv, and released early, amid news reports of its findings.
https://www.scripps.edu/news-and-events/press-room/2020/20200612-choe-farzan-coronavirus-spike-mutation.htmlUp to 45 percent of SARS-CoV-2 infections may be asymptomatic, new analysis finds
The findings, recently published in Annals of Internal Medicine, suggest that asymptomatic infections may have played a significant role in the early and ongoing spread of COVID-19 and highlight the need for expansive testing and contact tracing to mitigate the pandemic. “The silent spread of the virus makes it all the more challenging to control,” says Eric Topol, MD, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute and professor of Molecular Medicine at Scripps Research. “Our review really highlights the importance of testing. It’s clear that with such a high asymptomatic rate, we need to cast a very wide net, otherwise the virus will continue to evade us” ... suggests that asymptomatic individuals are able to transmit the virus for an extended period of time, perhaps longer than 14 days. The viral loads are very similar in people with or without symptoms.
https://www.scripps.edu/news-and-events/press-room/2020/20200609-oran-asymptomatic-infection.htmlMediterranean Sea Without Mediterranean Climate May Be A Thing, New Study Finds
Global warming is making Mediterranean’s signature climate harsher ... management consulting firm McKinsey has just released the latest of its case studies on climate risk, focusing on the Mediterranean communities and economies ... “By 2050, many parts of the Mediterranean, including agricultural lands, are expected to see drought condition for at least six months of the year on average” ... They chose the Mediterranean because of its exposure to extreme weather events. The region is indeed expected to see particularly strong increases in drought and heat, which make it one of the leading-edge examples of climate change risk.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/emanuelabarbiroglio/2020/06/11/mediterranean-sea-without-mediterranean-climate-may-be-a-thing-new-study-finds/Temperatures of 30 degrees Celsius reported above Arctic Circle
BBC Weather reported the temperature today at Nizhnyaya Pesha, an area of Russia about 1,300km north of Moscow. It follows a recent heatwave in the region, with temperatures soared to 10 degrees Celsius above average in Siberia last month, when the world experienced its warmest May on record. Large swathes of Siberia have been unusually warm for several months running, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
https://www.thejournal.ie/climate-change-arctic-30-degrees-weather-5118623-Jun2020/Once-in-a-1,000-year snow melt floods hydropower plant on Russia’s far northern coast
There were more melting permafrost problems for Russia’s energy infrastructure after the TGK1 power station on the Far Northwest coast reported on June 9 that two of its hydropower units were flooded with “abnormal water inflow” due to melting snow ... The flooding at TGK1 follows an oil spill in the mining town of Norilsk on Russia’s Far North coast last week that was the worst in the country's history and has been declared a national emergency. Norilsk is also in a permafrost region.
https://www.intellinews.com/once-in-a-1-000-year-snow-melt-floods-hydropower-plant-on-russia-s-far-northern-coast-185003/Carbon Dioxide Concentrations Break 417ppm For The First Time In History
In May, the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawai'i recorded a seasonal peak in the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) of 417.1 parts per million (ppm). This is the highest monthly reading of atmospheric CO2 ever recorded ... The cause, undisputably, is human-made emissions from energy production, transportation, and industry ... “Progress in emissions reductions is not visible in the CO2 record,” Pieter Tans, a senior scientist with NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory, said in a statement. “We continue to commit our planet – for centuries or longer – to more global heating, sea-level rise, and extreme weather events every year.” ... “People may be surprised to hear that the response to the coronavirus outbreak hasn’t done more to influence CO2 levels,” said geochemist Ralph Keeling, who runs the Scripps Oceanography program at Mauna Loa. “But the buildup of CO2 is a bit like trash in a landfill. As we keep emitting, it keeps piling up.”
https://www.iflscience.com/environment/carbon-dioxide-concentrations-break-417ppm-for-the-first-time-in-history/'Mass mortality event' devastates Sydney's coastal ecosystems
Researchers for The Abyss Project, a commercial and scientific group of divers, say the coast and estuaries have suffered a "mass mortality event", potentially the worst in decades ... species down to as deep as eight metres heavily affected by a sequence of changed water quality and conditions ... Salinity in shallow estuaries rose as freshwater inflows dropped with the drought, and then the bushfires brought additional nitrogen and phosphorous - including from fire retardants - that spurred cyanobacteria growth. The big storms provided the final blow for much of the aquatic life ... increasing climate stresses in the future could "just decouple everything" in the marine ecosystems around Sydney and beyond.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/mass-mortality-event-devastates-sydney-s-coastal-ecosystems-20200605-p54zyo.htmlIce Melt Accelerating, Causing Depletion of Freshwater Resources
Seven of the regions that dominate global ice mass losses are melting at an accelerated rate, a new study shows, and the quickened melt rate is depleting freshwater resources that millions of people depend on. The impact of melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica on the world’s oceans is well documented. But the largest contributors to sea level rise in the 20th century were melting ice caps and glaciers located in seven other regions: Alaska, the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the Southern Andes, High Mountain Asia, the Russian Arctic, Iceland and the Norwegian archipelago Svalbard. The five Arctic regions accounted for the greatest share of ice loss. And this ice melt is accelerating, potentially affecting not just coastlines but agriculture and drinking water supplies in communities around the world, according to the study by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory; the University of California, Irvine; and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.
https://scitechdaily.com/ice-melt-accelerating-causing-depletion-of-freshwater-resources/More Extreme Waves Tipped to Erode Coastlines as Planet Warms
“An increase in the risk of extreme wave events may be catastrophic, as larger and more frequent storms will cause more flooding and coastline erosion,” according to Professor Ian Young, University of Melbourne infrastructure engineering researcher. New Zealand’s west coast, Tasmania, the southern tip of South America and parts of the Canadian coastline are among the most at-risk areas. The research was led by the University of Melbourne’s school of engineering and published in Science Advances.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-11/more-extreme-waves-tipped-to-erode-coastlines-as-planet-warmsIreland bans hosepipe use as dry spring parches Emerald Isle
Six-week garden-hose ban after the country renowned for rainy weather experienced one of the driest springs on record Ireland’s weather office, Met Eireann, says the country experienced its driest May since 1850. Some areas had the driest spring ever recorded, with the capital, Dublin, receiving less than a third of its usual spring rainfall. Drier-than-normal weather is expected to continue into the summer ... The company said that as lockdown eases and businesses reopen, demand for water “is being exacerbated by warm weather and the widespread emergence of drought conditions.”
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/ireland-bans-hosepipe-dry-spring-parches-emerald-isle-71148865Giant diesel spill in Russia offers glimpse of Arctic’s future
Investigators have determined that the leakage of of 20,000 tons of diesel (about 150,000 barrels) from a reservoir at a power plant in Russia’s Far North was caused by damage from thawing permafrost - just the latest sign of the catastrophic effects climate change is having in the Arctic ... With temperatures rising at twice the global average rate in the Arctic Circle, the frozen ground is thawing and causing cracks in roads and buildings. About half of Russia, the world’s largest country, is covered with permafrost ... A heat wave in Siberia resulted in temperatures as high as 10 degrees Celsius above the May average in some areas ... 1,700 gigatons of carbon dioxide is trapped in permafrost, or twice the amount currently in the atmosphere. “Permafrost contains organic matter that never decomposed, so when it thaws, that organic matter starts decomposing, bacteria eat it and in the process they release greenhouse gases, mainly methane and carbon dioxide ... All of that accelerates global warming.”
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/06/08/world/science-health-world/giant-diesel-spill-russia-offers-glimpse-arctics-futureBorrowed time: Climate change threatens U.S. mortgage market
"Everyone is exposed" as taxpayer-backed loans and insurance face a coming storm
U.S. taxpayers could be on the hook for billions of dollars in climate-related property losses as the government backs a growing number of mortgages on homes in the path of floods, fires and extreme weather ... the government’s biggest housing subsidies — mortgage guarantees and flood insurance — are on course to hit taxpayers and the housing market as the effects of climate change worsen ... National Bureau of Economic Research working paper in February concluded that homes in flood plains are overvalued by $34 billion because homebuyers don’t fully price in the high risk of climate-related disasters.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/08/borrowed-time-climate-changemortgage-market-304130As Pakistan glacier melt surges, efforts to cut flood risk drag
Pakistan has more glaciers than anywhere except the polar regions. But climate change is "eating away Himalayan glaciers at a dramatic rate", a study published last year in the journal Science Advances noted. As glacier ice melts, it can collect in large glacial lakes, which are at risk of bursting their through banks and creating deadly flash floods downstream, in places like Hassanabad. More than 3,000 of those lakes had formed as of 2018, with 33 of them considered hazardous and more than 7 million people at risk downstream, according to UNDP ... melting is likely to pick up over the summer months, he said, noting that “June to September will be dangerous”, particularly after a winter of heavy snowfall.
https://indianexpress.com/article/world/as-pakistan-glacier-melt-surges-efforts-to-cut-flood-risk-drag-6448218/Europe’s Most Important River Dangerously Low As Summer Starts
Germany’s Rhine River is entering dry summer months with water levels at their lowest in two decades ... After spring showers failed to show in Germany, the official water level at Kaub — a key chokepoint near Frankfurt — dropped to around 1 meter on June 3 ... fears of a repeat of disruption seen in 2018 when waters fell so low the river became impassable to industrial ships, severing downriver factories from North Sea ports ... Forecasters have warned that Europe faces a tinder-dry summer ... Rhine waters have dropped 40% since the start of April.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-06/europe-s-most-important-river-dangerously-low-as-summer-startsSunbathing in Siberia: global heatwave rings alarm bells
Sunbathing is not the first thing that comes to mind when considering Siberia, the vast, sparsely populated Russian region stretching up to the Arctic that is, for much of the year, covered in snow. Yet recently this icy realm of birch forests and prison camps has been baking under an unprecedented heatwave – and people have been soaking up the rays on their rooftops. “I’m Siberian-born and lived here for 60 years. I don’t remember a single spring like this,” said journalist Sergey Zubchuk ... temperatures were as high as 35C, about twice the average high in May.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/sunbathing-in-siberia-global-heatwave-rings-alarm-bells-htltg56kmPeatland drainage in Southeast Asia adds to climate change
In less than three decades, most of Southeast Asia's peatlands have been wholly or partially deforested, drained, and dried out. This has released carbon that accumulated over thousands of years from dead plant matter, and has led to rampant wildfires that spew air pollution and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The startling prevalence of such rapid destruction of the peatlands, and their resulting subsidence, is revealed in a new satellite-based study conducted by researchers at MIT and in Singapore and Oregon. The research was published in the journal Nature Geoscience ... "Thirty years ago, or even 20 years ago, this land was covered with pristine rainforest with enormous trees," Harvey says, and that was still the case even when he began doing research in the area. "In 13 years, I've seen almost all of these rainforests just removed. There's almost none at all anymore."
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-peatland-drainage-southeast-asia-climate.htmlNew study reveals cracks beneath giant methane gushing craters
[There are] hundreds of massive, kilometer-wide craters on the ocean floor in the Barents Sea. Today, more than 600 gas flares have been identified in and around these craters, releasing the greenhouse gas steadily into the water column ... The most recent study in Scientific Reports looks into the depths far beneath these craters ... "It turns out that this area has a very old fault system—essentially, cracks in bedrock that likely formed 250 million years ago ... the methane that is leaking through the seafloor originates from these deep structures."
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-reveals-beneath-giant-methane-gushing.htmlOnly a fifth of ice-free land on Earth has very little human influence
After excluding the estimated 10 per cent of Earth that is currently ice-covered land such as Antarctica and most of Greenland, or glaciers elsewhere in the world [researchers] found that [only] 21 per cent of the remaining land on Earth has very low human influence ... “A global human influence map is critical to understand the extent and intensity of human pressures on Earth’s ecosystems.”
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2245343-only-a-fifth-of-ice-free-land-on-earth-has-very-little-human-influence/
reporting on a study at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gcb.15109Arctic Circle As Hot As Hong Kong Average Temperatures
In the last week of May, parts of the Arctic Circle recorded temperatures on par with the average monthly temperature in Hong Kong. North Central Siberia, for instance, saw temperatures climb as high as 26 degrees Celsius. Scientists have raised concerns about thawing Arctic permafrost that will release stored greenhouse gases, further accelerating the rate of global heating ... temperatures have been inching higher and higher every year as global heating continues unabated ... could mean the thawing of Arctic permafrost – the permanently frozen soil located across the Arctic region that stores massive amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Once melted, these gases will be unlocked and released into the atmosphere in a process called “carbon feedback”, exacerbating what is already a severe climate crisis.
https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/parts-of-arctic-circle-were-as-hot-as-hong-kong-average-temperatures-may-2020/Coronavirus is an ‘SOS signal for the human enterprise’
The coronavirus pandemic is an “SOS signal for the human enterprise”, according to a leading economist and the United Nation’s environment chief ... ongoing destruction of nature has been blamed as the fundamental driver of diseases that cross from wildlife into humans. In April, the world’s leading biodiversity experts said even more deadly disease outbreaks were likely unless the destruction is halted. Dasgupta is leading a major review on the economics of biodiversity for the UK government, due to be published later in 2020, and Anderson is an adviser ... “Covid-19 is an SOS signal for the human enterprise, bringing into sharp focus the need to live within the planet’s ‘safe operating space’, and the disastrous environmental, health and economic consequences of failing to do so,” said Dasgupta and Anderson.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/05/coronavirus-is-an-sos-signal-for-the-human-enterpriseHigh Temperatures Set Off Major Greenland Ice Melt — Again
A significant melt event is unfolding in Greenland this week. With temperatures nearly 20 degrees Fahrenheit higher than usual in some areas, the southern part of the ice sheet is melting at its highest rate this season ... Early melting this spring, low snowpack in some areas and the potential for strong high-pressure weather systems later this summer have all raised red flags. Scientists are paying close attention after last summer’s record-breaking ice loss—an event scientists expect to occur more frequently as the Arctic continues to warm.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/high-temperatures-set-off-major-greenland-ice-melt-again/Here be methane: Scientists investigate the origins of a gaping permafrost crater
Permafrost, which amounts to two thirds of the Russian territory, is a huge natural reservoir of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. As the Arctic warms and permafrost degrades due to climate change, scientists are concerned that this methane may start leaking into the atmosphere in massive amounts, further exacerbating global warming. Right now methane is already quietly seeping from underground in the Arctic ... "Cryovolcanism [is] an explosion involving rocks, ice, water and gases that leaves behind a crater. It is a potential threat to human activity in the Arctic, and ... also contribute to the rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere."
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-methane-scientists-gaping-permafrost-crater.html‘Collapse of civilisation is the most likely outcome’: top climate scientists
Australia’s top climate scientist says “we are already deep into the trajectory towards collapse” of civilisation, which may now be inevitable because 9 of the 15 known global climate tipping points that regulate the state of the planet have been activated ... “Given the momentum in both the Earth and human systems, and the growing difference between the ‘reaction time’ needed to steer humanity towards a more sustainable future, and the ‘intervention time’ left to avert a range of catastrophes in both the physical climate system (e.g., melting of Arctic sea ice) and the biosphere (e.g., loss of the Great Barrier Reef), we are already deep into the trajectory towards collapse. That is, the intervention time we have left has, in many cases, shrunk to levels that are shorter than the time it would take to transition to a more sustainable system” ... This is not a unique view – leading Stanford University biologists, who were first to reveal that we are already experiencing the sixth mass extinction on Earth, released new research this week showing species extinctions are accelerating in an unprecedented manner, which may be a tipping point for the collapse of human civilisation ... “[T]his is an existential threat to civilization,” they wrote. “No amount of economic cost–benefit analysis is going to help us ... The evidence from tipping points alone suggests that we are in a state of planetary emergency: both the risk and urgency of the situation are acute.” Steffen is also the lead author of the heavily cited 2018 paper, Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene, where he found that “even if the Paris Accord target of a 1.5°C to 2°C rise in temperature is met, we cannot exclude the risk that a cascade of feedbacks could push the Earth System irreversibly onto a ‘Hothouse Earth’ pathway” ... Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director emeritus and founder of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, believes if we go much above 2°C we will quickly get to 4°C anyway because of the tipping points and feedbacks, which would spell the end of human civilisation ... Schellnhuber, one of the world’s leading authorities on climate change, said that if we continue down the present path “there is a very big risk that we will just end our civilisation."
https://voiceofaction.org/collapse-of-civilisation-is-the-most-likely-outcome-top-climate-scientists/Australia among global 'hot spots' as droughts worsen in warming world
The world's major food baskets will experience more extreme droughts than previously forecast as greenhouse gases rise, with southern Australia among the worst-hit, climate projections show. Scientists at the Australian National University and the University of NSW made the findings after running the latest generation of climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Future drought changes were larger and more consistent, the researchers found.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/australia-among-global-hot-spots-as-droughts-worsen-in-warming-world-20200601-p54ydh.htmlAustralia’s Water Is Vanishing
Murray-Darling Basin is supposed to be Australia’s agricultural heartland [but] today the Murray-Darling is at the leading edge of something very different: a series of crises that could soon envelop river systems in Africa, South Asia, and the American West, as temperatures rise and economies compete for strained supplies. The area has spent most of the past several years in a drought so savage that it completely dried out sections of the Darling for months at a time ... an historic shift driven by man-made climate change, with less-predictable rainfall reducing the amount of water flowing into the system and higher temperatures rapidly evaporating what does arrive ... predictions indicate that, as the planet warms, the basin’s droughts will only grow longer and more severe.
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-australia-drought-water-crisis/High Risk of Widespread Wildfires Across Europe This Year, EU Says
The European Union expects dry weather to cause unusually widespread wildfires in Europe over the coming months, including in the central and northern regions that tend to be less at risk, the EU's crisis management commissioner said on Tuesday. After above-average European spring temperatures, forest fires have already broken out in recent days in Sweden and northern France, data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) show. This is in addition to fires in Italy and Portugal, which are vulnerable because of their warmer climate. The Commission, the EU executive arm, expects the situation will get much worse over Europe's summer.
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2020-06-02/high-risk-of-widespread-wildfires-across-europe-this-year-eu-saysSummers are growing longer due to climate change, while winters are dramatically shrinking
The Earth is warming and disturbing the balance of the seasons ... most locations globally, including in the United States and Canada, have seen their summer season lengthen and the winter season shrink ... finding of longer summers and shorter winters is consistent with the findings of a March study from the Australia Institute, titled Out of Season. It conducted a similar analysis, focused on Australia, examining changes in the seasons over two consecutive 20-year time spans. Like the analysis performed here, it found a dramatic increase in the length of summer and decrease in the length of winter between the two periods.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/06/01/summers-are-growing-longer-due-climate-change-while-winters-dramatically-shrink/Football pitch-sized area of tropical rainforest lost every six seconds
Nearly 12m hectares of tree cover was lost across the tropics, including nearly 4m hectares of dense, old rainforest that held significant stores of carbon and had been home to a vast array of wildlife, according to data from the University of Maryland. Beyond the tropics, Australia’s devastating bushfires led to a sixfold increase in tree cover loss across the continent in 2019 ... loss of trees in the tropics was the third worst recorded since data was first collected in 2002, trailing behind only 2016 and 2017. The heaviest reduction continues to be in Brazil, which accounted for more than a third of all humid tropical forest loss.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/02/football-pitch-area-tropical-rainforest-lost-every-six-secondsThe sixth mass extinction is happening faster than expected. Scientists say it's our fault
The sixth mass extinction is not a worry for the future. It's happening now, much faster than previously expected, and it's entirely our fault ... the findings published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) show that the rate at which species are dying out has accelerated in recent decades ... Later this year, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity is expected to set new global goals to combat the ongoing biodiversity crisis in the coming decades. At a 2010 summit in Japan, the United Nations set similar targets. But the world failed to meet most of those 2020 goals and now faces unprecedented extinction rates, threatened ecosystems and severe consequences for human survival.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/01/world/sixth-mass-extinction-accelerating-intl/index.html
reporting on a study at https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/05/27/1922686117The Rush to Sock Away Glacier Ice Before It All Melts
From the Alps to the Andes, glaciers that have stood for thousands of years are melting. And as the ice disappears, so does a unique archive. Locked within are traces of the atmosphere as it was when the glacier formed: bubbles of gas that indicate past levels of carbon dioxide, sulphur and nitrogen pollutants, and even specks of pollen. For scientists interested in ecosystems and climate, glacier ice is a vital repository of clues. It’s probably too late to save most of the glaciers outside the polar regions ... “We need to preserve these really important archives, because they are melting away,” Margit Schwikowski, an environmental chemist at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, says. “It’s really obvious if you go to the glaciers that they are suffering. It’s happening everywhere on Earth.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/05/glacier-melt-antarctica-vault/612343/Tanker crosses Russian Arctic route without icebreaker assistance
The sea ice along the Russian Arctic coast is quickly vanishing as temperatures in the region have been reaching record highs. With the retreating ice comes tanker traffic ... earliest east-bound shipment on the route ever for this kind of vessel ... now only one-year old ice along the whole route contrary to last year when a belt of multi-year old ice covered parts of the East Siberian Sea ... Ice layers on the Northern Sea Route have shrunk dramatically over a number of years.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/industry-and-energy/2020/05/tankers-cross-russian-arctic-route-without-icebreaker-assistanceIt Hit 80 Degrees in the Arctic This Week
A little farther south, in Siberia — you know, the region of world we reference when we want to connote something cold — it was 86 degrees Fahrenheit. Arctic sea ice in the neighboring Kara Sea took the deepest May nose dive ever recorded ... an explosive heat wave that has rippled across the Arctic this week. Models forecast temperatures there will be as much as 36 degrees Fahrenheit above normal for this time of year ... wildfires continue to spread ... other seas that ring the Arctic have also been losing ice ... Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the globe, and what’s happening there is unprecedented.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/it-hit-80-degrees-in-the-arctic-this-week-1843606717Climate change in deep oceans could be seven times faster by middle of century, report says
Rates of climate change in the world’s ocean depths could be seven times higher than current levels by the second half of this century even if emissions of greenhouse gases were cut dramatically ... In the new research, scientists looked at a measure called climate velocity – the speed at which species would need to move to stay within their preferred temperature range as different ocean layers warm. The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, found different parts of the ocean would change at different rates as the extra heat from increasing levels of greenhouse gases moved through the vast ocean depths.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/26/climate-change-in-deep-oceans-could-be-seven-times-faster-by-middle-of-century-report-saysArctic Permafrost Moving Toward Crisis, Abrupt Thaw a Growing Risk: Studies
Until recently, scientists assumed global permafrost wouldn’t lose more than 10% of its carbon, and that this would occur over a drawn-out timescale. But when they pooled observations from more than 100 Arctic field sites in the Permafrost Carbon Network, they found that the permafrost likely released ... double that of past estimates ... In a 2015 study, scientists found that for every one degree C rise in Earth’s average temperature, permafrost may release the equivalent of 4 to 6 years-worth of oil, coal and natural gas emissions ... when that carbon is released into the atmosphere it can come out as either carbon dioxide (C02) or methane (CH4), depending on whether the carbon stores were subject to aerobic or anaerobic respiration. The danger here: methane is far more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2.
https://earth.org/arctic-permafrost-abrupt-thaw-a-risk/
reporting on a study at https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/12/eaaw9883Antarctic Ocean Reveals New Signs of Rapid Melt of Ancient Ice, Clues About Future Sea Level Rise
A study released today suggests that some of the continent's floating ice shelves can, during eras of rapid warming, melt back by six miles per year, far faster than any ice retreat observed by satellites. As global warming speeds up the Antarctic meltdown, the findings "set a new upper limit for what the worst-case might be," said lead author Julian Dowdeswell, director of the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28052020/antarctic-ocean-ice-melt-climate-change
see also https://phys.org/news/2020-05-antarctic-ice-sheets-capable-retreating.htmlShort-term tests validate long-term estimates of climate change
For a doubling of CO2 concentration from pre-industrial levels, some models predict an alarming long-term warming of more than 5 °C. But are these estimates believable? Writing in the Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, Williams et al have tested some of the revisions that have been made to one such model ... they support the estimates [and] carry a far-reaching message: we cannot afford to be complacent. It seems that cloud adjustment to climate change is not going to give us breathing space. Instead, we need to redouble our efforts to cut emissions.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01484-5The Climate Crisis May Kickstart an El Niño System in the Indian Ocean for the First Time in Over 20 000 Years
Currently, the Indian Ocean sees little change in temperature year-on-year; the west-to-east winds tend to keep conditions stable. However, the models show that the climate crisis may reverse these winds, completely altering weather patterns in the region. The study shows that the rising temperatures of today are affecting the Indian Ocean in a similar way as the glaciers did tens of thousands of years ago. This could lead to increased flooding in some areas to longer dry spells in others, affecting massive parts of the world already feeling the effects of the crisis, as seen recently with the bushfires in Australia.
https://earth.org/el-nino-indian-ocean/Climate change is turning parts of Antarctica green, say scientists
The British team behind the research believe these blooms will expand their range in the future because global heating is creating more of the slushy conditions they need to thrive. In some areas, the single-cell life-forms are so dense they turn the snow bright green and can be seen from space ... “This could potentially form new habitats. In some place, it would be the beginning of a new ecosystem,” said Matt Davey of Cambridge University, one of the scientists who led the study.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/20/climate-change-turning-parts-antarctica-green-say-scientists-algaeMore dams will collapse as aging infrastructure can’t keep up with climate change
The collapse of two Michigan dams on Tuesday following heavy rainfall has triggered concerns over how precarious dam infrastructure in the U.S. is inadequate to handle severe weather. Aging dams will increasingly fail as climate change makes extreme precipitation and storms more frequent and intense, scientists warn. “A lot of the country’s infrastructure systems were built during a time when these kind of weather events were considered rare and didn’t present a significant threat,” said Hiba Baroud, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Vanderbilt University. “But things have changed. The climate has changed. These dams are aging and need to be maintained, upgraded and in the most extreme cases, the entire design must be revisited,” Baroud continued. “Otherwise, the situation like in Michigan will become more frequent in the future.” The 91,000 dams in the U.S. earned a “D” for safety in a 2017 report from the American Society of Civil Engineers.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/21/more-dams-will-collapse-as-aging-infrastructure-cant-keep-up-with-climate-change.htmlDam Failure Threatens a Dow Chemical Complex and Superfund Cleanup
Floodwaters from two breached dams in Michigan on Wednesday flowed into a sprawling Dow chemical complex and threatened a vast Superfund toxic-cleanup site downriver, raising concerns of wider environmental fallout from the dam disaster and historic flooding. The compound ... also houses the chemical giant’s world headquarters ... floodwaters had reached the Dow site’s outer boundaries and had flowed into retaining ponds ... contaminated sediments on the river floor could be stirred up by the floodwaters, spreading pollution downstream and over the riverbanks ... the Dow complex has manufactured a range of products including Saran Wrap, Styrofoam, Agent Orange and mustard gas. Over time, Dow released chemicals into the water, leading to dioxin contamination stretching more than 50 miles along the Tittabawassee and Saginaw Rivers and into Lake Huron ... The threat to the Dow complex highlights the risks to Superfund and other toxic cleanup sites posed by the effects of climate change, which include more frequent and severe flooding. A federal report published last year found that 60 percent of Superfund sites overseen by the E.P.A., or more than 900 toxic sites countrywide, are in areas that may be affected by flooding or wildfires, both hazards that may be exacerbated by climate change.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/20/climate/michigan-dam-dow-chemical-superfund.htmlAmerica’s Patchwork Pandemic Is Fraying Even Further
Meanwhile, most states have begun lifting the social-distancing restrictions that had temporarily slowed the pace of the pandemic, creating more opportunities for the virus to spread. Its potential hosts are still plentiful: Even in the biggest hot spots, most people were not infected and remain susceptible. Further outbreaks are likely ... Americans should expect neither a swift return to normalcy nor a unified national experience, with an initial spring wave, a summer lull, and a fall resurgence. “The talk of a second wave as if we’ve exited the first doesn’t capture what’s really happening,” says Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security ... the COVID-19 pandemic is most like a very rapid version of climate change—global in its scope, erratic in its unfolding, and unequal in its distribution. And like climate change, there is no easy fix. Our choices are to remake society or let it be remade, to smooth the patchworks old and new or let them fray even further.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/05/patchwork-pandemic-states-reopening-inequalities/611866/The coronavirus recession will become a long depression unless federal policymakers act now
By mid-April, the labor market had shed more than 20 million jobs, by far the most dramatic job loss on record—about two and a half times the job loss of the entire Great Recession. And the situation continues to deteriorate ... even though that is the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression, it is not actually reflecting all coronavirus-related job losses. In fact, only about half of people who are out of work as a result of the virus are showing up as unemployed ... if the federal government doesn’t act, then those furloughs will turn into permanent layoffs and the country will face an extended period of high unemployment.
https://www.epi.org/blog/the-coronavirus-recession-will-become-a-long-depression-unless-federal-policymakers-act-now/Epidemiologists brace for 2nd wave of COVID-19 — and it may come in September
"Until we get the vaccine, I don't think we can really avoid the second wave," said Rama Nair, an expert in epidemiology with 40 years' experience as a teacher and researcher ... The curve of infections "hasn't flattened because it's gone through our community, it's flattened because we've distanced. We've slowed it down," Manuel said ... "There is potentially a tsunami happening," said the professor, who models infectious diseases. His estimates, like other epidemiological models, predict another wave of COVID-19 by late summer.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/second-wave-covid-19-1.5570905The Arctic Is Unraveling as a Massive Heat Wave Grips the Region
The warmth is helping to spread widespread wildfires and to kickstart ice melt season early, both ominous signs of what summer could hold ... Russia had its hottest winter ever recorded, driven largely by Siberian heat. That heat hasn’t let up as the calendar turns to spring. In fact, it’s intensified and spread across the Arctic. Last month was the hottest April on record for the globe, driven by high Arctic temperatures that averaged an astounding 17 degrees Fahrenheit (9.4 degrees Celsius) above normal ... Martin Stendel, a climate scientist at the Danish Meteorological Institute, told the Washington Post that the mid-May warmth is “quite extraordinary...there is no similar event so early in the season.” Siberia has been one of the blistering hot spots on the globe all year, and heat is pushing out of the region and traversing the Arctic ... [also] massive wildfires raging in Siberia. The region has quietly been ablaze since last month, and flames have continued to spread across millions of acres. While most have burned below the Arctic Circle—or 66.5 degrees North—the warmth has allowed at least some flames to spread north of it.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-arctic-is-unraveling-as-a-massive-heat-wave-grips-t-1843519435‘We Need to Hear These Poor Trees Scream’: Unchecked Global Warming Means Big Trouble for Forests
New studies show drought and heat waves will cause massive die-offs, killing most trees alive today. The study, published April 17 in the journal Science, reviewed the last 10 years of research on tree mortality, concluding that forests are in big trouble if global warming continues at the present pace. Most trees alive today won't be able to survive in the climate expected in 40 years ... "The review ends on a hard note, with high confidence that we're going to have a lot of impacts with hotter droughts in the future," he said. Mass forest die-offs will proliferate and expand. The trend toward more extreme heat waves and droughts is lethal for forests ... At the current pace of warming, much of the world will be inhospitable to forests as we know them within decades.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24042020/forest-trees-climate-change-deforestationHurricanes, typhoons and cyclones are becoming stronger, according to a new NOAA study
Hurricanes, typhoons, and tropical cyclones worldwide are becoming stronger and potentially more deadly as the globe warms due to the climate crisis, according to a new study ... A current example of what the study says is happening more frequently can be found in the Bay of Bengal, where Super Cyclone Amphan has reached the top of the scale ... the strongest storm on record in the Bay of Bengal, according to data from the US Joint Typhoon Warning Center.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/18/weather/climate-change-hurricane-tropical-cyclone/index.htmlDangerous humid heat extremes occurring decades before expected
Climate models project[ed] that combinations of heat and humidity could reach deadly thresholds for anyone spending several hours outdoors by the end of the 21st century. However, new research says these extremes are already happening — decades before anticipated — due to global warming to date. The study, “The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance,” published today in Science Advances shows for the first time that some locations have already reported combined heat and humidity [wetbulb] extremes above humans’ survivability limit. Dangerous extremes only a few degrees below this limit have occurred thousands of times globally ... “I believe that humid heat is the most underestimated direct, local risk of climate change,” said Radley Horton, a Columbia University professor and lead of NOAA's Urban Northeast RISA team who co-authored the study. “As with sea level rise and coastal flooding, we are already locked into large increases in the frequency and intensity of extreme humid heat events, and the risk is much larger than most people appreciate.”
https://research.noaa.gov/article/ArtMID/587/ArticleID/2621/Dangerous-humid-heat-extremes-occurring-decades-before-expected
reporting on a study at https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/19/eaaw1838Heat and Humidity Are Already Reaching the Limits of Human Tolerance
As heat waves grow hotter and more frequent, research has suggested some places will begin to see events that reach that limit of human tolerance in the coming decades. But now a new study shows they already have. The findings, published on Friday in Science Advances, underscore the need to rapidly curtail emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases and develop policies that will help vulnerable populations stay cool. High temperatures prompt the human body to produce sweat, which cools the skin as it evaporates. But when sky-high humidity is also involved, evaporation slows down and eventually stops. That point comes when the so-called the wet-bulb temperature—a measure that combines air temperature and humidity—reaches 35 degrees Celsius ... [this study] found that extreme humid heat occurs twice as often now as it did four decades ago and that the severity of this heat is increasing. Many places have hit wet-bulb temperatures of 31 degrees C and higher. And several have recorded readings above the crucial 35C mark ... in the same places that earlier modeling studies had identified as future hotspots.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heat-and-humidity-are-already-reaching-the-limits-of-human-tolerance/Climate change makes repeat 'Dust Bowl' twice as likely
Due to global warming, the United States is today more than twice as likely to endure a devastating "dust bowl" scenario than during the Great Depression ... the signature of human-induced climate change is unmistakable ... "If extreme heatwaves and drought reduce the vegetation as they did in the 1930s, heatwaves could become even stronger" ... A study last month in the journal Science concluded that the western United States has likely entered a period of megadrought—the fourth in 1,200 years—that could last decades, even a century. Globally, 19 out of 20 of the warmest years on record have occurred this century.
https://phys.org/news/2020-05-climate-bowl.html'Promiscuous treatment of nature' will lead to more pandemics – scientists
Deforestation and other forms of land conversion are driving exotic species out of their evolutionary niches and into manmade environments, where they interact and breed new strains of disease, the experts say. Three-quarters of new or emerging diseases that infect humans originate in animals, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but it is human activity that multiplies the risks of contagion.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/07/promiscuous-treatment-of-nature-will-lead-to-more-pandemics-scientistsStuck at home, Europeans face a summer of sweltering temperatures and drought, scientists predict
Hotter and drier weather is highly likely to stretch across key agricultural regions in the European Union, potentially compounding drought conditions that have been made worse by climate change ... According to EU studies published last month, persistent drought that’s stressing production of crops like wheat and corn is threatening to disrupt food output ... Europeans won’t be alone in feeling record summer temperatures ... large sections of the U.S. east and west coasts will record well-above-average temperatures in July.
https://fortune.com/2020/05/16/europe-summer-2020-drought-heat-wave-forecast/The arctic melts when plants stop breathing
The vapor that plants emit when they breathe serves to lower land surface temperature ... the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration closes the pores (stomata) of plants in high-latitude areas and reduces their transpiration, which ultimately accelerates Arctic warming ... During [photosynthesis] the stomata of leaves open to absorb CO2 in the air and release moisture [but] when the CO2 concentration rises, plants can absorb enough CO2 without opening their stomata widely. If the stomata open narrowly, the amount of water vapor released also decreases. When this transpiration of plants declines, the land temperature rapidly rises under greenhouse warming. Recently, such a decrease in transpiration has been cited as one of the reasons for the surge in heat waves in the northern hemisphere.
https://phys.org/news/2020-05-revolt-arctic.htmlCan't 'See' Sea Level Rise? You're Looking in the Wrong Place
An eroding beach can lose several feet of sand a year ... since it occurs relatively slowly, it can be easy to think it’s not happening. But as oceanographer and climate scientist Josh Willis of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, told me, if you’re not seeing it, you’re just not looking in the right place. “Each year, global warming is currently adding about 750 gigatonnes of water to the ocean ... that flood that you used to be protected from is now wiping you out” ... In many places, sea level rise has rendered sea walls erected decades ago to handle 100-year floods inadequate ... “We’ve had such a large amount of sea level rise in the past century that we’re now nearing a tipping point,” said Ben Hamlington, a research scientist in JPL’s Sea Level and Ice Group.
https://climate.nasa.gov/blog/2974/cant-see-sea-level-rise-youre-looking-in-the-wrong-place/Record global carbon dioxide concentrations despite COVID-19 crisis
Over the past few weeks there have been many reports of localized air quality improvements [but] no one should think that the climate crisis is therefore over ... owing to anthropogenic CO2 emissions (emissions from human activities), CO2 concentrations are not only increasing, but accelerating [even as] vehicular and air traffic, as well as industrial activity, has reduced sharply in most parts of the world since January 2020.
https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/record-global-carbon-dioxide-concentrations-despite-covid-19-crisisDrop in pollution may bring hotter weather and heavier monsoons
With fewer [aerosol masking] particles and polluting gases to hinder its path, more sunlight is able to reach the Earth’s surface. Earlier this year, scientists confirmed that cleaner skies in recent decades have caused a brightening of the Earth’s surface ... “Aerosols can scatter and absorb radiation. They can also modify clouds to make them more reflective and longer lived,” explains Laura Wilcox, a climate scientist at the University of Reading. Unlike carbon dioxide, aerosols only hang around in the atmosphere for a week or two, meaning that any reduction in pollution will be quickly felt. “With smaller amounts of aerosol in the atmosphere we will already be seeing more solar radiation reaching the surface, and thus potentially warmer surface temperatures in regions that usually have high levels of air pollution,” says Wilcox ... In the most extreme scenarios (with rapid increases in air quality) their results suggest the hottest day of the year may be up to 4C hotter by 2050, with around one third of that increase due to cleaner skies.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/13/drop-in-pollution-may-bring-hotter-weather-and-heavier-monsoonsThe Planet Is Probably in Worse Shape Than We Can Even Predict
The first climate models, developed in the 1960s, were eerily accurate: They correctly predicted how much hotter the world would be today given the increase in greenhouse gas emissions [but] today’s climate models might not be as good at predicting the next fifty years [because] the facts on the ground are changing so fast ... “If you watch how the reports have changed,” said Jessica Hellman, the director of the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment, “more of our errors have tended to be underestimations of how bad things could be.” Some of the newest climate models, generated last year with the most detailed data to date, reveal a hotter, less-predictable future. “I think there does seem to be a change in this new generation of models — and it could be really bad, bad news,” said Kate Marvel, a climate scientist at Columbia University and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ep4gyw/the-planet-is-probably-in-worse-shape-than-we-can-even-predictAs ice melts, emperor penguins march toward extinction
What the emperor penguins won’t easily get used to is diminishing—and possibly disappearing—sea ice, which provides a stable breeding platform and base from which they can hunt for food in surrounding waters ... “Under a business-as-usual scenario, emperor penguins are marching towards extinction,” says Stéphanie Jenouvrier, a seabird biologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. Her team’s research indicates that if carbon emissions remain unchecked, 80 percent of the emperor colonies could be gone by 2100, leaving little hope for the species’ survival. Average global temperature is on track to increase by three to five degrees Celsius (5.4 to nine degrees Fahrenheit) by then.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2020/06/as-ice-melts-emperor-penguins-march-toward-extinction-feature/California’s mountain snow cover is vanishing a month early, in a worrying setup for fire season
On Monday, California fire officials gathered to launch the state’s annual Wildfire Preparedness Week. The message they delivered was clear: Summer 2020 would not mimic summer 2019, when wildfires mostly remained small and manageable into August. “Last year you’ll remember we had a lot of snow in the mountains, a lot of late-season rain, and we had a slow start to our fire season,” Cal Fire Director Thom Porter said at the news event. “That’s not going to be the same this year.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/05/08/california-snowpack-fire-season/Sierra snow pack is 3% of May average: Here's what that means
At Phillips Station off U.S. 50 near Sierra-at-Tahoe, they found the snow was 3% of its average for the date. The finding is yet another indicator of this year's dry winter. In contrast, the measurement taken at this spot at this time in 2019 was 188% of average ... readings from stations across the entire length of the Sierra [show] the statewide snowpack is 37% of average, compared to 144% last year. These numbers may sound a little more promising, but, "Obviously it was a dry year," Orrock said. The Sierra snowpack is one of California's most important water sources.
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Sierra-snow-pack-survey-Phillips-Station-15238494.php‘Summer is not going to make this go away’: Temperature has little or no impact on spread of coronavirus, new study suggests
Scientists say warm weather is unlikely to greatly hamper the spread of coronavirus ... Dr Peter Juni, of the University of Toronto, said in a press release that the team found little or no link between infection spread and temperature or latitude, and only a weak association with humidity.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-summer-temperature-warm-hot-spread-study-pandemic-a9506201.html
reporting on a study at https://www.cmaj.ca/content/cmaj/early/2020/05/08/cmaj.200920.full.pdfPotentially fatal combinations of humidity and heat are emerging across the globe
The study identifies thousands of previously rare or unprecedented bouts of extreme heat and humidity in Asia, Africa, Australia, South America and North America, including in the U.S. Gulf Coast region. Along the Persian Gulf, researchers spotted more than a dozen recent brief outbreaks surpassing the theoretical human survivability limit. The outbreaks have so far been confined to localized areas and lasted just hours, but they are increasing in frequency and intensity, say the authors. The study appears this week in the journal Science Advances. "Previous studies projected that this would happen several decades from now, but this shows it's happening right now ... The times these events last will increase, and the areas they affect will grow in direct correlation with global warming." ... Prior studies suggest that even the strongest, best-adapted people cannot carry out normal outdoor activities when the wet bulb hits 32 C, equivalent to a heat index of 132 F. Most others would crumble well before that. A reading of 35 C -- the peak briefly reached in the Persian Gulf cities -- is considered the theoretical survivability limit ... many people in the poorer countries most at risk do not have electricity, never mind air conditioning. There, many rely on subsistence farming requiring daily outdoor heavy labor. These facts could make some of the most affected areas basically uninhabitable.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200508145333.htmRecord temperatures and dry weather have sparked more than a dozen wildfires in Florida
Florida is known for its hot weather, but this year has been exceptionally torrid. In April, South Florida hit June-like temperatures ... All that heat has resulted in wildfires, with the Florida Panhandle among the hardest hit areas. Last week, blazes prompted evacuations and road closures, including sections of Interstate 10 near Pensacola ... A lack of rain across Florida has also contributed to the wildfires. So far this year, Orlando and West Palm Beach are 7 inches below normal for rainfall. Daytona and Fort Myers are not far behind, with deficits hovering around 6 inches.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/10/weather/record-temperatures-florida-wildfires/index.htmlJuneau hits record high and Fairbanks hits 70 degrees for the first time this year
The Juneau Airport reached 76 degrees as of 3 p.m. on Saturday. This is not only the first 70 degree or higher temperature for the year, it also breaks the previous May 9 record of 73 degrees set in 2014 ... Fairbanks International Airport also reached 70 degrees for the first time this year ... On average, Anchorage sees its first 70 degrees temperature around June 6.
https://www.ktuu.com/content/news/Juneau-hits-record-high-and-Fairbanks-hits-70-degrees-for-the-first-time-this-year-570343371.htmlA Pandemic That Cleared Skies and Halted Cities Isn’t Slowing Global Warming
In some ways, the dire lockdowns undertaken to stop Covid-19 have fast-forwarded us into an unlikely future—one with almost impossibly bold climate action taken all at once, no matter the cost. Just months ago it would have been thought impossible to close polluting factories virtually overnight and slash emissions from travel by keeping billions at home. Now we know that clear skies and silent streets can come about with shocking speed ... Global demand for energy is set to fall by 6%, seven times the decline seen after the global financial crisis of 2008, according to the IEA’s forecast. In absolute terms the drop is unprecedented—the equivalent to losing the entire energy demand of India for one year ... [But] what makes the breathtaking, planetary-scale transformations wrought by the pandemic so unsettling is that none of it registers in the biggest picture. The photographs of clear skies, the charts of falling emissions, the change in daily behavior by billions of people—none of this will slow the dangerous pace of global warming ... Even a 10% drop in emissions from this year would still translate to an increase of 2 ppm in the CO₂ count ... “Because of the inertia in the climate system, even if we were to significantly reduce or stop our emissions today, you would still see the increase in temperatures expected for the next 20 years almost unaffected” ... If an unprecedented event sweeps the planet and inadvertently reduces emissions by more than modern-day humans have ever managed to do intentionally [yet the climate still deteriorates], what does that mean for our climate goals?
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-how-coronavirus-impacts-climate-change/The Congo rainforest is losing ability to absorb carbon dioxide. That’s bad for climate change.
Scientists have determined that trees in the Congo Basin of central Africa are losing their capacity to absorb carbon dioxide, raising alarms about the health of the world’s second-largest contiguous rainforest and its ability to store greenhouse gases linked to climate change. A study published Wednesday in the journal Nature ... [suggested] that the decline in Africa may have been underway for a decade ... The study predicts that by 2030, the African jungle will absorb 14 percent less carbon dioxide than it did 10 to 15 years ago. By 2035, Amazonian trees won’t absorb any carbon dioxide at all, the researchers said. By the middle of the century, the remaining uncut tropical forests in Africa, the Amazon and Asia will release more carbon dioxide than they take up — the carbon “sink” will have turned into a carbon source ... The findings contradict models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and governments around the world, which predicted that the Congo Basin rainforest would continue to absorb carbon for many decades to come.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/the-congo-rainforest-is-losing-its-ability-to-absorb-carbon-dioxide-thats-bad-for-climate-change/2020/03/03/3363d218-5ca9-11ea-9055-5fa12981bbbf_story.htmlWith world distracted, the Amazon rainforest continues to burn
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon hit a new high in the first four months of the year, according to data released Friday by Brazil’s National Space Research Institute ... 1,202 square kilometres of forest – an area more than 20 times the size of Manhattan – was wiped out in the Brazilian Amazon from January to April, it found. That was a 55 per cent increase from the same period last year, and the highest figure for the first four months of the year since monthly records began ... driven by record wildfires that raged across the Amazon from May to October, in addition to illegal logging, mining and farming on protected lands.
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/americas/article/3083623/world-distracted-amazon-rainforest-continues-burnHeat and Humidity Near the Survivability Threshold: It’s Already Happening
Bolstering a decade of research on the risks of unprecedented heat and humidity from human-caused climate change, a new study finds evidence for more than a dozen cases of heat-humidity combinations that could be deadly if experienced for more than a few hours ... The study focuses on observations of wetbulb temperature, an indicator of how much a person would be able to cool off by sweating ... human skin temperature averages close to 35°C (95°F), wetbulb temperatures above that value would in theory prevent people from dispelling internal heat and potentially lead to fatal consequences within a few hours ... 14 examples of [brief] 35°C wet-bulb readings that have already occurred since 1979 in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates ... Extrapolating from the relationship between global warming and increasing wetbulb temperatures over the past four decades, the authors find that dangerous wetbulb readings will continue to spread across vulnerable parts of the world, affecting millions more people, as human-caused climate change unfolds. “The most important takeaway is the steepness of the trends ... It didn’t matter what level of extremeness we looked at or what part of the world—the trends were upward and very steep across all of those levels.”
https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/heat-and-humidity-near-the-survivability-threshold-its-already-happening
reporting on a study at https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/19/eaaw1838Future of the human climate niche
We show that for thousands of years, humans have concentrated in a surprisingly narrow subset of Earth’s available climates, characterized by mean annual temperatures around ∼13 °C. This distribution likely reflects a human temperature niche related to fundamental constraints. We demonstrate that depending on scenarios of population growth and warming, over the coming 50 y, 1 to 3 billion people are projected to be left outside the climate conditions that have served humanity well over the past 6,000 y ... production of crops and livestock is largely limited to the same conditions, and the same optimum has been found for agricultural and nonagricultural economic output ... We show that in a business-as-usual climate change scenario, the geographical position of this temperature niche is projected to shift more over the coming 50 y than it has moved [over the past 6,000 y] ... in the absence of migration, one third of the global population is projected to experience [heat] currently found in only 0.8% of the Earth’s land surface, mostly concentrated in the Sahara ... the potentially most affected regions are among the poorest in the world, where adaptive capacity is low.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1910114117
see also https://usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/05/04/world-heat-conditions-unlivable-global-warming-unabated/3063849001/Facts: Global Temperature
Nineteen of the 20 warmest years all have occurred since 2001, with the exception of 1998. The year 2016 ranks as the warmest on record. (Source: NASA/GISS). This research is broadly consistent with similar constructions prepared by the Climatic Research Unit and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/Unprecedented Clear Skies Drove Remarkable Melting in Greenland
In terms of melting, 2019 was one of the worst years for the Greenland Ice Sheet since measurements began ... there was a surface mass loss anomaly of about 320 gigatons of ice—enough water to fill 128 million Olympic-sized swimming pools. Lead author of the new study Marco Tedesco, a climate scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said that unusual atmospheric conditions in 2019 were important contributors to this record-breaking loss ... Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at the University of California, Irvine, not involved in the study, said that an enormous amount of the Greenland Ice Sheet is at high risk of melting. If this high-risk ice melted, he said, it would be enough to raise sea levels by 3 meters, or nearly 10 feet. In an even more severe scenario, if the entire ice sheet melted, sea level would rise by 7 meters, or nearly 23 feet, which would be catastrophic for many coastal cities ... “The two largest melt events in the past 500 years were recorded in 2012 and 2019,” he said. “This is telling us something.”
https://eos.org/articles/unprecedented-clear-skies-drove-remarkable-melting-in-greenlandHow Climate Change Is Contributing to Skyrocketing Rates of Infectious Disease
Over the past few decades, the number of emerging infectious diseases that spread to people ... has skyrocketed. A new emerging disease surfaces five times a year. One study estimates that more than 3,200 strains of coronaviruses already exist among bats, awaiting an opportunity to jump to people. The diseases may have always been there ... But until now, the planet’s natural defense systems were better at fighting them off. Today, climate warming is demolishing those defense systems, driving a catastrophic loss in biodiversity that, when coupled with reckless deforestation and aggressive conversion of wildland for economic development, pushes farms and people closer to the wild and opens the gates for the spread of disease ... it’s only a matter of time before other exotic animal-driven pathogens are driven from the forests of the global tropics to the United States or Canada or Europe because of the warming climate.
https://www.propublica.org/article/climate-infectious-diseasesClimate Change Could Reawaken Indian Ocean El Niño
Global warming is approaching a tipping point that during this century could reawaken an ancient climate pattern similar to El Niño in the Indian Ocean ... Computer simulations of climate change during the second half of the century show that global warming could disturb the Indian Ocean’s surface temperatures, causing them to rise and fall year to year much more steeply than they do today. The seesaw pattern ... could emerge as early as 2050. The results, which were published May 6 in the journal Science Advances, build on a 2019 paper by many of the same authors ... “Greenhouse warming is creating a planet that will be completely different from what we know today, or what we have known in the 20th century.”
https://news.utexas.edu/2020/05/06/climate-change-could-reawaken-indian-ocean-el-nino/Why permafrost thawing in the Arctic matters to the whole planet
“A quarter of the lands in the Northern Hemisphere are underlain by permafrost, ground that’s perpetually frozen and has been in many cases for thousands of years,” he says. That permafrost stores an enormous amount of carbon because it holds so much organic matter. But as the climate warms, some permafrost is starting to thaw. “As that ground thaws, all of a sudden, microorganisms become active and they degrade that plant matter, that animal matter in the soil,” Kelly says. “And in that degradation process, it releases carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere.” That speeds up global warming, which could cause even more permafrost to thaw, accelerating the dangerous cycle. Kelly says it’s just one example of how the Arctic can affect the global climate. “The Arctic is, seemingly, to a lot of people’s minds, just this distant, not very consequential part of the world,” he says. “But it turns out it’s hugely consequential.”
https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/05/why-permafrost-thawing-in-the-arctic-matters-to-the-whole-planet/Warming Caused a Glacier in Alaska to Collapse
At the time, scientists were unsure what triggered these sudden events. But a recent study offers some new insight. An unusually warm summer melted large volumes of ice in 2013. The meltwater pooled behind the cold tongue of ice at the front of the glacier, exerting more and more pressure as it built up. Finally, the pressure became too much. The tongue broke away from the rock below, and the ice went cascading down the mountain. The summer of 2015 was also warmer than average, although not so warm as 2013. But in its weakened state, the glacier was primed to crumble again ... these kinds of events could become a bigger threat as temperatures rise around the globe.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/warming-caused-a-glacier-in-alaska-to-collapse/Locusts, pandemics, floods: East Africa can’t catch a break
Already struggling with the twin crises of the coronavirus pandemic and a biblical scourge of locusts, the region is now being lashed by exceptionally heavy rainfall, causing floods that threaten life and livelihood from Ethiopia to Tanzania ... the trifecta of tribulations may well add up to a fourth: food scarcity ... locusts are “invading the Eastern Africa region in exceptionally large swarms like never seen before.” The swarms are a product of climate change: Unusually wet weather over the past 18 months created perfect breeding conditions.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2020/05/02/commentary/world-commentary/locusts-pandemics-floods-east-africa/Grain price: Driest start to spring in western Europe
The European Commission released its crop monitoring bulletin on April 27, in which it reported that “western Europe had one of the driest starts to spring since 1979” ... Rain deficits were shown in large areas across mainland Europe and south-east England. Poland, Ukraine and Romania have had dry conditions since the end of winter.
https://www.agriland.co.uk/farming-news/grain-price-driest-start-to-spring-in-western-europe/We Don't Want to Alarm Anyone, But a Large Amount of Siberia Is on Fire Right Now
Ten times as much territory was ablaze on April 27 compared to the same time last year ... the fires have originated from a variety of sources, including out-of-control agricultural fires, arson, and untended campfires ... Currently, the area is undergoing unusually hot weather and strong winds, which as we saw earlier this year in Australia is a dangerous combination. NASA reports that winds on April 23 caused many of the fires used by locals to dry out grass to spread uncontrolled ... This is likely only the start of another intense fire season across the Northern Hemisphere.
https://www.sciencealert.com/so-i-don-t-want-to-alarm-anyone-but-a-huge-amount-of-siberia-is-on-fireOcean acidification prediction now possible years in advance
Previous studies have shown the ability to predict ocean acidity a few months out, but this is the first study to prove it is possible to predict variability in ocean acidity multiple years in advance ... researchers were able to capitalize on historical forecasts from a climate model developed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research [and] found that the climate model forecasts did an excellent job at making predictions of ocean acidity in the real world.
https://phys.org/news/2020-05-ocean-acidification-years-advance.ampA New Model Is Predicting “One of the Most Active Atlantic Hurricane Seasons on Record”
The latest predictions come from Pennsylvania State University’s Earth System Science Center. Scientists there are calling for 20 named storms in the Atlantic this year (the 30-year average is 12) ... Models from Colorado State University, AccuWeather, the Weather Channel and the University of Arizona are also projecting above average numbers of storms (16, 14 to 18, 18, and 19, respectively).
https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2020/04/30/active-hurricane-season-2020-forecast/Alarm over deaths of bees from rapidly spreading viral disease
A viral disease that causes honey bees to suffer severe trembling, flightlessness and death within a week is spreading exponentially in Britain ... Piles of dead individuals are found outside hives with whole colonies frequently wiped out by the disease. A team of scientists led by Prof Giles Budge of Newcastle University identified clusterings of the disease, with cases concentrated among apiaries run by professional beekeepers rather than amateur keepers.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/01/alarm-over-deaths-of-bees-from-rapidly-spreading-viral-diseaseWarmest Oceans on Record Adds to Hurricanes, Wildfires Risks
Parts of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans all hit the record books for warmth last month ... “The entire tropical ocean is above average,” said Michelle L’Heureux, a forecaster at the U.S. Climate Prediction Center ... the five warmest years in the world’s seas, as measured by modern instruments, have occurred over just the last half-dozen or so years. It’s “definitely climate-change related,” said Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-18/warmest-oceans-on-record-could-set-off-a-year-of-extreme-weatherPacific Ocean 'blobs' will escalate loss of fish stocks, study says
A new study co-authored by a University of BC researcher predicts increased death rates for Pacific fish stocks from marine heat waves ... by 2050 the large masses of warm water may double the impact of climate change on species that are highly valued for fisheries ... "This is not a one-off event," said Cheung, who is the Canada research chair in ocean sustainability at the UBC Institute for Oceans and Fisheries.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/ubc-research-blob-marine-heat-waves-climate-change-fish-stocks-decline-cheung-1.5540702Climate crisis will make insurance unaffordable for people who need it most
The climate crisis will make insurance unaffordable for many people, particularly those in regional areas, as the damage from extreme weather events increases ... calls for an urgent independent inquiry into the cost of insurance in light of heightened risks linked to global heating ... Murich Re, the world’s largest reinsurance company, last year told the Guardian that climate change could make cover for ordinary people unaffordable as it attributed US$24bn of losses from the Californian wildfires on human-induced heating.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/apr/28/climate-crisis-will-make-insurance-unaffordable-for-people-who-need-it-mostBritish wildfires are getting more frequent. Here's what that means
According to the European Commission, which monitors wildfire activity through its European Forest Fire Information System, there were 79 fires larger than 25 hectares in 2018, rising to 137 fires in 2019. (Compare that to the years 2011 to 2017 when there were fewer than 100 fires altogether.) ... “Wildfires are moving north ... Northern France, Germany, Netherlands and Scandinavia are all seeing them. In a matter of years the UK will be ill prepared to handle wildfires.”
https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/environment-and-conservation/2020/04/british-wildfires-are-getting-more-frequent-heres-what-thatWildfires in Siberia Bring More Challenges to Locked Down Area
Wildfires in Siberia, Russia, are bringing even more misery to an area which is already on lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. On April 23, 2020, strong winds helped to push fires set by locals to dry grass out of control. The regions of Kemerovo and Novosibirsk among others have been the hardest hit to date. Nine Siberian regions have been affected by these wildfires.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2020/wildfires-in-siberia-bring-more-challenges-to-locked-down-areaSuper-Polluting Methane Emissions Twice Federal Estimates in Permian Basin, Study Finds
The findings, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, reaffirm the results of a recently released assessment and further call into question the climate benefits of natural gas. Using hydraulic fracturing, energy companies have increased oil production to unprecedented levels in the Permian basin in recent years. Methane, or natural gas, has historically been viewed as an unwanted byproduct to be flared, a practice in which methane is burned instead of emitted into the atmosphere.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22042020/permian-basin-methane-emissions-texas-new-mexicoAmazon Deforestation Accelerates as Coronavirus Pandemic Hinders Enforcement
With hundreds of environmental enforcement agents sidelined by the pandemic, deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon has increased to its fastest pace in years—and the season when clearing typically accelerates hasn’t even begun yet. Satellite data collected by Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research from August 2019 through March show 2,031 square miles of new clearings, nearly the size of Delaware. The newly deforested area is 71% larger than the previous high for the equivalent period, which was recorded in 2016 and 2017.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-deforestation-accelerates-as-coronavirus-pandemic-hinders-enforcement-11587586399Germany concerned at possibility of third straight drought year
Germany’s agriculture minister said on Wednesday she is concerned about the impact of continued dry weather on crops and that a third drought year could hit farms “incredibly hard”. Germany suffered droughts in 2018 and 2019 which caused harvest damage and loss of income, Agriculture Minister Julia Kloeckner said in a statement. The ground remains unusually dry.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-harvest-drought/germany-concerned-at-possibility-of-third-straight-drought-year-idUSKCN2241NZWill the next great pandemic come from the permafrost?
In a 2017 paper, a team of Belgian researchers describe the threats to human health from microbes that were previously frozen in permafrost. “Over the past few years, there has been increasing evidence that the permafrost is a gigantic reservoir of ancient microbes or viruses that may come back to life” ... Evolutionary ecologist Ellen Decaestecker, who co-authored the 2017 paper, says the increasing encroachment of people into natural areas worldwide is presenting new opportunities for health crises. “We are changing the environment very fast at this moment in terms of habitat fragmentation and climate change ...The chance that [an outbreak] happens as a result of the combination of these factors is quite high.”
https://thenarwhal.ca/next-great-pandemic-permafrost/Halt destruction of nature or suffer even worse pandemics, say world’s top scientists
The coronavirus pandemic is likely to be followed by even more deadly and destructive disease outbreaks ... most comprehensive planetary health check ever undertaken, which was published in 2019 by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) [said] human society was in jeopardy from the accelerating decline of the Earth’s natural life-support systems. In an article published on Monday, with Dr Peter Daszak, who is preparing the next IPBES assessment, they write: “Rampant deforestation, uncontrolled expansion of agriculture, intensive farming, mining and infrastructure development, as well as the exploitation of wild species have created a ‘perfect storm’ for the spillover of diseases.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/27/halt-destruction-nature-worse-pandemics-top-scientistsSlower-moving hurricanes will cause more devastation as world warms
A slow-moving tropical cyclone [does] more damage, because they batter structures for longer ... [This study] saw a marked slowdown as the world warms [which] will increase the risk of storms causing extreme flooding that, among other things, could break dams and spread pollution from factories and farms.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2241444-slower-moving-hurricanes-will-cause-more-devastation-as-world-warms/
reporting on a study at https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/17/eaaz7610Flooding will affect double the number of people worldwide by 2030
“[T]he numbers will be catastrophic,” according to the report. A total of 221 million people will be at risk, with the toll in cities costing $1.7tn yearly. When WRI first developed its flood modeling tool in 2014, the predictions felt “like a fantasy”, said Charlie Iceland, director of water initiatives at WRI. “But now we’re actually seeing this increase in magnitude of the damages in real time” ... Floods are getting worse because of the climate crisis, decisions to populate high-risk areas and land sinkage from the overuse of groundwater.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/23/flooding-double-number-people-worldwide-2030Relentless record heat roasts south Florida while most of the Gulf Coast also is cooking
South Florida, in particular, has turned downright hot, obliterating long-standing records. On Monday, Miami experienced its hottest April day recorded, soaring to 97 degrees. Meteorologists say the steamy weather is linked to abnormally warm temperatures in the adjacent waters of the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean and a persistent high pressure zone heating the air. But both the extent and intensity of the warmth is unprecedented in many areas and would likely not be happening without the influence of human-induced climate change ... Virtually every coastal city in the Florida Panhandle and peninsula has seen its warmest or second-warmest start to the year on record [and] most Gulf Coast areas have seen one of their top five warmest years.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/04/22/record-april-heat-miami-florida-gulf-coast/Ice-free Arctic summers now very likely even with climate action
There is a risk the Arctic could be ice-free even in the dark, cold winter months, a possibility described as “catastrophic” ... “Alarmingly the models repeatedly show the potential for ice-free summers in the Arctic Ocean before 2050, almost irrespective of the measures taken to mitigate the effects of climate change,” said Ed Blockley, who leads the UK Met Office’s polar climate programme and was one of the team behind the new research. “The signal is there in all possible futures. This was unexpected and is extremely worrying.” The new research, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, uses the latest generation of climate models from 21 research institutes from around the world.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/21/ice-free-arctic-summers-now-very-likely-even-with-climate-actionAn extraordinary “heatwave” will enter the Arctic region, raising temperatures more than 20°C above the long-term average
A remarkable situation is developing in the polar regions, as a strong pressure anomaly will transport warm air into the Arctic, rising temperatures into positive numbers over the North Pole, boosting the ice melt season ... The most important feature is the strong high pressure over Siberia. Together with the low-pressure system over the North Pole, they will create a “highway” from the south, transporting unseasonably warm temperatures directly north into the Arctic. But as the warmer air moves into the polar region, it pushes the colder air out of the way, into North America.
https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/april-strong-arctic-warming-event-fa/Will Florida be lost forever to the climate crisis?
From sea level rise to habitat loss, the effects of the climate crisis are on the verge of making south Florida uninhabitable
Few places on the planet are more at risk from the climate crisis than south Florida, where more than 8 million residents are affected by the convergence of almost every modern environmental challenge – from rising seas to contaminated drinking water, more frequent and powerful hurricanes, coastal erosion, flooding and vanishing wildlife and habitat.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/21/florida-climate-crisis-sea-level-habitat-lossExtreme winters in Switzerland are becoming more frequent
[T]his winter became the warmest on record in Switzerland ... Comparing the pre-industrial period of 1871-1900 to the current period of 1991-2020, Swiss winters have become almost 2°C milder. In their 2019/2020 climate bulletin MeteoSwiss infers that the increase in the standard winter temperature, the extreme winters above 0°C, and the disappearance of really cold winters are clear signals of ongoing climate change.
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/climate-change_extreme-winters-in-switzerland-are-becoming-more-frequent/45691658Scientists confirm dramatic melting of Greenland ice sheet
The ice sheet melted at a near record rate in 2019, and much faster than the average of previous decades. Figures have suggested that in July alone surface ice declined by 197 gigatonnes – equivalent to about 80 million Olympic swimming pools ... climate models of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have not taken into account such unusual conditions. If such high pressure zones become a regular annual feature, future melting could be twice as high as currently predicted, a result that could have serious consequences for sea level rise.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/apr/15/scientists-confirm-dramatic-melting-greenland-ice-sheetRapid deforestation of Brazilian Amazon could bring next pandemic: Experts
Nearly 25,000 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in Brazil, with 1,378 deaths as of April 15, though some experts say this is an underestimate. Those figures continue growing, even as President Jair Bolsonaro downplays the crisis, calling it “no worse than a mild flu,” and places the economy above public health. Scientists warn that the next emergent pandemic could originate in the Brazilian Amazon if Bolsonaro’s policies continue to drive Amazon deforestation rates ever higher. Researchers have long known that new diseases typically arise at the nexus between forest and agribusiness, mining, and other human development.
https://news.mongabay.com/2020/04/rapid-deforestation-of-brazilian-amazon-could-bring-next-pandemic-experts/Climate Change Is Stoking What May Be a Long-Term Megadrought in Western U.S.
Warming temperatures from human-produced climate change have exacerbated an otherwise moderate drought in the western United States and northwestern Mexico, leading to the worst two decades of drying in more than 400 years, argues a paper published in the journal Science on Thursday. The researchers found that the drying from 2000 to 2018 was on par with the driest 19-year periods found in tree-ring records over the last 1,200 years. What’s more, they add, this region could already be in the type of megadrought that can last for decades ... The team behind the study includes scientists from NOAA, NASA and four universities.
https://weather.com/news/climate/news/2020-04-16-climate-change-stoking-long-term-megadrought-western-us
reporting on a study at https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6488/3142020 expected to be Earth's warmest year on record, scientists say
Federal scientists announced Thursday that 2020 has nearly a 75% chance of being the warmest year on record for the planet Earth ... Even if 2020 ends up not being the warmest year, NOAA said there's a 99.9% chance that 2020 will end among the five warmest years on record.
https://usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/04/16/global-warming-2020-expected-warmest-year-record-noaa-said/5144767002/This is likely the last generation to see the Great Barrier Reef as humans have known it
For 500,000 years, the Great Barrier Reef has grown steadily in the cool, clear waters off Australia. But after surviving five glacial periods, the reef’s billions of inhabitants may not survive humanity. On March 26, the Reef endured its third major bleaching event in five years. Many of its corals sustained massive bleaching, even in the southern portion relatively untouched during the previous events.
https://qz.com/1834588/andrea-dutton-on-great-barrier-reef-as-humans-have-known-it-ending/US to have major floods on daily basis unless sea-level rise is curbed – study
Flooding events that now occur in America once in a lifetime could become a daily occurrence along the vast majority of the US coastline if sea level rise is not curbed ... Within 30 years from now, these now-rare flooding events will become annual occurrences for more than 70% of the locations along the US coast according to the research published in Scientific Reports ... disruption caused by frequent flooding will threaten the habitability of much of the US coastline as it is already widely projected to do to many low-lying islands in the Pacific.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/16/us-climate-change-floods-sea-level-riseMethane Levels Reach an All-Time High
Methane is roughly 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, and while it stays in the atmosphere for only around a decade, as opposed to centuries, like CO2, its continued rise poses a major challenge to international climate goals. “Here we are. It’s 2020, and it’s not only not dropping, it’s not level. In fact, it’s one of the fastest growth rates we’ve seen in the last 20 years,” said Drew Shindell, a climate scientist at Duke University.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/methane-levels-reach-an-all-time-high/Catastrophe 'a matter of time': Spring brings more fears for Missouri River flooding
The forecast is a veritable index of meteorological plagues: above-normal rainfall; greater than normal spring runoff; thoroughly saturated soils; and an aging system of nearly a thousand levees where nobody knows how many were damaged last year and in previous floods or how many were repaired ... “Some of them have been repaired, but from a total system perspective, I don’t think any of them are whole,” said Jud Kneuvean, the district’s chief of emergency management.
https://usatoday.com/story/news/2020/04/11/weather-forecast-rain-missouri-river-flooding/2963875001/Wildlife Collapse From Climate Change Is Predicted to Hit Suddenly and Sooner
Scientists found a “cliff edge” instead of the slippery slope they expected.
The study predicted that large swaths of ecosystems would falter in waves, creating sudden die-offs that would be catastrophic not only for wildlife, but for the humans who depend on it. “For a long time things can seem OK and then suddenly they’re not,” said Alex L. Pigot, a scientist at University College London and one of the study’s authors. “Then, it’s too late to do anything about it because you’ve already fallen over this cliff edge.” ... When they examined the projections, the researchers were surprised that sudden collapses appeared across almost all species — fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds and mammals — and across almost all regions.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/climate/wildlife-population-collapse-climate-change.htmlEntire Ecosystems Could Abruptly Go Extinct Within This Decade
Biodiversity loss is like a game of Jenga – if the world crosses certain temperature thresholds and enough species in an ecosystem die out, the whole structure can collapse. The authors found that due to the climate crisis, ecosystems could abruptly cross those thresholds in a matter of years ... many species within specific ecosystems will be subject to unprecedented temperatures at the same time, creating an “abrupt” disruption that could upend ecosystems completely ... "once temperatures rise to levels a species has never experienced, scientists have very limited evidence of their ability to survive.”
https://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2020/04/entire-ecosystems-could-abruptly-go-extinct-within-this-decade
see also https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/08/wildlife-destruction-not-a-slippery-slope-but-a-series-of-cliff-edges
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2189-9 (see next entry)The projected timing of abrupt ecological disruption from climate change
Here we use annual projections (from 1850 to 2100) of temperature and precipitation across the ranges of more than 30,000 marine and terrestrial species to estimate the timing of their exposure to potentially dangerous climate conditions. We project that future disruption of ecological assemblages as a result of climate change will be abrupt, because within any given ecological assemblage the exposure of most species to climate conditions beyond their realized niche limits occurs almost simultaneously. Under a high-emissions scenario (representative concentration pathway (RCP) 8.5), such abrupt exposure events begin before 2030 in tropical oceans and spread to tropical forests and higher latitudes by 2050 ... These results highlight the impending risk of sudden and severe biodiversity losses from climate change and provide a framework for predicting both when and where these events may occur.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2189-9New, larger wave of locusts threatens millions in Africa
Billions of the young desert locusts are winging in from breeding grounds in Somalia in search of fresh vegetation springing up with seasonal rains ... UN Food and Agriculture Organization has called the locust outbreak, caused in part by climate change, “an unprecedented threat” to food security and livelihoods. Its officials have called this new wave some 20 times the size of the first ... likely will be another new round of swarms in late June and July, coinciding with the start of the harvest season, the agency said.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/new-larger-wave-of-locusts-threatens-millions-in-africaAnimal Viruses Are Jumping to Humans. Forest Loss Makes It Easier.
The destruction of forests into fragmented patches is increasing the likelihood that viruses and other pathogens will jump from wild animals to humans, according to a study from Stanford University published this month ... the United States has its own example of an animal-borne disease linked to patchwork woodlands close to suburban and rural communities: Lyme disease, which spreads from wildlife to humans by ticks. “We see the animals as infecting us, but the picture that’s coming from the study and other studies is we really go to the animals,” said Dr. Lambin. “We intrude on their habitats.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/climate/animals-humans-virus-covid.htmlLockdowns can't end until Covid-19 vaccine found, study says
Countries wanting to end the lockdown and allow people to move about and work again will have to monitor closely for new infections and adjust the controls they have in place until there is a vaccine against Covid-19 ... researchers warn, if normal life is allowed to resume too quickly and the lifting of controls is too extensive, the reproductive number will rise again. Governments will need to keep a close watch on what is happening, they say.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/08/lockdowns-cant-end-until-covid-19-vaccine-found-study-saysNew study helps improve accuracy of future climate change predictions
The study has raised serious doubts of the likely impact of human-led interventions involving [aerosol masking geoengineering] to counteract climate change ... air pollution serves as condensation points for cloud droplets leading to more solar reflectance. This has led many to believe that fossil fuel emissions and other air pollutions may off-set global warming [but the new research] "means that recent theories that increased sulphate production can decrease the impact of climate change need to be reconsidered."
https://phys.org/news/2020-04-accuracy-future-climate.htmlNASA Satellite Data Show 30 Percent Drop In Air Pollution Over Northeast U.S.
Over the past several weeks, NASA satellite measurements have revealed significant reductions in air pollution over the major metropolitan areas of the Northeast United States. Similar reductions have been observed in other regions of the world. These recent improvements in air quality have come at a high cost, as communities grapple with widespread lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders as a result of the spread of COVID-19.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/drop-in-air-pollution-over-northeastEarth scorched in the first 3 months of 2020
The American economy has seriously sputtered during the coronavirus pandemic, but the planet's relentless warming trend hasn't. After Earth experienced its second-hottest year in 140 years of record-keeping in 2019, the first few months of this year have either broken historic monthly records, or come close. January 2020 was the warmest January on record. February 2020 was the second hottest such month on record. And on Monday, the European Union's climate monitoring agency EU Copernicus reported that March 2020 was "on par" with the second and third warmest Marches on record. Earth's warming atmosphere is reacting to a skyrocketing rise of the potent greenhouse gas carbon dioxide — now at its highest levels in at least 800,000 years, but more likely millions of years ... It's already likely that 2020 will end up as one of the warmest years on record ... The last decade, before the coronavirus pandemic began, was the warmest decade ever recorded.
https://mashable.com/article/climate-change-2020-records/2019 atmospheric methane increase greatest in five years
The average level of methane in the atmosphere increased last year by the highest amount in five years, according to preliminary data released Sunday. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that the average level of methane in the atmosphere increased by 11.54 parts per billion (ppb) in 2019 over the level of methane in the atmosphere in 2018.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/491424-2019-atmospheric-methane-increase-greatest-in-five-yearsMichigan’s record-high water levels collide with coronavirus
Officials in Michigan are warning that attempts to curb the coronavirus pandemic could have serious consequences for relief and repairs during what is expected to be another tumultuous spring flooding season. High water levels are expected to cause severe flooding, shoreline erosion, and road and infrastructure damage even worse than was seen last year, the Detroit Free Press reported. By February, the water level of every one of the Great Lakes except Lake Ontario had reached a record high. Several places, including Ford Field Park in Dearborn, have been inundated.
https://dailyreporter.com/2020/04/06/michigans-record-high-water-levels-collide-with-coronavirus/Russia’s Leading Climate Change Expert Gives Sober Prognosis
Apart from Russia warming at 2.5 times the global average since the 1970s, Kattsov said a more dangerous phenomenon has been the increase in temperature variability - meaning more frequent spikes and troughs in hotter or colder directions. This trend is more damaging than gradual warming ... Another ticking time-bomb is the melting permafrost, which covers nearly two thirds of Russia’s territory. As the permafrost melts, infrastructure like roads, pipes, heating systems and houses is likely to be ravaged. Meanwhile, large concentrations of methane and carbon trapped in the permafrost are expected to be released.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/04/03/russias-leading-climate-change-expert-gives-sober-prognosis-a69822North Atlantic's capacity to absorb CO2 overestimated, study suggests
The North Atlantic may be a weaker climate ally than previously believed, according to a study that suggests the ocean’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide has been overestimated ... discovery is likely to force a negative revision of global climate calculations, say the authors of the NASA-backed study ... “It will require more than just a small tweak.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/03/oceans-capacity-to-absorb-co2-overestimated-study-suggestsThe abnormal new normal: confronted by a cluster of threats this summer, is Antarctica at a tipping point?
Antarctica today confronts a cluster of threats – all man-made – that it is ill-equipped to withstand. Early this year, Antarctic summer temperatures spiked to improbable new heights, vaulting above 20 degrees: T-shirt weather. Glaciers on the west of the continent shrank at record rates ... Almost a quarter of the rapidly thinning West Antarctic ice sheet is believed to be unstable, and satellites in late March revealed that the East Antarctic ice sheet – the larger of the two – is increasingly vulnerable ... grave fears of an approaching tipping point.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/the-abnormal-new-normal-confronted-by-a-cluster-of-threats-this-summer-is-antarctica-at-a-tipping-point-20200227-p5450p.htmlData shows the worsening trend of California wildfires
“The main finding is that the recent severe fires in California — including the Thomas fire in 2017 and the Camp fire in 2018 — are part of a trend in California over the past four decades,” said Andrew Plantinga, an economics professor at UC Santa Barbara’s Bren School of Environmental Science & Management. “The trend is toward more wildfires that burn larger areas and cause more damage.” The number of acres burned per year has not only been increasing, the report found, it is also accelerating.
https://wildfiretoday.com/2020/03/31/data-shows-the-worsening-trend-of-california-wildfires/Coronavirus and climate change: The pandemic is a fire drill for our planet's future
[T]he global high-tech society we've built over the last 100 years is actually a series of networks laid on top of one another ... So how robust or resilient are these networks? ... Suddenly all of these systems that were invisible just a month ago are standing in front of us in sharp relief. Some are even blinking red with warning. The warnings must be taken seriously, as studies of multilayered networks show they can be fragile ... Like this pandemic, climate change is also going to push on the networks that make up our civilization ... Climate change will mean one emergency after another, year after year, as heat waves, floods, fire and storms blow cascades of failures through our systems.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/coronavirus-climate-change-pandemic-fire-drill-our-planet-s-future-ncna1169991Rare ozone hole opens over Arctic — and it’s big
A vast ozone hole — likely the biggest on record in the north — has opened in the skies above the Arctic. It rivals the better-known Antarctic ozone hole that forms in the southern hemisphere each year. Record-low ozone levels currently stretch across much of the central Arctic ... an extraordinary atmospheric phenomenon that will go down in the record books.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00904-wLess ice, more methane from northern lakes: A result from global warming
Shorter and warmer winters lead to an increase in emissions of methane from northern lakes, according to a new study by scientists in Finland and the US. Longer ice-free periods contribute to increased methane emissions. In Finland, emissions of methane from lakes could go up by as much as 60%. An international study by scientists from Purdue University in the US, the University of Eastern Finland, the Finnish Environment Institute and the University of Helsinki published in Environmental Research Letters significantly enhances our current knowledge of methane emissions from boreal lakes.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-03/uoef-lim032620.phpThere are diseases hidden in ice, and they are waking up
Frozen permafrost soil is the perfect place for bacteria to remain alive for very long periods of time, perhaps as long as a million years. That means melting ice could potentially open a Pandora's box of diseases. The temperature in the Arctic Circle is rising quickly, about three times faster than in the rest of the world. As the ice and permafrost melt, other infectious agents may be released. "Permafrost is a very good preserver of microbes and viruses, because it is cold, there is no oxygen, and it is dark," says evolutionary biologist Jean-Michel Claverie ... In a 2014 study, a team led by Claverie revived two viruses that had been trapped in Siberian permafrost for 30,000 years [and when] they were revived, the viruses quickly became infectious ... Claverie says viruses from the very first humans to populate the Arctic could emerge.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170504-there-are-diseases-hidden-in-ice-and-they-are-waking-up'We should start thinking about the next one': Coronavirus is just the first of many pandemics to come, environmentalists warn
The novel coronavirus will not be the last pandemic to wreak havoc on humanity if we continue to ignore links between infectious diseases and destruction of the natural world, environmental experts have warned ... Dr Samuel Myers, principle research scientist at Harvard’s Department of Environmental Health and director of the Planetary Health Alliance, told The Independent: “Human incursions into wildlife habitat bring people into closer proximity with wildlife populations ... animals are an enormous reservoir of pathogens, many of which we haven’t yet been exposed to ... It’s a combination of the size of the human ecological footprint and globalization. Once a pathogen has made that jump from animals to humans, it has the capacity to spread around the globe very quickly” ... Sweeping change is needed including making the crucial link between human health and conservation of the planet. Dr Sala said: “They are not disconnected. There is no sustainable human health without a healthy ecosystem.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/coronavirus-uk-pandemics-environmentalists-warning-a9413996.htmlCoronavirus: Air pollution and CO2 fall rapidly as virus spreads
Levels of air pollutants and warming gases over some cities and regions are showing significant drops as coronavirus impacts work and travel. Researchers in New York told the BBC their early results showed carbon monoxide mainly from cars had been reduced by nearly 50% compared with last year ... With global economic activity ramping down as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, it is hardly surprising that emissions of a variety of gases related to energy and transport would be reduced ... They have also found that there was a 5-10% drop in CO2 over New York and a solid drop in methane as well ... With aviation grinding to a halt and millions of people working from home, a range of emissions across many countries are likely following the same downward path.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51944780Global warming will bring more heatwaves, droughts, hurricanes and storms than we think
There will be many more heatwaves, droughts, hurricanes and storms in the coming years than we bargained for, researchers are warning. Scientists are radically underestimating the frequency of future extreme weather events because they have relied too heavily on historical data to guide their assumptions ... The study, published in the journal Science Advances, used the number of actual extreme weather events between 2006 to 2017 to assess how accurate predictions in papers written 1961 to 2005 had been. It found most of the studies - which largely relied on historical data - were way off in their predictions of extreme weather.
https://inews.co.uk/news/environment/global-warming-warning-heatwaves-droughts-hurricanes-storms-2498663Great Barrier Reef suffers third mass coral bleaching event in five years
“We know this is a mass bleaching event and it’s a severe one.” It follows the worst outbreaks of mass bleaching on record killing about half the shallow water corals on the world’s biggest reef system in 2016 and 2017 ... “Pretty much everything [in the shallows] is bleached. There wasn’t a lot of difference between the species and there is quite a lot of mortality” ... A five-yearly report by the major marine park authority last year found the reef’s outlook had deteriorated from poor to very poor.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/25/great-barrier-reef-suffers-third-mass-coral-bleaching-event-in-five-yearsThe US Midwest readies for flooding as it copes with coronavirus outbreak
Up to 23 states are set to experience moderate to severe flooding in the spring ... NOAA expects an ongoing rainfall, a highly-saturated soil and above-normal precipitations in the coming months, especially in the Mississippi River basin, the Missouri River basin and the Red River of the North. Any substantial local rainfall could cause flooding in these areas, already experiencing a high level of soil moisture ... “The current situation with COVID-19 presents us a fight on two fronts: one front, we have the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and on the other, what promises to be a very active spring 2020 flood season.”
https://www.zmescience.com/science/the-us-midwest-readies-for-flooding-as-it-copes-with-coronavirus-outbreak/'Time is fast running out': World Meteorological Organization warns climate efforts are falling short
The world is significantly falling short when it comes to efforts to curb climate change, according to a new report released Tuesday by the World Meteorological Organization. The intergovernmental organization’s assessment evaluated a range of so-called global climate indicators in 2019, including land temperatures, ocean temperatures, greenhouse gas emissions, sea-level rise and melting ice. The report finds that most of these indicators are increasing, which means the planet is veering way off track in trying to control the pace of global warming.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/time-fast-running-out-world-meteorological-organization-warns-climate-efforts-n1154701Grace gravity mission captures Greenland ice loss
Greenland shed an extraordinary 600 billion tonnes of ice by the end of summer last year ... analysis appearing in the journal Geophysical Research Letters ... Across the entire period of the two missions - 2002 to 2019 - Greenland has lost some 4,550 billion tonnes of ice, an average of 268 billion tonnes annually, which puts the scale of last summer into further context.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51954988Amazon rainforest reaches point of no return
The impact on the Amazon is catastrophic, Nobre says. “Half of the Amazon rainforest to the east is gone – it’s losing the battle, going in the direction of a savanna. “When you clear land in a healthy system, it bounces back. But once you cross a certain threshold, a tipping point, it turns into a different kind of equilibrium. It becomes drier, there’s less rain. It’s no longer a forest ... We used to say the Amazon had two seasons: the wet season and the wetter season. Now, you have many months without a drop of water.”
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/rainforest/Planet's largest ecosystems collapse faster than previously forecast
Scientists from the University of Southampton, the School of Oriental and African Studies and the University of Bangor studied data on the transformations of 40 natural environments on land and in waters ... The findings, published in the scientific journal Nature Communications, can be explained by the fact larger ecosystems are made up of more compartments, or sub-systems, of species and habitats. This modular set up provides resilience against stress initially; however once a certain threshold has been passed, the same modularity causes the rate at which the ecosystem unravels to accelerate. This means that ecosystems that have existed for thousands of years could collapse in less than 50.
https://phys.org/news/2020-03-planet-largest-ecosystems-collapse-faster.htmlArctic tundra is 80 per cent permafrost. What happens when it thaws?
The tundra of the western Canadian Arctic has long been carpeted in cranberries, blueberries, cloudberries, shrubs, sedges, and lichen that have provided abundant food for grizzly bears, caribou, and other animals. Now, however, as permafrost thaws and slumping expands, parts of that landscape are being transformed into nothing but mud, silt, and peat, blowing off massive amounts of climate-warming carbon that have been stored in the permafrost for millennia. If this had happened in an urban area, it would have resulted in dozens of buildings being swallowed up. If it had happened along a pipeline right-of-way, it might have resulted in an environmental disaster ... an estimated 2.5 million square miles of permafrost — 40 per cent of the world’s total — could disappear by the end of the century, with enormous consequences. The most alarming is expected to be the release of huge stores of greenhouse gases, including methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide that have remained locked in the permafrost for ages. Pathogens will also be released.
https://thenarwhal.ca/arctic-tundra-is-80-per-cent-permafrost-what-happens-when-it-thaws/Polar ice caps melting six times faster than in 1990s
The polar ice caps are melting six times faster than in the 1990s, according to the most complete analysis to date. The ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica is tracking the worst-case climate warming scenario set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), scientists say.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/11/polar-ice-caps-melting-six-times-faster-than-in-1990sEmissions: world has four times the work [over] one-third of the time
We draw our conclusions from a synthesis of all ten editions of the Emissions Gap Report produced by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Each year for the past decade, this report has examined the difference between what countries have pledged to do individually to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, and what they need to do collectively to meet agreed temperature goals — the ‘gap’. Our analysis shows that the gap has widened by as much as four times since 2010. There are three reasons for this. First, global annual greenhouse-gas emissions increased by 14% between 2008 and 20186. This means that emissions now have to decline faster than was previously estimated, because it is cumulative emissions that determine the long-term temperature increase. Second, the international community now agrees that it must ensure a lower global temperature rise than it decided ten years ago, because climate risks are better understood. And third, countries’ new climate pledges have been insufficient ... The gap is so huge that governments, the private sector and communities need to switch into crisis mode, make their climate pledges more ambitious and focus on early and aggressive action. Otherwise, the Paris agreement’s long-term goals are out of reach. We do not have another ten years.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00571-xSix Unfolding Climate Scenarios That Keep Security Experts Up At Night
When the Center for Climate and Security released its threat assessment last week in Washington DC, its director asked the experts what keeps them up at night. What emerged was a list of nightmare scenarios most striking because many are already happening:
1 Sudden Sea Level Rise: within a couple of decades [from] black-swan incidents [like] ice sheet collapsing
2 The Growing Non-ecumene: we're going to have unlivable spaces where people currently live
3 Fragile And Failed States: climate-linked effects will likely add to the list of fragile and failed states
4 Collapse Of Democracy And Relations: climate change will lead to migration, countries respond with nationalist movements
5 Nuclear Accidents: nuclear technology in the hands of countries that have not been reliable actors
6 Pandemics And Other Wild Cards: with global order already under stress, a wild card like coronavirus creates more disorder
These nightmare scenarios align with the world’s current trajectory—a 4C increase in average global surface temperature.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2020/03/02/six-unfolding-climate-scenarios-that-keep-security-experts-up-at-night/This winter in Europe was hottest on record by far, say scientists
This winter has been by far the hottest recorded in Europe, scientists have announced, with the climate crisis likely to have supercharged the heat. The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service ... said the average temperature for December, January and February was 1.4C above the previous winter record, which was set in 2015-16. New regional climate records are usually passed by only a fraction of a degree. Europe’s winter was 3.4C hotter than the average from 1981-2010.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/05/truly-extreme-winter-2019-20-in-europe-by-far-hottest-on-recordDramatic cuts to air pollution in Europe and Asia could speed up climate change in the short term and lead to heatwaves and heavier rainfall - but 'doing nothing would be worse' [aerosol masking]
Experts from the University of Reading found that cutting pollution in areas with heavy industry would lead to short term temperature spikes and heavier rainfall [due to a decrease in] polluting particles currently reflecting a certain amount of sunlight and stopping it from reaching the ground ... In a series of studies scientists predict a rapid increase in European and Asian heatwaves by 2050 as air pollution is cut sharply in Asia ... already seeing some changes in temperatures over parts of Asia as industry slows down due to Coronavirus in China. He said with fewer planes not flying and factories not running there are fewer heavy polluting particles entering the atmosphere - and then reflecting the sunlight away ... The effect of particle pollution on the atmosphere can already be seen in observations over Europe and China.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8074749/Cuts-air-pollution-SPEED-climate-change-short-term.htmlTropical forests losing their ability to absorb carbon, study finds
Tropical forests are taking up less carbon dioxide from the air, reducing their ability to act as “carbon sinks” ... “We’ve found that one of the most worrying impacts of climate change has already begun,” said Simon Lewis, professor in the school of geography at Leeds University, one of the senior authors of the research. “This is decades ahead of even the most pessimistic climate models.” ... The uptake of carbon from the atmosphere by tropical forests peaked in the 1990s when about 46bn tonnes were removed from the air, equivalent to about 17% of carbon dioxide emissions from human activities. By the last decade, that amount had sunk to about 25bn tonnes, or just 6% of global emissions ... The study, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, tracked 300,000 trees over 30 years, providing the first large-scale evidence of the decline in carbon uptake by the world’s tropical forests.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/04/tropical-forests-losing-their-ability-to-absorb-carbon-study-findsHow climate change is making record-breaking floods the new normal
Extreme flooding will continue to be concentrated in regions where humans have built on floodplains or low-lying coastal regions. As global warming increases the likelihood for more extreme weather events to occur, risks will expand beyond the high-risk areas known today. More extreme flooding must be expected ... The reality is that this is the world we live in with 1.1oC of warming. These records temperatures, record floods are not anomalous, they are the beginning of a new norms, and the new records will continue to be exceeded, year after year.
https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/how-climate-change-making-record-breaking-floods-new-normalStony Corals Seem to Be Preparing for a Mass Extinction, Scientists Report
New research shows that stony corals around the world are hunkering down into survival mode as they prepare for a mass extinction event, according to a new study published in Scientific Reports. The international research team ... noticed a suite of behaviors that correspond to a survival response commensurate with how they behaved during the last mass extinction ... "It was incredibly spooky to witness how corals are now exhibiting the same traits as they did at the last major extinction event," said Gruber, in a statement put out by the CUNY Advanced Science Research Center. "Corals seem to be preparing to jump across an extinction boundary, while we are putting our foot further on the pedal."
https://www.ecowatch.com/corals-mass-extinction-2645381071.html
see also https://www.newsweek.com/fossil-corals-mass-extinction-1490202Record-Breaking Warm Weather Expected Around Globe As Human-Caused Climate Crisis Now As Powerful As El Niño's Effects, Says WMO
As countries accustomed to cold, snowy winters reported record-breaking warm weather this season, meteorological experts on Monday predicted that temperatures over the next several months will also be warmer than usual ... "Even ENSO neutral months are warmer than in the past, as air and sea surface temperatures and ocean heat have increased due to climate change," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas in a statement. "The signal from human-induced climate change is now as powerful as that from a major natural force of nature."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/02/record-breaking-warm-weather-expected-around-globe-human-caused-climate-crisis-nowArctic may see 'ice-free' summers in as few as 15 years, study says
A study suggests that the Arctic "may be essentially ice-free during summer within 15 years." The study used statistical models to predict the future amount of Arctic ice, which suggested that the Arctic could be ice-free in the summer during the decade of the 2030s ... The study was conducted by scientists at NOAA, the University of Washington, and the North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies ... the results of the study indicate that there is room for improvement in sea-ice models – and that the ice may disappear even more quickly than current models suggest. "Climate models may be collectively underestimating the rate of change,” the authors write in the study. The study was published in the journal Climate.
https://usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/03/01/arctic-sea-ice-arctic-could-ice-free-summer-few-15-years/4905785002/Wettest February Ever, And Nearly The Warmest On Record
February 2020 was the wettest February in Dutch history. An average of 142 millimeters of rain fell across the country, while 55 millimeters is normal for the Netherlands in February, according to Weeronline. The month was also exceptionally mild, going into the books as the second warmest February since temperature measurements started in 1901.
https://nltimes.nl/2020/02/27/wettest-february-ever-nearly-warmest-recordCarbon Dioxide Levels in the Atmosphere Hit Highest Level in 3 Million Years
According to a recent National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report, the last time carbon dioxide levels were this high was 3 million years ago "when temperature was 2°–3°C (3.6°–5.4°F) higher than during the pre-industrial era, and sea level was 15–25 meters (50–80 feet) higher than today." That period, the Pliocene Era, is unrecognizable from today. Giant camels walked around on the ice-free land above the Arctic Circle, as NBC News reported ... "We've done in a little more than 50 years what the earth naturally took 10,000 years to do," said Siegert to NBC News. Elevated concentrations of carbon dioxide are a hallmark of the climate crisis since they are associated with higher temperatures, melting ice and sea level rise, among other effects.
https://www.ecowatch.com/carbon-dioxide-levels-atmosphere-2645274429.htmlDramatic ocean changes are coming ‘a couple decades too early,’ scientists say
Arctic ocean temperatures are rising at rates faster than previously thought by the scientific community. That’s the finding of a new study from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, which shows warming waters having an effect on everything from sea ice growth to marine ecosystems ... For UAF oceanography professor Seth Danielson, the record low sea ice and record high ocean temperatures of the last couple years came as a shock. “It was a bit surprising because we felt like it came a couple decades too early" ... Danielson says that the rapid changes to Arctic marine ecosystems are happening in real time, as researchers are studying them. He says these changes likely aren’t going anywhere. “It’s not gonna be too long before these extremely low-ice years that we’ve just had in the last couple years will be what we consider to be the norm,” Danielson said ... The paper was published this month in the Nature Climate Change scientific journal.
http://www.alaskapublic.org/2020/02/24/dramatic-ocean-changes-are-coming-a-couple-decades-too-early-scientists-say/
see also https://www.arctictoday.com/a-radical-transformation-of-the-pacific-arctic-appears-to-be-underway-a-new-study-finds/Climate Change Will Turn These Common Foods Toxic
With proper preparation, the toxin, hydrogen cyanide, can be flushed out with water. But in the face of agricultural crisis, drought, and poverty, people are forced to choose between going hungry and adhering to these preparations ... All these factors, and especially drought, are predicted to get worse with climate change ... [in] barley, millet, flax, maize, sorghum, cherries, and apples there is the potential for an accumulation of toxins due to loss of water and erratic weather events ... with drought, they slow down or stop this conversion, which leads to a nitrate buildup ... If a human eats large amounts of nitrate, it can “stop red blood cells from transporting oxygen in the human body,” Yale360 reported.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/epgmqw/climate-change-could-lead-to-toxic-food-cassavaGlaciers are disappearing faster than a few years ago
The glaciers are melting seven times faster compared with readings taken during the 1990s. This situation will become worse as sea levels continue to rise. In 2019 Digital Journal presented research that showed global sea levels are set to continue to rise, even if carbon emissions pledges formed as part of the Paris climate agreement are put in place and the environmental goal of a leveling out of global temperatures is achieved ... The new data reveals the extent of the risk to Greenland’s glaciers and provides a new basis for climate scientists to assess more accurately the quantity of meltwater that the Greenland Ice Sheet is losing each year. The research has been published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/environment/glaciers-are-disappearing-faster-than-a-few-years-ago/article/567592Fates of humans and insects intertwined, warn scientists
Experts call for solutions to be enforced immediately to halt global population collapses
The researchers said solutions were available and must be implemented immediately ... invertebrates must no longer be neglected by conservation efforts, which tend to focus on mammals and birds. The alert has been published as two articles in the Biological Conservation journal ... in a repeat of the failure of politicians to respond to scientific warnings about climate change, the cautious, scientific language used has not produced an appropriate response from governments ... “Scientists are now turning up the heat on insect declines in the hope that politicians will understand the urgency and the link to human survival, and will take action before it is too late.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/20/fates-humans-insects-intertwined-scientists-population-collapse
reporting on a study at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320719317823Humanity’s Methane Problem Could Be Way Bigger Than Scientists Thought
Fossil-fuel production may be responsible for much more atmospheric methane than scientists previously thought, according to new research published today in the journal Nature ... challenging how much of the total comes from natural versus industrial sources, an important distinction for policy-makers. Conventional wisdom has held until now that fossil sources emit roughly 50 million tons of methane. The new paper’s estimate is dramatically smaller: Just 5 million tons, at most, come from natural sources, or “seeps,” the study says. “If it's not coming from seeps, then it's coming from fossil-fuel operations,” says Rob Jackson, a Stanford professor of Earth system science who wasn’t involved in the study. “There's really no other explanation for it. It's kind of a zero-sum game.” ... The Nature paper builds on earlier work suggesting that natural methane emissions may be dramatically lower than previously indicated.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-19/new-research-says-humans-may-have-an-even-bigger-methane-problem
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-1991-8JP Morgan economists warn of 'catastrophic' climate change
Human life "as we know it" could be threatened by climate change, economists at JP Morgan have warned. In a hard-hitting report to clients, the economists said that without action being taken there could be "catastrophic outcomes" ... While JP Morgan economists have warned about unpredictability in climate change before, the language used in the new report was very forceful. "We cannot rule out catastrophic outcomes where human life as we know it is threatened," JP Morgan economists David Mackie and Jessica Murray said ... To mitigate climate change net carbon emissions need to be cut to zero by 2050. To do this, there needed to be a global tax on carbon, the report authors said. But they said that "this is not going to happen anytime soon" ... "It is a global problem but no global solution is in sight," the report added.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51581098It’s the Warmest Winter Ever and It’s the North Pole’s Fault
With just weeks left to go, the world is heading toward the warmest winter ever recorded as a strange brew of weather patterns at the top of the world combines with the mercury-boosting influence of climate change ... with temperatures 3° Celsius higher than the 20th century average across the contiguous U.S., the uniqueness of the pattern is expected to spark an avalanche of new research into its cause. If the trend continues through Feb. 29, when winter ends for meteorologists, it will set a global high for the season in U.S. records going back 141 years. “What really jumps out is not a particular hot spot,” said Bob Henson, a meteorologist with the Weather Underground, an IBM company. “But the sheer breadth of the warmth.” ... “We are still in the early days of an evolving climate era,” Henson said. “The climate will keep changing under our feet as we try to get our arms around it.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-21/it-s-the-warmest-winter-ever-and-it-s-the-north-pole-s-faultClimate change ‘is happening now’
It was raining again on Monday in Oslo, where no snow has fallen in January for the first time since measurements began ... “I keep waiting for winter to come, but it hasn’t,” Ketil Isaksen, a researcher at the state Meteorologic Institute in Oslo told news bureau NTB on January 20. A week later, it still hasn’t, and he’s worried, not just for the ski season that’s being ruined in many areas around southern Norway. Everything from the permafrost on Svalbard to Norway’s flora and fauna north to south is under threat ... “The tendency is clear: Autumn is longer and spring comes earlier.”
https://www.newsinenglish.no/2020/01/27/climate-change-is-happening-now/Locust Swarms Ravaging East Africa Are the Size of Cities
A devastating pest outbreak is threatening millions of people with hunger.
The United Nations has warned of an unprecedented threat to food security in a part of the world where millions already face hunger. And the situation will probably get worse before it gets better. Experts say the outbreak—the worst in recent memory—is caused by an increased number of cyclones. If the weather trends continue, there may be more to come. “There is a link between climate change and the unprecedented locust crisis plaguing Ethiopia and East Africa,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said. “Warmer seas mean more cyclones generating the perfect breeding ground for locusts. Today the swarms are as big as major cities and it is getting worse by the day.” The number of locusts in East Africa could expand 500 times by June, the UN's Food & Agriculture Organization said last month.
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-africa-locusts/Extreme weather could bring next recession
Physical climate risk from extreme weather events remains unaccounted for in financial markets. Without better knowledge of the risk, the average energy investor can only hope that the next extreme event won't trigger a sudden correction, according to new research from University of California, Davis. The paper, "Energy Finance Must Account for Extreme Weather Risk," was published Feb. 17 in the journal Nature Energy. "If the market doesn't do a better job of accounting for climate, we could have a recession—the likes of which we've never seen before," said the article's author, Paul Griffin, an accounting professor at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management. The central message in his latest research is that there is too much "unpriced risk" in the energy market. "Unpriced risk was the main cause of the Great Recession in 2007-2008," Griffin said.
https://phys.org/news/2020-02-extreme-weather-recession.amp
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-0548-2Yes, 1.5 Degrees Celsius Is Long Gone as a Climate Change Target
Realistically, we might manage to top out below 2.5°C, but only if we (a) get lucky and invent something spectacular or (b) give up and start spraying sulfates in the atmosphere. Is this really so hard to admit? All it takes is a quick look at the most basic CO2 emissions chart to see that there’s no reason at all to believe that emissions are suddenly going to start plummeting anytime in next few years ... I’d add one more truth bomb to this: It’s time to stop blaming Republicans for this state of affairs. Don’t get me wrong: Republicans are obviously lying about climate change for partisan purposes ... But even if Republicans were fully on board with a serious climate plan, it would have only the smallest effect. The USA line in the chart above might be slightly lower than it is. But not a lot. After all, even the biggest plans from Democrats wouldn’t make more than a small dent in that line. And it wouldn’t make any dent at all in the lines that really matter: the ones for China, India, and the rest of the developing world. Those are going up like a rocket, and until that turns around we’ll never make any serious progress on climate change.
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/01/yes-1-5-degrees-celsius-is-long-gone-as-a-climate-change-target/Hundreds of thousands of mussels cooked to death on New Zealand beach in heatwave
The mass die-off in Northland was sparked by “an exceptional period of warm weather” combined with low tides in the middle of the day, which had exposed the shellfish, said Dr Andrew Jeffs, a marine scientist from the University of Auckland. He said more marine life would soon be affected by climate change, and there was little that that could be done to protect the vulnerable shellfish ... Scientists had observed mussels suffering under changing weather conditions for a decade, but conditions were now getting more intense and devastating for the animals. “I think we’re going to see entire communities of marine creatures change,” said Jeffs.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/18/hundreds-of-thousands-of-mussels-cooked-to-death-on-new-zealand-beach-in-heatwaveRising seas already overwhelm the Bay Area. Time is running out for California to act
The fate of Foster City and the rest of the Bay Area was front and center last week as state lawmakers grappled with the many threats California must confront as the ocean pushes farther inland ... Homes are flooding and critical roads and infrastructure are already mere feet from toppling into the sea, they said, but cities up and down the coast have been paralyzed by the difficult choices ahead. More than $150 billion in property could be at risk of flooding by 2100 — the economic damage far more destructive than from the state’s worst earthquakes and wildfires.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-02-11/foster-city-sea-level-riseIs global climate solidarity impossible?
Although plenty of people around the world still refuse to accept climate science, denial is not the main obstacle impeding the urgent global action needed to save the planet. The bigger problem is that the economic measures that could prevent catastrophic climate change are political non-starters ... Unless and until that changes, an existential crisis of our own making will only worsen.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/global-climate-solidarity-impossible-by-willem-h-buiter-1-2020-02Lobster, Ticks, Sea Levels Indicate Warming Climate In New England
Biological markers are the easiest way to show a changing climate. For instance, many New Englanders have been keeping long records of when lakes freeze, or when fruit ripens. Both of these metrics back up the temperatures. At Moosehead Lake in Maine, the trend is both for later ice-in and earlier ice-out. Locally at Blue Hill, the date of the first ripe blueberries continues to come earlier. If you spend time outdoors, you are probably aware of the increase in ticks. In the past few years, the Lone Star tick has managed to make southern New England home, thanks to our less harsh climate. If you’re out on the water, the changes are significant. Lobster habitat has moved well northward as they search for cooler waters. Blue crabs are around in increasing numbers as they expand from the mid-Atlantic. Fishermen reported tropical mahi-mahi as far north as Buzzard’s Bay in August 2018.
https://boston.cbslocal.com/2020/01/20/new-england-climate-change-ticks-lobster/Another record temperature recorded in Brussels on Sunday
This news comes alongside reports that Belgium has become systematically warmer and winters gradually drier from the 17th century, according to research by the VUB research group Analytical, Environmental and Geochemistry (AMGC) ... The next five years could be the warmest ever recorded, according to a British weather service. The Met Office says there is a risk the average temperature on Earth could rise by 1.5°C by 2024 ... “The latest forecasts for the next five years suggest temperatures will continue to go up, in accordance with higher levels of greenhouse gases,” said forecaster Doug Smith.
https://www.brusselstimes.com/belgium/95445/another-record-temperature-recorded-in-brussels-on-sunday/Climate change: Clean tech 'won't solve warming in time'
Breakthrough technologies such as carbon capture and hydrogen cannot be relied on to help the UK meet its climate change targets, a report says. The government had hoped that both technologies would contribute to emissions reductions required by 2050. But the report’s authors say ministers should assume that neither carbon capture and storage (CCS) nor hydrogen will be running "at scale" by 2050. They say the government must start a debate on other, controversial steps ... report comes from a government-funded consortium of academics from Cambridge, Oxford, Nottingham, Bath and Imperial College London.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51389404The world is failing to ensure children have a 'liveable planet', report finds
Every country in the world is failing to shield children’s health and their futures from intensifying ecological degradation, climate change and exploitative marketing practices, says a new report. The report says that despite dramatic improvements in survival, nutrition, and education over the past 20 years, “today’s children face an uncertain future”, with every child facing “existential threats” ... The commission, convened by the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations children’s agency Unicef, and medical journal the Lancet, calls for radical changes to protect children’s health and futures from the intensifying climate emergency.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/feb/19/the-world-is-failing-to-ensure-children-have-a-liveable-planet-report-finds
reporting on a study at https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)32540-1/fulltextBirds Are Vanishing From North America
The analysis, published in the journal Science, is the most exhaustive and ambitious attempt yet to learn what is happening to avian populations. The results have shocked researchers and conservation organizations. In a statement on Thursday, David Yarnold, president and chief executive of the National Audubon Society, called the findings “a full-blown crisis” ... the new study, based on a broad survey of more than 500 species, reveals steep losses even among such traditionally abundant birds as robins and sparrows ... “We were stunned by the result — it’s just staggering,” said Kenneth V. Rosenberg, a conservation scientist at Cornell University and the American Bird Conservancy, and the lead author of the new study. “It’s not just these highly threatened birds that we’re afraid are going to go on the endangered species list,” he said. “It’s across the board” ... Europe is experiencing a similar loss of birds, also among common species, said Dr. Gaston, of the University of Exeter. “The numbers are broadly comparable,” he said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/science/bird-populations-america-canada.htmlSecond Year of Major Spring Floods Forecast for U.S. Heartland
Flooding that overwhelmed much of the interior United States is expected to resume in the next three months and soak communities along the Mississippi River and in the Great Plains for a second consecutive spring ... Extreme wet conditions in 2019, which were consistent with predictions of climate change, caused billions of dollars of damage and led farmers to avoid planting on 20 million acres ... Sections of the James River in South Dakota have been above flood level for 11 consecutive months. Major flooding also is expected along the Mississippi River in Minneapolis and at various points in Iowa and Illinois, and in North Dakota along the Red River of the North, the National Weather Service says.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/second-year-of-major-spring-floods-forecast-for-u-s-heartland/Torrential rain hits Southeast as forecast warns of major spring flooding
A week of torrential downpours is underway across the Southeast and lower Mississippi Valley. With saturated ground and swollen rivers, the three-month outlook calls for the likelihood of major river flooding this spring in some of the same areas hard hit by last year's historic floods. The combination of a stalled front, strong Pacific jet stream and near-record atmospheric moisture levels Monday prompted NOAA's Weather Prediction Center to warn of the "high risk" of life-threatening flash flooding.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rain-flooding-alabama-southeast-mississippi-valley-this-week/Ballard Locks dam sees highest water flow ever recorded
Ballard Locks dam had the highest water flow ever measured since recordings began in 1946 ... between Feb. 7 to 9, the peak inflow was 15,000 – 16,000 cubic feet per second (cfs).
http://www.myballard.com/2020/02/11/ballard-locks-dam-sees-highest-water-flow-ever-recorded/Green-Up Happening Weeks Early In Southeast
Parts of the southeastern United States are greening up far ahead of schedule ... So far this year, 2020, observers in the Southeast have noted vegetation greening up as early as 24 days ahead of schedule in Charlottesville, Virginia. The spring leaf out has arrived 20 days early in Knoxville, Tennessee and 18 days early in Nashville, according to www.usanpn.org. The leaf out has also arrived about 10 days early in Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington according to the website ... Areas near the Gulf of Mexico are experiencing a bloom one to two weeks early.
https://www.weathernationtv.com/news/green-up-happening-weeks-early-in-southeast/Amazon deforestation for January hits record
More than 280 square kilometers (110 square miles) were cleared, an increase of 108 percent ... The sharp increase overlapped the first year in office of President Jair Bolsonaro, a climate change skeptic who has eased restrictions on exploiting the Amazon's vast riches ... On Wednesday, Bolsonaro unveiled a sweeping plan for the Amazon rainforest that would open indigenous lands to mining, farming and hydroelectric power projects. Many NGOs said this would further increase deforestation.
https://phys.org/news/2020-02-amazon-deforestation-january.htmlWhat starts in the Amazon doesn’t stay there: Fires melting Andes glaciers
Fires in the Amazon may be melting Andean mountain glaciers at an increased rate, according to a study published in Scientific Reports. Smoke plumes billow from Amazon forest fires and travel with the wind, carrying aerosols such as black carbon to settle upon the surfaces of mountain glaciers, darkening snow. As a result, the snow’s albedo — the amount of light and radiation reflected from the surface — is reduced as absorption is increases. With less sunlight reflected, the glacial energy balance is disrupted and the glacier melts more rapidly ... The phenomenon may be relatively new, as the Amazon rainforest historically was too wet to burn significantly; climate change coupled with deforestation has caused it to grow increasingly dryer over recent years ... A survey of other tropical Andean glaciers found that nearly half of all glacial area has vanished since 1975, with over 80% disappearing in areas below 5,000 meters.
https://news.mongabay.com/2020/01/what-starts-in-the-amazon-doesnt-stay-there-fires-melting-andes-glaciers/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-53284-1Measuring the Carbon-Dioxide Cost of Last Year’s Worldwide Wildfires
Last year’s mammoth wildfires in the Amazon, Indonesia, and the Arctic Circle triggered a global conversation about the environmental and economic consequences of climate change. So it was with shock and still-raw emotion that, as 2020 began, the world absorbed the images of Australia’s devastating bush fires. These enormous blazes—some the size of a small country—aren’t just destroying native forests and vulnerable animal species. They’re also releasing billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, potentially accelerating global warming and leading to even more fires ... What made 2019 extraordinary wasn’t the overall number of fires, or total fire emissions, but where they happened and how intense they were. Scientists were baffled to record fires burning in some parts of Siberia and Alaska for longer than they’d ever seen ... Scientists were alarmed because what was burning in Indonesia included not only forests, but also peat, which can smolder underground at very low temperatures. It makes fires hard to extinguish and almost impossible to detect from satellite pictures, in turn making it difficult to accurately calculate CO2 emissions. To make matters worse, peat fires release carbon that’s been stored underground for tens of thousands of years ... “The predictions were already there,” Parrington says of last year’s fire season. “We already had studies showing if it becomes drier and hotter in places like the Arctic, at some point there will be fires on a bigger scale than we’ve seen in a long time.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-fire-emissions/NASA Flights Detect Millions of Arctic Methane Hotspots
In a new study, scientists with NASA's Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment [flew] over some 20,000 square miles (30,000 square kilometers) of the Arctic landscape in the hope of detecting methane hotspots. The instrument did not disappoint ... The paper, titled "Airborne Mapping Reveals Emergent Power Law of Arctic Methane Emissions," was published Feb. 10 in Geophysical Research Letters ... the methane hotspots were mostly concentrated within about 44 yards (40 meters) of standing bodies of water, like lakes and streams ... "we found abrupt thawing of the permafrost right underneath the hotspot," said Elder. "It's that additional contribution of permafrost carbon - carbon that's been frozen for thousands of years - that's essentially contributing food for the microbes to chew up and turn into methane as the permafrost continues to thaw."
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7598Earth just had hottest January since records began, data shows
Last month was the hottest January on record over the world’s land and ocean surfaces, with average temperatures exceeding anything in the 141 years of data held by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ... past five years and the past decade are the hottest in 150 years of record-keeping, an indication of the gathering pace of the climate crisis ... Meanwhile, the Antarctic has begun February with several temperature spikes. The southern polar continent broke 20C (68F) for the first time in its history on 9 February, following another previous high of 18.3C just three days previously. Scientists called the readings “incredible and abnormal” ... planet-warming emissions from human activity are not showing any sign of decline, let alone the deep cuts needed to meet the 2C goal and address the climate crisis.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/13/january-hottest-earth-record-climate-crisisPreventing the death of the world’s rivers
[W]e are rapidly destroying the planet’s river systems, with serious implications for our economies, societies and even our survival. China is a case in point. Its dam-building frenzy and overexploitation of rivers are wreaking environmental havoc on Asia, destroying forests, depleting biodiversity and straining water resources ... The Mekong River is running at a historically low level ... other countries, from Asia to Latin America, have also been tapping long rivers for electricity generation ... diversion of water for irrigation is also a major source of strain on rivers. In fact, crop and livestock production absorbs almost three-quarters of the world’s freshwater resources, while creating runoff that, together with industrial waste and sewage discharge, pollutes those very resources ... almost two-thirds of the world’s long rivers have been modified, and some of the world’s longest—including the Nile and the Rio Grande—now qualify as endangered ... strain water resources, destroy ecosystems and threaten human health ... aquatic ecosystems have lost half of their biodiversity since the mid-1970s, and about half of all wetlands have been destroyed ... In the US, almost half of rivers and streams are considered to be in poor biological condition ... In Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro has relaxed environmental rules in the name of economic growth. Among the casualties is the Amazon River ... The world’s rivers are under unprecedented pressure from contamination, damming and diversion.
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/preventing-the-death-of-the-worlds-rivers/Car ‘splatometer’ tests reveal huge decline in number of insects
Two scientific studies of the number of insects splattered by cars have revealed a huge decline in abundance at European sites in two decades. The research adds to growing evidence of what some scientists have called an “insect apocalypse”, which is threatening a collapse in the natural world that sustains humans and all life on Earth. A third study shows plummeting numbers of aquatic insects in streams.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/12/car-splatometer-tests-reveal-huge-decline-number-insectsBumblebee Decline Linked With Extreme Heat Waves
Climate chaos is wiping out important pollinators and hastening the loss of global biodiversity, a new study says. [N]ew research by scientists at the University of Ottawa suggests that extreme heat waves have already driven some local North American and European bumblebee populations to the edge of extinction. Measurements of bumblebee species over time "provide evidence of rapid and widespread declines across Europe and North America," the authors of the study wrote. More frequent extreme heat waves with temperatures higher than bees can tolerate help explain the "widespread bumblebee decline," they added ... "Bumblebees are disappearing from areas eight times as fast as they are recolonizing others ... They are the best pollinators in wild landscapes and really important for crops like tomatoes, squash and berries" ... The research "adds to a growing body of evidence for alarming, widespread losses of biodiversity and for rates of global change that now exceed the critical limits of ecosystem resilience."
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05022020/bumblebee-climate-change-heat-decline-migration
see also https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/06/bumblebees-decline-points-to-mass-extinction-studyPeru’s Peatlands Could Greatly Accelerate Global Warming
Scientists have discovered that this Kentucky-size territory contains an enormous underground cache of carbon, in the form of peat—partially decomposed plant matter. Katherine Roucoux, principle investigator of Andueza’s research, says keeping that carbon in the ground “is a very important thing.” If the peat dries, it will decompose—or catch fire—releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere ... An event two decades ago on the other side of the globe alerted scientists to just how greatly peatlands can exhale carbon when they are developed. In 1997—and again in 2015—huge tracts of peat in Indonesia went up in flames. Palm oil farms had drained the perpetually soggy, carbon-rich soil, and dry peat burns easily ... the 1997 conflagration gave off between three billion and almost 10 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/perus-peatlands-could-greatly-accelerate-global-warming/Samples from famed 19th century voyage reveal ‘shocking’ effects of ocean acidification
Scientists have known for years that ... acidic waters eat away at the calcium carbonate shells and exo-skeletons of organisms from crabs to corals and make it harder for them to build such structures in the first place. But [they] haven’t been able to examine the long-term impacts of acidification in the open ocean—until now ... on average, all modern specimens had thinner shells than the historic specimens, up to 76% thinner in N. dutertrei, they reported last week in Scientific Reports. Some modern specimens had shells so thin that the team was unable to image some portions ... the researchers say ocean acidification is likely to blame.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/plankton-shells-have-become-dangerously-thin-acidifying-oceans-are-blameGovernment Agency Warns Global Oil Industry Is on the Brink of a Meltdown
[T]he increasingly unsustainable economics of the oil industry could derail the global financial system within the next few years. The new report is published by the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK), which operates under the government’s Ministry of Economic Affairs. GTK is currently the European Commission’s lead coordinator of the EU’s flagship mineral resources database and modeling system ... The peer-reviewed report [concludes] that the economic viability of the entire global oil market could come undone within the next few years [leading to] another financial crash as oil markets become unstable, most likely within half a decade ... Although the world therefore needs to urgently transition away from fossil fuels, it may well be too late to do so in a way that avoids an economic crisis.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8848g5/government-agency-warns-global-oil-industry-is-on-the-brink-of-a-meltdown
see also https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/peak-shale-will-send-oil-prices-sky-high-2020-02-07
reporting on a study at http://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/70_2019.pdfBumblebees' decline points to mass extinction – study
Bumblebees are in drastic decline across Europe and North America owing to hotter and more frequent extremes in temperatures, scientists say ... rates of decline appear to be “consistent with a mass extinction.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/06/bumblebees-decline-points-to-mass-extinction-study
reporting on a study at https://science.sciencemag.org/content/367/6478/685Why Clouds Are the Key to New Troubling Projections on Warming
An apparently settled conclusion about how sensitive the climate is to adding more greenhouse gases has been thrown into doubt by a series of new studies from the world’s top climate modeling groups. The studies have changed how the models treat clouds, following new field research. They suggest that the ability of clouds to keep us cool could be drastically reduced as the world warms — pushing global heating into overdrive ... Real-world data from satellites suggests that the modelers’ predictions may already be coming true. Norman Loeb of NASA’s Langley Research Center has shown that a sharp rise in global average temperatures since 2013 has coincided with a decline in cloud cover over the oceans.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-clouds-are-the-key-to-new-troubling-projections-on-warmingMultiple eco-crises could trigger 'systemic collapse': scientists
Overlapping environmental crises could tip the planet into "global systemic collapse," more than 200 top scientists warned Wednesday. Climate change, extreme weather events from hurricanes to heatwaves, the decline of life-sustaining ecosystems, food security and dwindling stores of fresh water ... topped the list both in terms of likelihood and impact, according to scientists surveyed by Future Earth, an international research organisation. In combination, they "have the potential to impact and amplify one another in ways that might cascade to create global systemic collapse," a team led by Maria Ivanova, a professor at the Center for Governance and Sustainability at the University of Massachusetts, said in a 50-page report.
https://phys.org/news/2020-02-multiple-eco-crises-trigger-collapse-scientists.html
see also https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/06/humanity-under-threat-perfect-storm-crises-study-environmentWildlife emerging months earlier than normal as winters 'lost' to climate change
Analysis of the conditions in 2019 found that all but one of the 50 spring [indicators] were early last year, amid warmer winter temperatures ... many species are losing their seasonal cues as winters warm and seasons shift. Some could be tempted out of hibernation too soon, and be hit by plummeting temperatures amid increasingly erratic weather, while some birds appeared to be breeding too late.
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/british-wildlife-early-winter-climate-change-butterfly-newt-blackbird-a9315941.htmlThe world’s oceans are speeding up — another mega-scale consequence of climate change
Three-quarters of the world’s ocean waters have sped up their pace in recent decades, scientists reported Wednesday, a massive development that was not expected to occur until climate warming became much more advanced ... joining revelations about massive coral die-offs, upheaval to fisheries, ocean-driven melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, increasingly intense ocean heat waves and accelerating sea level rise ... this represents an enormous change and a tremendous input of wind energy ... the change was expected to peak at the end of this century, after vastly more warming than has happened so far. This suggests the Earth might actually be more sensitive to climate change than our simulations can currently show.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/02/05/worlds-oceans-are-speeding-up-another-mega-scale-consequence-climate-change/
reporting on a study at https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/6/eaax7727Sea level rise accelerating along US coastline, scientists warn
The pace of sea level rise accelerated at nearly all measurement stations along the US coastline in 2019, with scientists warning some of the bleakest scenarios for inundation and flooding are steadily becoming more likely. Of 32 tide-gauge stations in locations along the vast US coastline, 25 showed a clear acceleration in sea level rise last year, according to researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (Vims) ... The gathering speed of sea level rise is evident even within the space of a year, with water levels at the 25 sites rising at a faster rate in 2019 than in 2018.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/03/sea-level-rise-accelerating-us-coastline-scientists-warnJanuary 2020 warmest on record: EU climate service
[January 2020] was the warmest January on record globally, while in Europe temperatures were a balmy three degrees Celsius above the average January from 1981 to 2010, the European Union's climate monitoring system reported Tuesday. Across a band of countries stretching from Norway to Russia, temperatures were an unprecedented 6C above the same 30-year benchmark, Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) reported in a statement. New temperature highs—monthly, yearly, decadal—have become commonplace due to the impact of climate change, caused mainly by the burning of fossil fuels, scientists say. The five last years have been the hottest on record, as was the ten-year period 2010-2019.
https://phys.org/news/2020-02-january-warmest-eu-climate.htmlThanks to clouds, latest climate models predict more global warming than their predecessors
Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Leeds and Imperial College London have found that the latest generation of global climate models predict more warming in response to increasing carbon dioxide than their predecessors. These refined models represent aspects of Earth’s climate better than previous models, suggesting that these warmer predictions may be more realistic ... The research appears in the current issue of Geophysical Research Letters.
https://www.llnl.gov/news/thanks-clouds-latest-climate-models-predict-more-global-warming-their-predecessors
reporting on a study at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019GL085782Arctic permafrost thaw plays greater role in climate change than previously estimated
Abrupt thawing of permafrost will double previous estimates of potential carbon emissions from permafrost thaw in the Arctic, and is already rapidly changing the landscape and ecology of the circumpolar north ... new study distinguishes between gradual permafrost thaw, which affects permafrost and its carbon stores slowly, versus more abrupt types of permafrost thaw. Some 20% of the Arctic region has conditions conducive to abrupt thaw [which] is a large emitter of carbon, including the release of carbon dioxide as well as methane, which is more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. That means that even though at any given time less than 5% of the Arctic permafrost region is likely to be experiencing abrupt thaw, their emissions will equal those of areas experiencing gradual thaw ... published today in Nature Geoscience. "Forests can become lakes in the course of a month, landslides occur with no warning, and invisible methane seep holes can swallow snowmobiles whole." ... the first paper to pull together the wide body of literature on past and current abrupt thaw across different types of landscapes ... "The impacts from abrupt thaw are not represented in any existing global model and our findings indicate that this could amplify the permafrost climate-carbon feedback by up to a factor of two."
https://phys.org/news/2020-02-arctic-permafrost-greater-role-climate.htmlClimate Models Are Running Red Hot and Scientists Don’t Know Why
The simulators used to forecast warming have suddenly started giving us less time.
There are dozens of climate models, and for decades they’ve agreed on what it would take to heat the planet ... Then last year these same models [that] have successfully projected global warming for a half century sent future projections upward at an unheard-of rate ... Climate models have been doing a fine job projecting warming for a long time. A recent study [showed] 14 of 17 past projections turned out to be consistent with the measured path of global average temperatures ... one factor [that] might have caused the recent unusual results [is] new cloud and aerosol settings ... “What really scares me is that our model looked better for some really good physical reasons,” he said. “So we can't throw them out yet” ... climate-modeling groups will peruse each other’s results to figure out how seemingly good improvements in cloud and aerosol science may have pushed the models into hotter states.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-03/climate-models-are-running-red-hot-and-scientists-don-t-know-why
see also https://phys.org/news/2019-12-cooling-role-particulate-earth-stronger.html
see also https://www.zmescience.com/science/global-warming-faster-93252342/Scientists alarmed to discover warm water at "vital point" beneath Antarctica's "doomsday glacier"
While researchers have observed the recession of the Thwaites Glacier for a decade, this marks the first time they detected the presence of warm water ... "The fact that such warm water was just now recorded by our team along a section of Thwaites grounding zone where we have known the glacier is melting suggests that it may be undergoing an unstoppable retreat that has huge implications for global sea-level rise," David Holland, director of New York University's Environmental Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and NYU Abu Dhabi's Center for Global Sea Level Change, which conducted the research, said in the news release.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-thwaites-melting-scientists-warm-water-antarctica-doomsday-glacier/
see also https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2020/january/scientists-find-record-warm-water-in-antarctica--pointing-to-cau.html
reporting on a study at https://thwaitesglacier.org/projects/meltAustralia’s Marine Animals Are the Fires’ Unseen Victims
More than 17.1 million hectares of land have burned across the country, with the worst fires currently raging in New South Wales and Victoria ... Though Australia is in the midst of a massive drought, when the rain inevitably returns—as it already has in some regions—this organic matter will rush into rivers and flow into coastal lakes, estuaries, and seagrass and seaweed beds ... The free-flowing silt will get into fish’s gills and block sunlight that seagrass and seaweed beds need for photosynthesis, effectively strangling them ... The slurry of potassium, phosphorus, and nitrogen will also cause algae in the water to bloom. The algae will consume the oxygen in the water, suffocating species that rely on it ... Some of these effects are already being felt.
https://truthout.org/articles/australias-marine-animals-are-the-fires-unseen-victims/After California wildfires, insurance companies drop some homeowner policies
In 2017, California wildfires cost insurance companies $13 billion. That’s $4 billion more than the cost of the prior 10 years combined. In 2018, the costs grew even higher. Dave Jones, a former insurance commissioner of California, says these skyrocketing costs affect homeowners. “When risks get too extreme for insurance companies, they do two things,” he says. “One is they raise the price of their product to reflect that risk, and second, they begin to write less insurance for that risk.”
https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/01/after-california-wildfires-insurance-companies-drop-some-homeowner-policies/“A Trillion Trees” is a great idea—that could become a dangerous climate distraction
We’d have to plant and protect a massive number of trees for decades to offset even a fraction of global emissions. And years of efforts can be nullified by droughts, wildfires, disease, or deforestation elsewhere ... the US produced about 5.8 billion tons of emissions across the economy last year. Absent other climate policies, that’d suggest we need to dedicate nearly 155 million hectares (371 million acres), or well over twice the area of Texas. The problem is, the US and most nations don’t have vast amounts of suitable land sitting around. And converting it comes at a cost to farming, food production, logging, and other uses. Indeed, a report last week by the Committee on Climate Change concluded the United Kingdom would need to commit a fifth of its farmland to dedicated carbon storage, on top of many other efforts, for the nation to reach its target of net zero emissions by 2050.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615102/tree-planting-is-a-great-idea-that-could-become-a-dangerous-climate-distraction/Arctic on red alert as lands grow greener
As Arctic summer temperatures warm, plants are responding. Snow is melting earlier and plants are coming into leaf sooner in spring. Tundra vegetation is spreading into new areas and where plants were already growing, they are now growing taller ... Researchers from Europe and North America are finding that the Arctic greening observed from space is caused by more than just the responses of tundra plants to warming on the ground ... The paper, published in Nature Climate Change, was funded in part by the National Geographic Society and government agencies in the UK, North America and Europe, including NASA’s Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) and the UK's Natural Environment Research Council.
https://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2020/arctic-on-red-alert-as-lands-grow-greener
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0688-1African countries to bear the brunt of climate change: FAO
African countries that are still in their development phase and over reliant on agriculture for survival will be the hardest hit by the effects of climate change, drastically reducing yields and also threatening food security, a report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says ... The United Nations organisation responsible for food security also reiterated the need for Third World countries to be better equipped for their agriculture to survive.
https://southerntimesafrica.com/site/news/african-countries-to-bear-the-brunt-of-climate-change-faoLadakh's Melting Glaciers Ring A Warning Bell, Why Indo-Gangetic Plain Is In Danger Zone
World Economic Forum shared its Global Risks Report 2020 ... Himalayas is ground zero [where] less snowfall and heavy rainfall contribute to erratic climatic conditions ... nearly 40 per cent of the world’s population depends directly or indirectly on mountain resources for water supply [and] in the Indo-Gangetic plain, home to over 400 million people, that source is the Himalayas ... in Davos, in the Swiss Alps, over the course of the last week, the world’s business and political leaders deliberated on how to address the climate crisis. Typically, nothing tangible came out, despite climate change being the key theme. “We will be destroyed by climate change, not the planet. This will be for us a clear indication that we absolutely need to change course. Humankind has declared a war on nature and nature is striking back in a very violent way,” UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said rather dejectedly.
https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/sports-news-ladakhs-melting-glaciers-ring-a-warning-bell-why-indo-gangetic-plain-is-in-danger-zone/302705Methane hotspots where the siberian arctic sea 'boils' studied by scientists
In a study published in Science Advances, a team of researchers led by Brett Thornton, from Stockholm University, went on a two-month expedition to the Arctic to take measurements of methane coming from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, off the Russian and Alaskan coasts ... "The problem is, if this huge amount of methane is coming out of the sea, then we are missing a major part of the global methane emissions, and our understanding of global methane is wrong," Thornton said. "But many land stations making measurements of methane around the Arctic Ocean haven't seen large increases of methane that would be expected from large sea emissions. So what is actually happening?"
https://www.newsweek.com/methane-bubbles-boil-sea-arctic-1484666World's Oldest Rainforest Is Being Cooked to Death by Climate Change, Authorities Warn
A statement issued Monday by the management authority for the Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Area warns that site, which spans 450 kilometers (280 miles) along Australia’s northeast coast, is experiencing “accelerating decline” as a result of human-caused climate change ... the world’s oldest rainforest; a relic of the Gondwana forest that spanned parts of Australia and Antarctica some 50 million years ago ... “This is occurring now, not in the future, and requires an immediate response,” the board wrote in the statement.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/worlds-oldest-rainforest-is-being-cooked-to-death-by-cl-1834411328English councils set to miss carbon emission targets
The findings make it “inconceivable” that they will become carbon neutral within 30 years, as the government has mandated ... Despite 78% of councils in the survey saying they are planning towards net zero operation by 2050, 47% say they do not have a strategy in place to reduce the carbon emissions from housing, offices and other buildings.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jan/27/english-councils-set-to-miss-carbon-emission-targetsGlobal heating may lead to wine shortage
Researchers looked at the land suitable for 11 popular varieties of wine grape and found that 2C (3.6F) of warming above pre-industrial levels – a rise the world is on track to exceed – would result in a 56% loss of suitable land within current wine-growing regions compared with the 1970s, before the most serious impacts of global heating.
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/jan/27/global-heating-may-lead-to-wine-shortage-vineyardRace to exploit the world’s seabed set to wreak havoc on marine life
Jouffray is the lead author of an analysis, published last week in the journal One Earth ... which paints an alarming picture of the impact of future exploitation of the oceans. This threat comes not just from seabed mining – which is set to expand dramatically in coming years – but from fish farming, desalination plant construction, shipping, submarine cable laying, cruise tourism and the building of offshore wind farms. This is “blue acceleration”, the term that is used by Jouffray and his co-authors to describe the recent rapid rise in marine industrialisation, a trend that has brought increasing ocean acidification, marine heating, coral reef destruction, and plastic pollution in its wake.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/25/race-for-seabed-threat-to-oceansPacific Ocean’s rising acidity causes Dungeness crabs’ shells to dissolve
The Pacific Ocean is becoming so acidic it is starting to dissolve the shells of a key species of crab, according to a new US study. Scientists found that the Dungeness crab, one of the most valuable species for recreational and commercial fisheries, is starting to weaken as its larvae are affected by rising ocean acidity. The study was published in the Science of the Total Environment academic journal and funded by the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/28/crabs-shells-dissolve-acidity-pacific-ocean2018's Four Corners drought directly linked to human-caused climate change
Climate scientists from UC Santa Barbara's geography department have now distilled just how strong an effect human-induced warming had on that event. Their findings appear in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society ... 60 to 80% of the region's increased potential for evaporation stemmed from human-induced warming alone, which caused additional warming of 2 degrees Celsius ... These findings are a conservative estimate of climate change's influence on the drought, according to Williams. For one, the study only considered the impact human-induced warming had on temperatures. Climate change may also have influenced the region's low rainfall. What's more, there are strong feedback cycles between the atmosphere and the land, which the study left out.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200123152606.htmHumans risk living in an empty world, warns UN biodiversity chief
The warning comes on the eve of the Davos World Economic Forum, where biodiversity loss has been highlighted as the third biggest risk to the world in terms of likelihood and severity this year, ahead of infectious diseases, terror attacks and interstate conflict. The ongoing destruction of life-supporting ecosystems such as coral reefs and rainforests means humans risk living in an “empty world” with “catastrophic” consequences for society.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/20/humans-risk-living-in-an-empty-world-warns-un-biodiversity-chief-aoeArctic sea ice can't 'bounce back'
The study examined whether past ice changes north of Iceland were "forced" (caused by events such as volcanic eruptions and variations in the sun's output) or "unforced" (part of a natural pattern) ... "There is increasing evidence that many aspects of our changing climate aren't caused by natural variation, but are instead 'forced' by certain events," he said. "Our study shows the large effect that climate drivers can have on Arctic sea ice, even when those drivers are weak as is the case with volcanic eruptions or solar changes. Today, the climate driver isn't weak volcanic or solar changes -- it's human activity, and we are now massively forcing the system."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200121112913.htmNOAA Gets Go-Ahead to Study Controversial Climate Plan B
Government climate scientists will study two geoengineering proposals to counteract global warming
One [approach] is to inject sulfur dioxide or a similar aerosol into the stratosphere to help shade the Earth from more intense sunlight. It is patterned after a natural solution: volcanic eruptions, which have been found to cool the Earth by emitting huge clouds of sulfur dioxide. The second approach would use an aerosol of sea salt particles to improve the ability of low-lying clouds over the ocean to act as shade ... the results likely wouldn’t be immediate ... might take until the next century to complete the cooling ... There would be drawbacks, he noted ... “When you put aerosols up into the atmosphere, it ... opens up this whole menu of things that you’d have to worry about.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/noaa-gets-go-ahead-to-study-controversial-climate-plan-b/Planet Just Had Costliest Decade for Global Natural Disasters: Insurance Industry Report
The economic losses from 2010–2019, according to Aon's Weather, Climate & Catastrophe Insight: 2019 Annual Report, hit nearly $3 trillion ... "Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the last decade of natural disasters was the emergence of previously considered 'secondary' perils—such as wildfire, flood, and drought—becoming much more costly and impactful" ... Aon's report comes a week after scientists confirmed 2019 was the second-warmest year on record and ended the warmest decade on record.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/22/planet-just-had-costliest-decade-global-natural-disasters-insurance-industry-reportA ‘Green Swan’ is the next economic nightmare
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) — known as the central bank for central banks — said in a paper titled “The Green Swan” that climate-related events could be the source of the next financial crisis ... “The increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events could trigger non-linear and irreversible financial losses. In turn, the immediate and system-wide transition required to fight climate change could have far-reaching effects potentially affecting every single agent in the economy and every single asset price.” ... In Deutsche Bank's outline of economic history over the last few centuries, growth has been the tide that lifts all boats, a “game changer for health and living standards.” But if climate change makes a sustainable path forward for growth untenable, then our modern societal organization around this economic policy could be upended. “Such sacrifices may shock citizens and be difficult to administer in democracies ... The problem for the environmental lobby is that a world without economic growth may create a damaging backlash against such climate policies. Nevertheless, the problem with the status quo is that the irreversible damage to our planet will increase.” On the one hand, modern civilization is screwed. On the other hand, modern civilization is screwed.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-economists-worry-reversing-climate-change-is-hopeless-morning-brief-110537963.html
reporting on a study at https://www.bis.org/publ/othp31.htmWidespread Melt on the George VI Ice Shelf
These images were acquired on January 19, 2020, by the Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8. Christopher Shuman, a University of Maryland, Baltimore County glaciologist based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, noticed the melt in the Landsat images. He noted: “It is the only complete view of such a widespread surface melt event on the George VI Ice Shelf captured in the nearly 50-year-long Landsat record.” Alison Banwell, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado Boulder who currently has a three-year fieldwork project on the shelf, noticed the melt in images acquired that same day with the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellite. “This is the biggest melt event we know to have occurred on the George VI ice shelf,” she said. “What’s worrying is if George VI looks like this, other ice shelves on the peninsula probably have plenty of meltwater too,” Banwell said. “And those ice shelves are less stable.”
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146189/widespread-melt-on-the-george-vi-ice-shelfScientists Highlight A Catastrophe Taking Place With UK’s Plankton
60 years of data show 70% of the vital ocean plankton have simply vanished
Yet they alone as the grass of ocean pastures are what feed all fish, or what few fish can survive on these UK ocean pastures that have become ever more desolate ocean deserts ... The study was written by world-leading researchers [and] forms part of the MCCIP Report Card 2020, which summarizes 26 individual, peer-reviewed scientific reports to provide detailed evidence of observed and projected climate change impacts.
https://russgeorge.net/2020/01/20/uk-reports-70-of-uk-plankton-has-gone-missing/Geographers find tipping point in deforestation
University of Cincinnati geography researchers have identified a tipping point for deforestation that leads to rapid forest loss ... deforestation occurs comparatively slowly until about half of the forest is gone. Then the remaining forest disappears very quickly. The study was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters ... it's possible that development such as logging roads or drainage required to clear forest makes continued change that much easier.
https://phys.org/news/2020-01-geographers-deforestation.html2019 A Record Breaking Typhoon Year For West Pacific Ocean
2018 was a record year as far as Typhoons are concerned. However, 2019 set a new mark surpassing the previous year’s records not only in number but it has also been the costliest Pacific season on record. 2019 has been rated as above average year with 29 tropical storms, out of which 17 became Typhoons and four became Super Typhoons. Another record breaking incident occurred on the first day of 2019 itself, when the first named storm Pabuk was formed [and the final] named storm of 2019 was Phanfone dissipated on Dec 29.
https://www.skymetweather.com/content/global-news/2019-a-record-breaking-typhoon-year-for-west-pacific-ocean/[New Zealand] Farmers' funds run dry, families struggle, as drought threatens eastern Northland
Extremely dry conditions across all of Northland are costing farmers hundreds of thousands of dollars and driving families to extreme measures to save precious water. The region has just experienced its hottest and driest year, breaking 16 records in 2019. The start of 2020 has also seen extremely dry conditions across Northland, said Ben Noll, a meteorologist and forecaster for The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research. "We're now seeing the emergence of meteorological drought conditions for eastern Northland," he said. "It's the compounding effect of several seasons in a row with below normal rainfall and lack of soil moisture that leads us to this point."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/118969814/farmers-funds-run-dry-families-struggle-as-drought-threatens-eastern-northlandZimbabwe’s national grain stocks dwindle
Zimbabwe’s Strategic Grain Reserve (SGR) is down to below 100,000 tons of the staple maize from the mandatory 500,000 tons following a drought last year, a cabinet minister said Wednesday ... Zimbabwe’s consumes about 1.8 million tons of grain annually, but produced less than 800,000 tons last season due to the impact of drought and Cyclone Idai.
https://www.newsghana.com.gh/zimbabwes-national-grain-stocks-dwindle/Premier declares Northern Cape disaster area due to drought
[South Africa's Northern Cape] province has officially been declared a disaster area due to drought - just as another municipality battles crippling water shortages, with its dam water levels below 23% of capacity ... [And] municipal manager Charl du Plessis announced that the drought-stricken Eastern Cape municipality was extending a declaration of a state of disaster.
https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/premier-declares-northern-cape-disaster-area-due-to-drought-41148947Eight million salmon killed in a week by sudden surge of algae in Norway
Deaths come weeks after similar incident in Scotland: ‘We’re all pretty worried’
A sudden surge in algae has killed at least eight million salmon in one week across Norwegian fish farms, the state-owned Norwegian Seafood Council has said. The enormous algal blooms, due to recent warm weather, have spread rapidly around Norway’s northern coast, sticking to fishes’ gills and suffocating them. Wild fish can swim away from the lethal clouds of aquatic organisms, but farmed fish are trapped. The algae is continuing to spread, the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries said ... There are now no commercial wild salmon fishing stations operating in the UK due to the collapse in numbers. “There’s basically no fish stocks left on the west coast. It’s become almost a marine desert, and the use of these chemicals (from the salmon farming industry) has not helped the situation.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/salmon-farming-norway-algae-killed-fishing-seafood-council-a8925581.html[Nebraska] As A New Flood Season Nears, Some Towns Still Can't Pay To Fix Damages From 2019
Adams said repairs haven’t been made yet to the town’s levee system, which puts him and neighboring farmers at risk to flood again this year ... Peru isn’t the only community on the hook ... Gering-Ft. Laramie Irrigation Tunnel collapsed in western Nebraska last July, leaving over a hundred thousand crop acres to shrivel in the sun for two months ... Adams wanted me to see his grain bins. He warned me of the indescribable smell of rotten corn, which remains beyond language. They look like an art installation: a collection of cartoonishly bent metal flanked by 150,000 bushels of moldy blue-grey kernels ... "You think everything's good, you're at a peak, you've made contacts, you've talked to congressional people, and you think things are going to happen,” Adams said. “And then all of a sudden, nothing does, and you're down in a valley. So you know, it's kind of a little roller coaster.”
http://netnebraska.org/article/news/1204020/new-flood-season-nears-some-towns-still-cant-pay-fix-damages-2019Where nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 300-times stronger than CO2, is being emitted
Until the launch of the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-5P satellite in 2017, it was difficult to track NOx precisely. But now scientists are getting their first detailed looks at data collected by the satellite. Sensors onboard Sentinel-5P can capture NOx emissions at a resolution of 7 km ... The next generation of satellites from the European Space Agency and private firms may even be able to identify NOx from individual factories and power plants.
https://qz.com/1745204/maps-of-nitrous-oxide-emissions-a-potent-greenhouse-gas/CFCs responsible for half of Arctic sea-ice loss
Halogenated compounds played a major role in global warming and Arctic sea ice loss in the late-20th century, a new study has found. Organic halogen compounds are known to have depleted atmospheric ozone concentrations, famously contributing to the ozone hole over the Antarctic. But until now, few studies have examined their other effects on climate, beyond their impact on stratospheric ozone. Now, an investigation led by Columbia University geophysicist Lorenzo Polvani has revealed the extent to which ozone-depleting substances (ODS) contributed to temperature rises and sea-ice loss in the Arctic by direct radiative warming, between 1955 and 2005. On a molecule-by-molecule basis, halogenated organic compounds trap much more heat in the atmosphere than most other known compounds. For example dichlorodifluoromethane (CFC-12) has a global warming potential almost 11,000 times that of carbon dioxide. This means that, although ODS might exist in much smaller atmospheric concentrations than other greenhouse gases, their impact can be just as significant.
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/cfcs-responsible-for-half-of-arctic-sea-ice-loss/4011037.articleWhy economists worry that reversing climate change is hopeless
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) — known as the central bank for central banks — said in a paper titled “The Green Swan” that climate-related events could be the source of the next financial crisis ... "The increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events could trigger non-linear and irreversible financial losses ... potentially affecting every single agent in the economy and every single asset price” ... our modern societal organization around this economic policy could be upended. “We think we will soon enter a stage where there will be a realization of the immense economic and personal trade-offs we will collectively have to make ... Such sacrifices may shock citizens and be difficult to administer in democracies [and] may create a damaging backlash against such climate policies. Nevertheless, the problem with the status quo is that the irreversible damage to our planet will increase.”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-economists-worry-reversing-climate-change-is-hopeless-morning-brief-110537963.htmlStudy finds shocking rise in levels of potent greenhouse gas
Efforts to reduce levels of one potent greenhouse gas appear to be failing, according to a study. Scientists had expected to find a dramatic reduction in levels of the hydrofluorocarbon HFC-23 in the atmosphere after India and China, two of the main sources, reported in 2017 that they had almost completely eliminated emissions. But a paper published in the journal Nature Communications says that by 2018 concentrations of the gas – used in fridges, inhalers and air conditioners – had not fallen but were increasing at a record rate ... Scientists say the fact they found emissions had risen is a puzzle and could have implications for the Montreal protocol, an international treaty that was designed to protect the stratospheric ozone layer. Kieran Stanley, the lead author of the study, said that although China and India were not yet bound by the agreement, their reported reduction would have put them on course to be consistent with it. “Our study finds that it is very likely that China has not been as successful in reducing HFC-23 emissions as reported,” he said.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/21/study-finds-shock-rise-in-levels-of-potent-greenhouse-gas-hfc-23Climate change won’t result in a new normal but in constant, horrifying new disasters
At an intense level of combined heat and humidity—a “wetbulb” reading of 35 degrees Celsius, hotter and more humid than humans have ever experienced—the air will become so muggy that people can’t sweat and their organs begin to shut down. A healthy person sitting outside could eventually overheat and die, even if they’re resting in the shade. And by 2030, there’s a chance that this type of deadly heat wave could hit regions in India where as many as 200 million people live. A new report from McKinsey Global Institute looks at the risk of extreme heat in India along with eight other case studies of the potential physical risks of climate change over the next three decades ... For more than 10,000 years, and the entire history of human civilization, the climate has been relatively stable. Now it is not ... It’s not that we’re moving to a “new normal” but to a world where the climate is constantly changing ... “A stable climate really drives how we design the world around us,” says Krishnan. “And that could now put systems at risk around the world.” ... Globally, the researchers looked at 105 countries, and found that by 2030, all of them would face an increased risk of at least one major impact. Millions of lives could be at risk, along with trillions of dollars’ worth of economic activity and capital.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90452018/climate-change-wont-result-in-a-new-normal-but-in-constant-horrifying-new-disasters
reporting on a study at https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/climate-risk-and-response-physical-hazards-and-socioeconomic-impactsWere other humans the first victims of the sixth mass extinction?
Nine human species walked the Earth 300,000 years ago. Now there is just one ... the extinctions’ timing suggests they were caused by the spread of a new species, evolving 260,000-350,000 years ago in Southern Africa: Homo sapiens. The spread of modern humans out of Africa has caused a sixth mass extinction, a greater than 40,000-year event extending from the disappearance of Ice Age mammals to the destruction of rainforests by civilisation today. But were other humans the first casualties?
https://theconversation.com/were-other-humans-the-first-victims-of-the-sixth-mass-extinction-126638World needs to prepare for 'millions' of climate displaced: U.N.
The world needs to prepare for millions of people being driven from their homes by the impact of climate change, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said on Tuesday. Speaking to Reuters at the World Economic Forum, Filippo Grandi said a U.N. ruling this week meant those fleeing as a result of climate change deserved international protection, and that it had broad implications for governments. The U.N. Human Rights Committee made the landmark ruling on Monday.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-davos-meeting-refugees/world-needs-to-prepare-for-millions-of-climate-displaced-u-n-idUSKBN1ZK1Q2Pyrenees glaciers to disappear within 30 years, scientists warn
Glaciers have already shrunk by half in the past 20 years in the mountains on the border between France and Spain, according to a new report by scientists who monitor them for the local environmental group Moraine. “Pyrenean glaciers are doomed,” said Pierre René, an expert on glaciers.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/19/pyrenees-glaciers-disappear-within-30-years-scientists-warn/An intensifying climate crisis threatens more than half of the world’s GDP, research claims
Over half of the world’s gross domestic product is exposed to risks from nature loss ... The report, which was produced by the World Economic Forumin in collaboration with PwC UK, found that $44 trillion of economic value generation — more than half of the world’s GDP — is “moderately or highly dependent on nature and its services and is therefore exposed to nature loss.” Policymakers and business leaders from around the world are due to arrive in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum on Monday. The annual January get-together is scheduled to focus on the intensifying climate crisis.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/19/davos-climate-crisis-threatens-more-than-half-of-the-worlds-gdp-wef-says.htmlClimate threats now dominate long-term risks, survey of global leaders finds
Climate-change-related threats such as extreme weather, large-scale biodiversity losses and a failure of political leaders to slow planetary heating are now the top long-term risks facing the globe, business and other leaders said on Wednesday. An annual risk survey published ahead of the World Economic Forum next week put climate threats ahead of risks ranging from cyberattacks and pandemics to geopolitical conflict and weapons of mass destruction for the first time ... Peter Giger, chief risk officer for the Zurich Insurance Group, warned that "the longer we wait (to tackle climate change), the more painful the transition will be" because of the rapid plunge in emissions that delay would necessitate. He pointed to the rapid disappearance of insect species around the world, including those that pollinate 75% of the world's crops, as a result of climate change and other pressures. If insects and the pollination services they provide disappear, "that's a catastrophic outcome" for food security and for business.
http://news.trust.org/item/20200115150054-km9of/Study Confirms Climate Models are Getting Future Warming Projections Right
In a study accepted for publication in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, a research team led by Zeke Hausfather of the University of California, Berkeley, conducted a systematic evaluation of the performance of past climate models. The team compared 17 increasingly sophisticated model projections of global average temperature developed between 1970 and 2007 with actual changes in global temperature observed through the end of 2017 ... “The results of this study of past climate models bolster scientists’ confidence that both they as well as today’s more advanced climate models are skillfully projecting global warming,” said study co-author Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/New Climate Models Show That Clouds Could Screw the Paris Agreement
In a new study published in Geophysical Research Letters, researchers examined the sensitivity of more than two dozen new climate models. If the models are right, the goals laid out in the Paris Climate Agreement to cap global warming could be out of reach ... in new climate models, this [cloud] effect isn’t as powerful in cooling the Earth as scientists once thought. At the same time, models also predict that Earth will have fewer and thinner low-level clouds, particularly in the mid-latitude Southern Hemisphere. Thick, fluffy clouds low in the atmosphere help block sunlight from Earth and protect it from some warming, so losing cloud coverage means losing that protection.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/new-climate-models-show-that-clouds-could-screw-the-par-1841000435Beetles and fire kill dozens of 'indestructible' giant sequoia trees
Giant sequoia trees, the largest living organisms on the planet – some more than three millennia old – have started dying from beetle attacks linked to the climate emergency ... The deaths have challenged age-old assumptions about the tree, which only grows on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada and is fabled for its near-indestructibility ... “It’s unheard of. It’s never happened before,” said Dr Christy Brigham, chief of resource management and science for Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks, who oversees the welfare of ecosystems in the parks.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/18/beetles-and-fire-kill-dozens-of-california-indestructible-giant-sequoia-trees-aoeFederal study links climate change, giant sequoia deaths
Once regarded as virtually indestructible, some of California's giant sequoia trees are succumbing to the effects of high heat and climate change ... unprecedented combination of drought, fire and beetle infestation, all linked to a warming climate. That's according to the preliminary results of a joint study by the National Park Service and the U.S. Geological Survey ... Earlier studies have warned that the trees, which are native to California's Sierra Nevada, face a double risk from rising temperatures and a declining snowpack. And a 2012 study in the journal Science found that 100- to 300-year-old trees were on the front lines of a changing climate, dying at high rates around the world partly because of hotter and drier weather.
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1062150049Global warming cited as Antarctica's chinstrap penguin population drops by half
"They come back to the same place to nest every year, which means we can really keep tabs on their populations," explains Alex Borowicz, a researcher at Stony Brook University. "By observing penguins and trying to figure out what makes their populations work, we can get an idea of the health of this whole area" ... One nearby island, actually called Penguin Island, has seen its chinstrap population plunge by 75 percent over the past four decades. The numbers have dropped across the region as average temperatures have soared ... "It's very dramatic to have a wildlife population decline by 50% - an unexploited wildlife population. They're not hunted."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/global-warming-cited-as-antarctica-chinstrap-penguin-population-drops-by-half/All-time record as dam after dam overflows in January
[The dams of Cyprus] have never overflowed so early in the year, the Water Development Department said on Wednesday as two more of the largest reservoirs reached full capacity and water flooded over the dam walls. Kouris and Evretou reservoirs overflowed between Tuesday and Wednesday while Kalavassos residents woke up to find a river where a road had been ... Τhe Polemidia reservoir overflowed on Wednesday for the second year in the row. Several smaller reservoirs, mainly in Paphos, have also reached capacity in recent days ... According to senior engineer at the WDD Marios Hadjicostis this is the first time that water reserves have been so high in January, forcing dam after dam to overflow.
https://cyprus-mail.com/2020/01/08/all-time-record-as-dam-after-dam-overflows-in-january-updatedMount Everest is melting fast, satellite images reveal
According to what the researchers have found, glaciers surrounding Mount Everest have lost far more ice than once thought. Researchers have generated a digital surface-elevation models of the glaciers ... the glaciers along Mount Everest's flanks had shrunk significantly from the top down and this happened in between 1962 to 2018.
https://www.indiatvnews.com/science/mount-everest-is-melting-satellite-photos-show-580085Earth's oceans are hotter than ever — and getting warmer faster
The world's oceans hit their warmest level in recorded history in 2019, according to a study published Monday that provides more evidence that Earth is warming at an accelerated pace. The analysis, which also found that ocean temperatures in the last decade have been the warmest on record, shows the impact of human-caused warming on the planet's oceans and suggests that sea-level rise, ocean acidification and extreme weather events could worsen as the oceans continue to absorb so much heat ... the rate of ocean warming accelerated from 1987 to 2019 to nearly 4½ times the rate of warming from 1955 to 1986 ... the study [was] published Monday in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/earth-s-oceans-are-hotter-ever-getting-warmer-faster-n1114811Arctic methane levels reach new heights
Latest data released by a US institution, the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL), sounds afresh alarm bells for the Artic and climate change. It adds further evidence corroborating an earlier hypothesis that predicts a catastrophic release of methane in the coming decades due to thawing Arctic permafrost ... To spot methane levels breaking the 2000ppb mark so sharply in this fragile region is unprecedented ... "This increase is very bad news for climate change as methane is such a strong climate forcer."
https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2019/09/arctic-methane-levels-reach-new-heights-data-shows'Scale of This Failure Has No Precedent': Scientists Say Hot Ocean 'Blob' Killed One Million Seabirds
On the heels of new research showing that the world's oceans are rapidly warming, scientists revealed Wednesday that a huge patch of hot water in the northeast Pacific Ocean dubbed "the blob" was to blame for killing about one million seabirds. The peer-reviewed study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, was conducted by a team of researchers at federal and state agencies, conservation groups, and universities ... "The magnitude and scale of this failure has no precedent," lead author John Piatt, a research biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey's Alaska Science Center and an affiliate professor at the University of Washington, said in a statement.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/16/scale-failure-has-no-precedent-scientists-say-hot-ocean-blob-killed-one-millionThe Panama Canal is running out of water
“Historically, the months of October and November are the rainiest,” says Ricaurte Vásquez, administrator of the canal, at a press conference. But last year the rain in the Canal Basin was 34 per cent and 27 per cent below its historic average in October and November respectively, he said. At the same time, temperature rise has led to a ten per cent rise in evaporation from the reservoirs which supply the canal. All this spells trouble for the system of waterways and artificial reservoirs that have been developed to support the canal’s lock mechanism, which requires millions of gallons of fresh water pouring into it to transfer ships across. The worry is that the nearby Gatún reservoir now has too low a reserve of water to face the dry season, which is just beginning now and, in a worst case scenario, could last as late as July.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/panama-canal-climate-changeAustralians could become 'climate refugees' due to rising global temperatures
Australia could become so hot and dry that the country's residents could become climate refugees. That's the view of acclaimed US climatologist and geophysicist Michael Mann who's in Australia studying climate change ... "It is conceivable that much of Australia simply becomes too hot and dry for human habitation," said Dr Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. "In that case, yes, unfortunately, we could well see Australians join the ranks of the world's climate refugees."
https://7news.com.au/news/climate-change/australians-may-become-climate-refugees-c-648335BlackRock’s Larry Fink: Risks from climate change are bigger than the 2008 financial crisis with no Fed to save us
BlackRock chief Larry Fink is warning that the financial risks of climate change are bigger than any crisis he’s experienced in his career on Wall Street. Fink, whose BlackRock has nearly $7 trillion in assets under management, used his annual letter to the world’s biggest companies to sound the alarm. “We don’t have a Federal Reserve to stabilize the world like in the five or six financial crises that occurred during my 40 years in finance. This is bigger .... Climate change has become a defining factor in companies’ long-term prospects.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/14/larry-fink-risk-from-climate-change-bigger-than-2008-financial-crisis.htmlAtlantic circulation collapse could cut British crop farming
Such a collapse—a climate change "tipping point"—would leave Britain cooler, drier and unsuitable for many crops, the study says ... The point of this detailed study was to discover how stark the impacts of AMOC collapse could be. The study follows a recent paper by Lenton and colleagues warning of a possible "cascade" of inter-related tipping points ... AMOC collapse and the resulting temperature drop could lead to a host of other economic costs for the UK ... The paper, published in the inaugural issue of the journal Nature Food, is entitled: "Shifts in national land use and food production in Great Britain after a climate tipping point."
https://phys.org/news/2020-01-atlantic-circulation-collapse-british-crop.htmlClimate change: Australia fires will be 'normal' in warmer world
UK scientists say the recent fires in Australia are a taste of what the world will experience as temperatures rise. Prof Richard Betts from the Met Office Hadley Centre said we are "seeing a sign of what would be normal conditions under a future warming world of 3C" ... Their study looked at 57 research papers published since the last major review of climate science came out in 2013. All the studies in the review showed links between climate change and the increased frequency or severity of fire weather.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51094919The gathering firestorm in southern Amazonia
Wildfires, exacerbated by extreme weather events and land use, threaten to change the Amazon from a net carbon sink to a net carbon source ... climate projections suggest that Amazon fire regimes will intensify under both low- and high-emission scenarios. Our results indicate that projected climatic changes will double the area burned by wildfires ... Aggressive efforts to eliminate ignition sources and suppress wildfires will be critical to conserve southern Amazon forests.
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/2/eaay1632Ocean temperatures hit record high as rate of heating accelerates
The heat in the world’s oceans reached a new record level in 2019, showing “irrefutable and accelerating” heating of the planet. The world’s oceans are the clearest measure of the climate emergency because they absorb more than 90% of the heat trapped by the greenhouse gases emitted by fossil fuel burning, forest destruction and other human activities. The new analysis shows the past five years are the top five warmest years recorded in the ocean and the past 10 years are also the top 10 years on record ... Hotter oceans lead to more severe storms and disrupt the water cycle, meaning more floods, droughts and wildfires, as well as an inexorable rise in sea level. Higher temperatures are also harming life in the seas ... The analysis, published in the journal Advances In Atmospheric Sciences, uses ocean data from every available source.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/13/ocean-temperatures-hit-record-high-as-rate-of-heating-acceleratesGreenland’s Ice Melt Rate Has Now Accelerated To A Whopping 234 Billion Tons Of Ice Lost Per Year
When scientists in the 1990s measured the amount of ice melting off the Greenland Ice Sheet, they observed it losing 25 billion tons of ice per year. Now a consortium of 89 polar scientists from 50 scientific institutions assessed the current rate of ice loss ... The results of this study, recently released in Nature, show that between 1992 and 2018, Greenland lost 3.8 trillion tons of ice. This means that Greenland’s current rate of ice loss has accelerated from 25 billion to 234 billion tons per year, a whopping nine times increase in faster melt rate.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lauratenenbaum/2020/01/12/greenlands-ice-melt-rate-has-now-accelerated-to-a-whopping-234-billion-tons-of-ice-lost-per-year/Nearly half of Singapore's butterfly species are extinct: Study
Almost half of Singapore's native butterfly species have disappeared over the past 160 years, with the loss of specific plants and deforestation being key drivers of the local extinctions. Of the 236 butterfly species thought to be locally extinct, 132 are known species such as the green dragontail and chocolate tiger butterflies. There are 413 native species of butterflies in Singapore.
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/environment/study-nearly-half-of-spores-butterfly-species-extinctAustralia’s Wildfire Catastrophe Isn’t the “New Normal.” It’s Much Worse Than That.
“There is no precedent for the scale and speed at which these brushfires are spreading ... we’re being given a vision for our future if we don’t act on climate ... These are what keep us up at night as climate scientists,” says Michael Mann.
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2020/01/michael-mann-australias-wildfires-podcast-climate-change/Australia Shows Us the Road to Hell
[S]cientific persuasion is running into sharply diminishing returns. Very few of the people still denying the reality of climate change or at least opposing doing anything about it will be moved by further accumulation of evidence ... climate action will have to offer immediate benefits to large numbers of voters, because policies that seem to require widespread sacrifice would be viable only with the kind of political consensus we clearly aren’t going to get.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/09/opinion/australia-fires.htmlArctic ice melt makes permafrost vulnerable
The absence of sea ice in the Arctic is closely connected to the melting of permafrost, according to a new study. Permafrost contains massive amounts of carbon which are likely to be released as climate change heats up the world ... disappearance of Arctic summer ice will speed up the loss of this permanently frozen ground ... frozen regions of Siberia, Canada, Greenland and Alaska store about double the amount of carbon that's up in the atmosphere. But as the Earth warms, and the soils starts to get hotter, the microbes become active and the greenhouse gases drift upwards ... The research team anticipates that in the decades to come, the Arctic will become free of summer sea ice and the direct heating and insulation from the snow will accelerate the collapse of permafrost ... The study has been published in the journal Nature.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51024844India suffers hottest decade on record
The last decade was India’s hottest on record with the national weather office calling the impact of global warming “unmistakable” ... suffering devastating floods, dire water shortages and baking temperatures. The southern city of Chennai last year declared “day zero” as taps ran dry ... India’s five warmest years on record all fell in the last decade.
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2132040/3-india-suffers-hottest-decade-record/Antarctic Waters: Warmer with More Acidity and Less Oxygen
The increased freshwater from melting Antarctic ice sheets plus increased wind has reduced the amount of oxygen in the Southern Ocean and made it more acidic and warmer, according to new research led by University of Arizona geoscientists ... The research is the first to incorporate the Southern Ocean’s increased freshwater plus additional wind into a climate change model ... Previously, global climate change models did not predict the current physical and chemical changes in the Southern Ocean, said Russell, who holds the Thomas R. Brown Distinguished Chair in Integrative Science ... The team’s paper, “Importance of wind and meltwater for observed chemical and physical changes in the Southern Ocean,” was published in Nature Geoscience.
https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/antarctic-waters-warmer-more-acidity-and-less-oxygenWest’s ‘Dust Bowl’ Future now ‘Locked In’, as World Risks Imminent Food Crisis
Research sponsored by global credit ratings agency Moody’s concludes that by the end of century, parts of the US and Europe are now bound to experience severe reductions in rainfall equivalent to the American ‘dust bowl’ of the 1930s ... ‘locked in’ as a consequence of carbon emissions which we have already accumulated into the atmosphere ... risks of a global food crisis in coming decades, such as a multi-breadbasket failure ... heightened risk of droughts in the 2020s means that a global food crisis could be imminent ... The report is designed to inform financial investors of unavoidable impacts due to previous carbon emissions, as well as likely dangers from continuing emissions. “We are already locked into substantial impacts because past emissions will continue to contribute to warming regardless of any emission reductions made today” concludes the report ... compelling evidence points to significant near-term risks that could even erupt within a few years.
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-01-06/wests-dust-bowl-future-now-locked-in-as-world-risks-imminent-food-crisis/
reporting on a study at http://427mt.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Demystifying-Scenario-Analysis_427_2019.pdf2019 in climate science: A continued warming trend and 'bleak' research
The last six years have been the six hottest globally ever recorded by humans ... risks of severe climate change impacts will grow as global temperatures warm ... countries’ planned fossil fuel extraction efforts will far overshoot the Paris climate targets, consistent with a pathway of more than 3C hotter than pre-industrial temperatures ... "anthropogenic global warming is not only unparalleled in terms of absolute temperatures, but also unprecedented in spatial consistency” ... the arrival of Europeans in the Americas in 1492 and the subsequent large-scale massacres of native populations (an estimated 56 million deaths by 1600, shrinking the indigenous population 90%) had a detectable influence on the global climate [leading] to “5 ppm CO2 additional uptake into the land surface in the 1500s compared to the 1400s [and] a human-driven global impact on the Earth System in the two centuries prior to the Industrial Revolution” ... “dramatic rates of decline that may lead to the extinction of 40% of the world’s insect species” ... “a net loss approaching three billion birds, or 29% of 1970 abundance” ... Himalayan glaciers have been losing ice at a rate twice as fast as they had in the prior 25 years ... Antarctica has been losing ice at a rate six times faster than during the 1980s ... Climate scientists’ findings and reports increasingly raise the alarm of a “climate emergency.”
https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/01/2019-in-climate-science-a-continued-warming-trend-and-bleak-research/Spain set for record temperatures in 2020 as summer heatwave predicted
According to weather analyst for Spain David Pinkitt, ” I see this year Spain having the warmest summer ever on record, where temperatures inland could possibly peak at 48/49c” around July and August” ... 2020 will see a longer period of heatwave through the summer similar to what’s happening in Australia at present” ... will cause great concern in Spain as reservoir levels due to a lack of rain fall through both the autumn and winter in 2019 are at low levels
https://www.euroweeklynews.com/2020/01/07/spain-set-for-record-temperatures-in-2020-as-summer-heatwave-predicted/Urgent new ‘roadmap to recovery’ could reverse insect apocalypse
The world must eradicate pesticide use, prioritise nature-based farming methods and urgently reduce water, light and noise pollution to save plummeting insect populations, according to a new “roadmap to insect recovery” compiled by experts ... advocates immediate action on human stress factors to insects which include habitat loss and fragmentation, the climate crisis, pollution, over-harvesting and invasive species. Phasing out synthetic pesticides and fertilisers used in industrial farming and aggressive greenhouse gas emission reductions are among a series of urgent “no-regret” solutions to reverse what conservationists have called the “unnoticed insect apocalypse” ... scientists must urgently establish which herbivores, detritivores, parasitoids, predators and pollinators are priority species for conservation, according to a new paper published in Nature Ecology & Evolution ... The paper comes amid repeated warnings about the threat of human-driven insect extinction causing a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/06/urgent-new-roadmap-to-recovery-could-reverse-insect-apocalypse-aoeMost ice on Earth is very close to melting conditions
Measuring ice melt and the unprecedented changes in our cryosphere – the frozen parts of the planet which regulate the climate by reflecting the sun’s heat – is crucial for understanding future situations ... most ice on Earth is very close to melting conditions, a few degrees below 0°C, and thus reacts very sensitively to changes in air temperatures. Small temperature changes can trigger melt and (large) environmental changes. Sea level change through increased melt of glaciers and ice sheets is certainly the most far-reaching effect of ice melt on Earth ...
https://horizon-magazine.eu/article/most-ice-earth-very-close-melting-conditions.htmlGlobal Weather Has Been Affected By Climate Change Every Single Day Since 2012
Publishing their findings in the journal Nature Climate Change, the study authors looked at weather readings taken at multiple locations across the world to calculate the global daily temperature going back several decades. When comparing this average global temperature to the expected values based on statistical models, the researchers were able to identify the “fingerprint” of climate change on any given day. Results showed that global temperatures have been higher than natural models predicted every single day since March 2012, suggesting that the weather can indeed be taken as an indicator of climate change ... The “weather-is-not-climate” argument may, therefore, need revising, as while it is true that regional temperatures give little away, global weather does in fact reflect climate change.
https://www.iflscience.com/environment/global-weather-affected-climate-change-every-single-day-since-2012/In Australia's Burning Forests, Signs We've Passed a Global Warming Tipping Point
As extreme wildfires burn across large swaths of Australia, scientists say we're witnessing how global warming can push forest ecosystems past a point of no return ... The surge of large, destructive forest fires from the Arctic to the tropics just in the last few years has shocked even researchers who focus on forests and fires and who have warned of such tipping points for years. The projections were seen as remote, "something that would happen much farther in the future," said University of Arizona climate scientist David Breashers. "But it's happening now. Nobody saw it coming this soon, even though it was like a freight train. It's likely the forests won't be coming back."
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08012020/australia-wildfires-forest-tipping-points-climate-change-impact-wildlife-survivalAustralia Will Lose to Climate Change
In the past three months, bushfires in Australia’s southeast have burned millions of acres, poisoned the air in Sydney and Melbourne, and forced 4,000 tourists and residents in a small beach town, Mallacoota, to congregate on the beach and get evacuated by the navy ... Over the past six months, Australian fires have burned more than twice the area than was consumed, combined, by California’s 2018 fires and the Amazon’s 2019 fires ... Perhaps more than any other wealthy nation on Earth, Australia is at risk from the dangers of climate change. It has spent most of the 21st century in a historic drought. Its tropical oceans are more endangered than any other biome by climate change. Its people are clustered along the temperate and tropical coasts, where rising seas threaten major cities. Those same bands of livable land are the places either now burning or at heightened risk of bushfire in the future ... Australia will continue to burn, and its coral will continue to die.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/01/australia-caught-climate-spiral/604423/Geoengineering Wouldn't Be Enough to Stop Greenland From Melting
The findings, published last month in Earth’s Future, explore what would happen if the world pumped particles high into the atmosphere that would reflect sunlight back into space. This high-altitude air conditioning scheme, known as solar radiation management or SRM, would bring down the global average temperature. The paper’s results show that cooling would help slow—though not stop—the melting of the ice sheet. That could buy coastal regions time but also change the climate in other ways that may end up hurting other regions around the world.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/geoengineering-wouldnt-be-enough-to-stop-greenland-from-1840615605The sad truth about our boldest climate target
Limiting global warming to 1.5˚C is almost certainly not going to happen.
If we had peaked and begun steadily reducing emissions 20 years ago, the necessary pace of reductions would have been around 3 percent a year, which is ... well, “realistic” is too strong ... but it was at least possible to envision. We didn’t, though ... Now, to hit 1.5˚C, emissions would need to fall off a cliff, falling by 15 percent a year every year, starting in 2020, until they hit net zero ... Emissions have never fallen at 15 percent annually anywhere, much less everywhere. And what earthly reason do we have to believe that emissions will start plunging this year? ... As the old cliché in climate policy goes, we should be planning for 4˚C and aiming for 2˚C instead of what we’re doing, which is basically the reverse, drifting toward 4˚C while telling ourselves stories about a 2˚C (and now, 1.5˚C) world.
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/1/3/21045263/climate-change-1-5-degrees-celsius-target-ipcc
see also https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/01/yes-1-5-degrees-celsius-is-long-gone-as-a-climate-change-target/We are seeing the very worst of our scientific predictions come to pass in these bushfires
As a climate scientist, the thing that really terrifies me is that weather conditions considered extreme by today’s standards will seem sedate in the future. What’s unfolding right now is really just a taste of the new normal ... as a lead author on the forthcoming IPCC Sixth Assessment report of the global climate due out next year, I can assure you that the planetary situation is extremely dire ... I’ve found myself wondering whether the Earth system has now breached a tipping point, an irreversible shift in the stability of the planetary system. There may now be so much heat trapped in the system that we may have already triggered a domino effect that could unleash a cascade of abrupt changes ... The scientific community is acknowledging this by including new sections on abrupt climate change throughout key areas of the upcoming IPCC report.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/03/we-are-seeing-the-very-worst-of-our-scientific-predictions-come-to-pass-in-these-bushfiresThe signal of human-caused climate change has emerged in everyday weather, study finds
For the first time, scientists have detected the “fingerprint” of human-induced climate change on daily weather patterns at the global scale. If verified by subsequent work, the findings, published Thursday in Nature Climate Change, would upend the long-established narrative that daily weather is distinct from long-term climate change. The study’s results also imply that research aimed at assessing the human role in contributing to extreme weather events such as heat waves and floods may be underestimating the contribution ... the research alters what we can say about how weather and climate change are connected. “We’ve always said when you look at weather that’s not the same as climate ... That’s still true locally, if you are in one particular place and you only know the weather right now, right here, there isn’t much you can say.” However, on a global scale, that is no longer true ... “Global mean temperature on a single day is already quite a bit shifted. You can see this human fingerprint in any single moment.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/01/02/signal-human-caused-climate-change-has-emerged-every-day-weather-study-finds/Climate crisis fuels year of record temperatures in UK, says Met Office
A series of high temperature records were broken in the UK in 2019 ... “It is notable how many of these extreme records have been set in the most recent decade and how many more of them are reflecting high rather than low-temperature extremes, a consequence of our warming climate,” said Mark McCarthy, the head of the Met Office’s national climate information centre ... A recent comprehensive expert analysis concluded that the world was on a path to climate disaster, with three-quarters of the commitments countries made under the 2015 Paris climate agreement rated as “totally inadequate”. Nations agreed to limit global heating to 2C above pre-industrial levels, or 1.5C if possible. Each country made a voluntary pledge of climate action, but to date these would result in global temperatures rising by a disastrous 3-4C.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jan/03/climate-crisis-fuels-year-of-record-temperatures-in-uk-says-met-officeLittle time left to arrest Greenland’s melting
Norwegian and US scientists have taken a close look at the ice age history of Greenland and come to a grim conclusion. All it takes to set the island’s ice cap melting away is a mean sea surface temperature higher than seven degrees Celsius. And the present mean sea surface temperature is already 7.7°C ... the pattern of geological evidence – outlined in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences – combined with climate models suggests that any sustained temperature rise could trigger an irreversible melt of the entire southern Greenland ice sheet ... widespread alarm at the rate of melt and mass loss in Greenland has been consistent ... this rate of melting has itself begun to accelerate.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/little-time-left-to-arrest-greenlands-meltingOn land, Australia’s rising heat is ‘apocalyptic.’ In the ocean, it’s worse.
Over recent decades, the rate of ocean warming off Tasmania, Australia’s southernmost state and a gateway to the South Pole, has climbed to nearly four times the global average, oceanographers say. More than 95 percent of the giant kelp — a living high-rise of 30-foot stalks that served as a habitat for some of the rarest marine creatures in the world — died ... In 1950, giant kelp stretched over 9 million square meters in a thick band along Tasmania’s coast [but now] it covers fewer than 500,000 meters in little spots on the coastline ... Kelp forests’ “importance is equal to forests on land ... so if you can imagine what the world would be like without trees, that’s what a world without kelp forests would be like.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/world/climate-environment/climate-change-tasmania/Record Hit For Most Ice To Melt In Antarctica In One Day, Data Suggests: "We Are In A Climate Emergency"
Production of melt water is a record 230 percent higher than average since November this year. That's despite the melting season not yet being over ... Antarctica has been "significantly warmer than average" this melting season ... "We have observed a crash of the Antarctica polar vortex just before this melting season [which] allows warm air masses to reach easier the ice sheet ... the signal coming from global warming can not be ignored here." ... In an article published in the journal Nature, scientists [said] if the likely interconnected tipping points are met, a domino-effect of "long-term irreversible changes" to the planet could be triggered. "Evidence that tipping points are underway has mounted in the past decade," the experts wrote.
https://www.newsweek.com/record-hit-ice-melt-antarctica-day-climate-emergency-1479326Your electric car and vegetarian diet are pointless virtue signaling in the fight against climate change
Significantly cutting CO2 emissions without reducing economic growth will require far more than individual actions. It is absurd for middle-class citizens in advanced economies to tell themselves that eating less steak or commuting in a Toyota Prius will rein in rising temperatures. To tackle global warming, we must make collective changes on an unprecedented scale. By all means, anyone who wants to go vegetarian or switch to an electric car should do so, for sound reasons such as killing fewer animals or reducing household energy bills. But such decisions won’t solve the problem of global warming.
https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/guid/90B2547C-25CB-11EA-8ACF-1E53DFC48893Greenland’s Nearing a Climate Tipping Point. How Long Warming Lasts Will Decide Its Fate, Study Says
There's new evidence that, in past geologic eras, much of Greenland's ice melted when Earth's temperatures were only slightly warmer than today's ... how much of the ice melts, and how fast, depends in large part on how long temperatures stay above that threshold, scientists write in a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The findings are a warning that we are probably overestimating the stability of the Greenland Ice Sheet.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23122019/greenland-ice-sheet-climate-tipping-point-temperature-duration-sea-level-rise-pnas-studyIn Asia Pacific the climate crisis is happening now, not in the future
Far from being anomalies, scientists say the climate crisis is causing more extreme weather events -- and it's having devastating consequences in Asia and the Pacific. The "relentless sequence of natural disasters" over the past two years "was beyond what the region had previously experienced or was able to predict," said a United Nations ESCAP report ... while many people in developed countries see the climate crisis as an urgent but future problem, for millions living in Asia-Pacific, it's already touching every part of life ... home to 60% of the world's population, is one of the most vulnerable areas to the climate crisis.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/12/23/asia/asia-pacific-climate-crisis-intl-hnk/index.htmlAs Alaska permafrost melts, roads sink, bridges tilt and greenhouse gases escape
Alaska’s permafrost is under assault from a warming climate, and it’s happening a lot faster than anticipated. Hillside slopes have liquefied, unleashing slides that end up as muddy deltas in salmon streams. The ground under the Nome airport runway -- key to linking the community to the outside world -- has thawed, requiring costly patches. And during the hottest July on record, a sinkhole 14 feet deep opened along a main road in the city ... Fossil-fuel combustion still is the main source of greenhouse-gas emissions driving climate change. But the world's permafrost now releases 1.2 to 2.2 million metric tons each year -- at the upper end, nearly equal to Japan's greenhouse-gas emissions, according to a report this month by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/weather/2019/12/17/as-alaska-permafrost-melts-roads-sink-bridges-tilt-and-greenhouse-gases-escape/Ability of re-grown Amazon forest to combat climate change ‘vastly overestimated’, study suggests
Cleared areas that are re-planted are known as secondary forest, and have been seen as key to fighting climate change, researchers at Lancaster University said. But a new study has found that those areas held just 40 per cent as much carbon dioxide as sequestered by parts of the Amazon untouched by humans, casting doubt on their ability to aid in mitigating the crisis. And at the same time, global warming appeared to be hampering the re-growth of secondary forest ... “If current trends continue, it will take well over a century for the forests to fully recover, meaning their ability to help fight climate change may have been vastly overestimated,” Lancaster University said.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/amazon-rainforest-climate-change-deforestation-drought-study-a9257631.html‘The tipping point is here, it is now,’ top Amazon scientists warn
In the past, climate modelling has indicated an approaching Amazon tipping point when global climate change, combined with increasing deforestation, could result in a rapid Amazon shift from rainforest to degraded savanna and shrubland, releasing massive amounts of carbon to the atmosphere when the world can least afford it. Now, scientists Carlos Nobre and Thomas Lovejoy report that researchers are seeing evidence in both the atmosphere and on the ground that this tipping point has been reached and will worsen if no action is taken immediately to reverse the situation. They reference a NASA satellite study revealing an increasingly dry Amazon over time, which space agency scientists say is one of “the first indications of positive climate feedback mechanisms.”
https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/the-tipping-point-is-here-it-is-now-top-amazon-scientists-warn/Applying physics principle to meteorology yields grim prediction on hurricane destruction in an era of global warming
In a paper published recently in the journal Theoretical and Applied Climatology, Wolf demonstrated that the destructive power of these tropical hurricanes increased linearly and rapidly as water temperature increased — in contrast to most meteorological calculations, which lead to more optimistic outcomes. “This approach indicates the destructive power of Atlantic hurricanes off Africa could reach three times their current level if water temperatures rise by 2 degrees Celsius — well within the range that scientists predict is likely by the year 2100,” Wolf said. “The same calculations would apply to any tropical basin on Earth.
https://engineering.nyu.edu/news/applying-physics-principle-meteorology-yields-grim-prediction-hurricane-destruction-era-global
reporting on a study at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337675219_Critical_behavior_of_tropical_cyclonesHumankind: The Extinction Distinction
The human species seems headed for extinction. Do we merit a mass Darwin Award?
In Year 2020, symbolic of keen vision, our committee will determine whether Animalia Chordata Mammalia Primates Hominidae Homo sapiens wins a pre-posthumous Darwin Award for deinstantiating itself from existence ... Humans and their versatile thumbs & brains have evolved an unprecedented ability to alter the Earth, resulting in the present trajectory toward exceeding many functional parameters of our living planet. Can our brains evolve a smarter culture in time to swerve off the tracks of doom? ... Final decision on the question of a species-wide Darwin Award will be announced December 31, 2020.
https://darwinawards.com/extinct/index.htmlIn New Jersey, a slow-motion evacuation from climate change
The state has bought and torn down 145 homes since 2013 in Woodbridge ... all part of an effort to get ahead of climate change. Some neighborhoods in this town of over 100,000 residents just off the bustling New Jersey Turnpike are projected to be partly or fully underwater in coming decades as global sea levels rise ... Buyouts of flood-prone properties have become a reality in numerous coastal states, as well as inland. New York, Texas, Louisiana, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, North Dakota and others have programs ... Maslo, the Rutgers biologist, has a broader perspective on the transformation of a neighborhood. “We don’t like as humans or Americans to retreat; that almost suggests defeat. What we need to start realizing is that climate change is about adaptation.”
https://wtop.com/science/2019/12/in-new-jersey-a-slow-motion-evacuation-from-climate-change/The Arctic’s grand reveal
“This green line looks like the death of permafrost — it’s flatlining,” Louise Farquharson said to an audience of a few dozen scientists. Her quiet voice came through speakers over the muffled clicking of keyboards and occasional coughs in a dimly lit room at the 2019 American Geophysical Union fall meeting in San Francisco. She was showing a graph describing her newest research findings on one of the most important, and ignored, parts of the frozen Earth. Her reserved tone hid a bombshell message — by 2035 permafrost thaw may continue on its own, disregarding the processes that have kept it frozen for thousands of years. Farquharson is a research associate at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute. She is an expert on permafrost, the parts of the ground that stay frozen for at least two consecutive years ... calculated rates of thaw may be far lower than what will really happen. According to Farquharson, a key accelerating factor in permafrost thaw has been dramatically underestimated. “It’s the Arctic’s ‘grand reveal,’” Farquarson said. “We thought we saw what was happening, then it really stepped out from behind the curtain.”
https://news.uaf.edu/the-arctics-grand-reveal/Satellite observations reveal extreme methane leakage from a natural gas well blowout
[W]e find the total methane emission from the well blowout is comparable to one-quarter of the entire state of Ohio’s reported annual oil and natural gas methane emission, or, alternatively, a substantial fraction of the annual anthropogenic methane emissions from several European countries.
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/12/10/1908712116Unexpected future boost of methane possible from Arctic permafrost
New NASA-funded research has discovered that Arctic permafrost’s expected gradual thawing and the associated release of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere may actually be sped up by instances of a relatively little known process called abrupt thawing. Abrupt thawing takes place under a certain type of Arctic lake, known as a thermokarst lake that forms as permafrost thaws. The impact on the climate may mean an influx of permafrost-derived methane into the atmosphere in the mid-21st century, which is not currently accounted for in climate projections ... "We don’t have to wait 200 or 300 years to get these large releases of permafrost carbon. Within my lifetime, my children’s lifetime, it should be ramping up. It’s already happening but it’s not happening at a really fast rate right now, but within a few decades, it should peak." The results were published in Nature Communications.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2785/unexpected-future-boost-of-methane-possible-from-arctic-permafrost/Warming Arctic permafrost releasing large amounts of potent greenhouse gas
A recent study shows that nitrous oxide emissions from thawing Alaskan permafrost are about twelve times higher than previously assumed. About one fourth of the Northern Hemisphere is covered in permafrost, which is thawing at an increasing rate. As temperatures increase, the peat releases more and more greenhouse gases. And, even though researchers are monitoring carbon dioxide and methane, no one seems to be watching the most potent greenhouse gas: nitrous oxide ... Since nitrous oxide is about 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide, this revelation could mean that the Arctic -- and our global climate -- are in more danger than we thought.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190415090848.htmAs climate change melts Alaska’s permafrost, roads sink, bridges tilt and greenhouse gases release
Alaska’s permafrost is under assault from a warming climate, and it’s happening a lot faster than anticipated. Hillside slopes have liquefied, unleashing slides that end up as muddy deltas in salmon streams. The ground under the Nome airport runway — key to linking the community to the outside world — has thawed, requiring costly patches. And during the hottest July on record, a sinkhole 14 feet deep opened along a main roadway in the city. For a region where climate change also is bringing profound changes offshore, these are disruptive developments. As the northern Bering Sea warms, bird and marine mammal die-offs are on the rise and winter ice is on the decline, enabling storms to gain strength over open water and slam into coastal communities like Teller. The accelerating melt is a global concern: Permafrost, which mostly lies in the northern reaches of the planet, is a vast carbon storehouse of frozen plants and animals that release greenhouse gases as they warm and decompose.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/as-climate-change-melts-alaskas-permafrost-roads-sink-homes-tilt-and-greenhouse-gases-release/Huge amounts of greenhouse gases lurk in the oceans, and could make warming far worse
Stores of methane and CO2 in the world's seas are in a strange, icy state, and the waters are warming, creating a ticking carbon time bomb. Caps of frozen CO2 or methane, called hydrates, contain the potent greenhouse gases, keeping them from escaping into the ocean and atmosphere. But the ocean is warming as carbon emissions continue to rise, and scientists say the temperature of the seawater surrounding some hydrate caps is within a few degrees of dissolving them. That could be very, very bad. Carbon dioxide is the most common greenhouse gas, responsible for about three-quarters of emissions. It can remain in the atmosphere for thousands of years. Methane, the main component of natural gas, doesn't stay in the atmosphere as long as CO2—about 12 years—but it is at least 84 times more potent over two decades ... “If that hydrate becomes unstable, in fact melts, that enormous volume of CO2 will be released to the ocean and eventually the atmosphere,” says Lowell Stott, a paleoceanographer at the University of Southern California ... leading scientists warned this month that the world is now surpassing a number of climate tipping points, with ocean temperatures at record highs.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/12/greenhouse-gases-lurk-in-oceans-could-make-warming-far-worse/Toxic Sydney bushfire haze a 'public health emergency'
Australia's biggest city is facing a "public health emergency" over the bushfire smoke that has choked Sydney for weeks, leading doctors warned on Monday (Dec 16) after hospitals reported a dramatic spike in casualty department visits. Hundreds of climate change-fuelled bushfires have been raging across Australia for months, with a "mega-blaze" burning north of Sydney destroying several homes overnight and fires near Perth threatening towns ... Official data shows 2019 is on track to be one of the hottest and driest years on record in Australia, with the country set to experience a heatwave this week that forecasters predict will break temperature records.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/sydney-bushfire-haze-public-health-emergency-12186510Evaluating the Performance of Past Climate Model Projections
Here we analyze the performance of climate models published between 1970 and 2007 in projecting future global mean surface temperature (GMST) changes. Models are compared to observations based on both the change in GMST over time and the change in GMST over the change in external forcing [to account] for mismatches in model forcings ... We find that climate models published over the past five decades were skillful in predicting subsequent GMST changes, with most models examined showing warming consistent with observations.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2019GL085378California coastal waters rising in acidity at alarming rate, study finds
Waters off the California coast are acidifying twice as fast as the global average, scientists found, threatening major fisheries and sounding the alarm that the ocean can absorb only so much more of the world’s carbon emissions. A new study led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also made an unexpected connection between acidification and a climate cycle known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation ... Across the globe, coral reefs are dying, oysters and clams are struggling to build their shells, and fish seem to be losing their sense of smell and direction. Harmful algal blooms are getting more toxic — and occurring more frequently. Researchers are barely keeping up with these new issues while still trying to understand what’s happening under the sea. Scientists call it the other major, but less talked about, CO2 problem ... This study, published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience, came up with a creative way to confirm these greater rates of acidification. Researchers collected and analyzed a specific type of shell on the seafloor — and used these data to reconstruct a 100-year history of acidification along the West Coast.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-12-16/ocean-acidification-californiaGlacial melt creates Andes time bomb
Long-term water supplies to many millions of people are under threat ... The prospects for agriculture – a mainstay of the economies of countries in the region – will be imperiled as land dries up. There is another, potentially lethal consequence ... In 1941, large chunks of ice breaking off a glacier and falling into Lake Palcacocha, more than 4,500 metres up in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range in the Peruvian Andes, are said to have triggered what’s known as a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) ... more than 4,000 people were killed. Rising temperatures caused by climate change in mountain ranges around the world are leading to an ever-increasing number of GLOF incidents. Mountainous countries like Peru and Nepal, in the Himalayas, are particularly vulnerable.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/glacial-melt-creates-andes-time-bomb/World's oceans are losing oxygen at a dangerous, unprecedented rate as temperatures rise, study finds
The world's oceans are struggling to breathe, rapidly running out of oxygen at an unprecedented rate. Climate change is dangerously exacerbating the issue, scientists warned in a new study. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) released the largest report of its kind — combining the efforts of 67 scientists from 17 countries — at the global climate summit in Madrid on Saturday ... "With this report, the scale of damage climate change is wreaking upon the ocean comes into stark focus," Dr. Grethel Aguilar, IUCN acting director general, said in a statement. "As the warming ocean loses oxygen, the delicate balance of marine life is thrown into disarray."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/worlds-oceans-are-losing-oxygen-at-a-dangerous-unprecedented-rate-as-temperatures-rise/‘Any growth is more than we can afford’: Carbon dioxide pollution hits record high as planet warms
At the close of this decade, global carbon dioxide emissions are now projected to hit 37 billion tons in 2019. That sets another record for a third consecutive year and veers countries further off course from combating global warming ... natural gas use is surging across the world and fossil fuel emissions are still hitting records that are unsustainable for the planet ... To avoid the major consequences of climate change — like more severe flooding, heat waves and wildfires — global carbon dioxide emissions will need to decline every year ... The world is not on track to reach net zero emissions.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/15/natural-gas-surges-climate-change-after-carbon-emissions-record-in-2019.htmlThousands of dead Alaska seabirds are washing ashore, for a fifth year. Experts call that a climate 'red flag.
The dead or dying birds are emaciated, and the die-offs correlate with a heat-up of the marine environment - at times an extreme heat-up ... The latest die-off victims are short-tailed shearwaters, birds that spend their summers in the Bering and Chukchi seas after making ultra-long-distance migrations from the southern hemisphere ... At the same time, there is a dramatic warmup and ecological transformation in the region that is linked to long-term climate change. Water temperatures have been far warmer than normal.
https://www.dailyherald.com/news/20191214/thousands-of-dead-alaska-seabirds-are-washing-ashore-for-a-fifth-year-experts-call-that-a-climate-red-flagIndia: Water Scarcity the Real Problem
We must understand that if sewage water stops going into the rivers, most rivers will not flow. Take the Yamuna for example. Ninety percent of it is sewage water. If you stop all the sewage water, there will be no Yamuna ... Fundamentally, we have a misunderstanding that a river is a source of water. No. There is only one source of water—monsoon rain. Rivers, ponds, lakes and wells are destinations for the water ... In the last 100 years, there has been no significant dip in the volume of water that the monsoons are shedding on the subcontinent. But all the rivers on an average have depleted over 40 percent ... Indian rivers are forest-fed. Only 4 percent of India’s river water is glacier-fed, and that is only up in the north ... [India] has 17 percent of the world’s population but only about 3.5 percent of the world’s water resources. At any time, no population should use more than 15 to 25 percent of its groundwater resources. But today, over 80 percent of the water we consume and use is groundwater resources. Despite that, most cities are in fear of rain because they know floods will follow. They don’t know how to manage a flood. If it rained and if there was enough vegetation, there would be no flooding.
https://www.newindianexpress.com/lifestyle/spirituality/2019/dec/08/water-scarcity-the-real-problem-2072016.html <
see also http://www.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/countries_regions/Profile_segments/IND-WR_esp.stm
see also http://climate.org/the-future-of-water-in-india/Scientists feared unstoppable emissions from melting permafrost. They may have already started.
The Arctic is a ticking time bomb that’s close to going off.
“Thawing permafrost throughout the Arctic could be releasing an estimated 300-600 million tons of net carbon per year to the atmosphere,” NOAA writes in the report. That’s roughly the equivalent of Japan’s annual emissions. And those emissions are going to increase ... “The accelerating feedback from changing permafrost ecosystems to climate change may already be underway,” the report states ... For tens of thousands of years, permafrost has kept 1,460 to 1,600 gigatons (a gigaton is a billion metric tons) of organic matter trapped in the soil. That’s more than double the amount of carbon currently in the atmosphere ... Though the permafrost has been thawing in recent years, the carbon it releases is usually taken up by plant life growing in the summer, so the Arctic has not been a contributor to climate change — until now.
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/12/12/21011445/permafrost-melting-arctic-report-card-noaaIt’s a Vast, Invisible Climate Menace. We Made It Visible.
Immense amounts of methane are escaping from oil and gas sites nationwide, worsening global warming, even as the Trump administration weakens restrictions on offenders. To the naked eye, there is nothing out of the ordinary at the DCP Pegasus gas processing plant in West Texas, one of the thousands of installations in the vast Permian Basin that have transformed America into the largest oil and gas producer in the world. But a highly specialized camera sees what the human eye cannot: a major release of methane, the main component of natural gas and a potent greenhouse gas that is helping to warm the planet at an alarming rate ... if methane is not burned off when released, it can warm the planet more than 80 times as much as carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/12/climate/texas-methane-super-emitters.htmlAustralia's bushfires have emitted 250m tonnes of CO2, almost half of country's annual emissions
Bushfires in New South Wales and Queensland have emitted a massive pulse of CO2 into the atmosphere since August that is equivalent to almost half of Australia’s annual greenhouse gas emissions, Guardian Australia can reveal. Analysis by Nasa shows the NSW fires have emitted about 195m tonnes of CO2 since 1 August, with Queensland’s fires adding a further 55m tonnes over the same period. In 2018, Australia’s entire greenhouse gas footprint was 532m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent ... scientists have expressed doubt that forests already under drought stress would be able to reabsorb all the emissions back into soils and branches, and said the natural carbon “sinks” of forests could be compromised.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/13/australias-bushfires-have-emitted-250m-tonnes-of-co2-almost-half-of-countrys-annual-emissionsNewly identified jet-stream pattern could imperil global food supplies, says study
The study appears this week in the journal Nature Climate Change. "We found a 20-fold increase in the risk of simultaneous heat waves in major crop-producing regions when these global-scale wind patterns are in place," said lead author Kai Kornhuber, a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University's Earth Institute. "Until now, this was an underexplored vulnerability in the food system. During these events there actually is a global structure in the otherwise quite chaotic circulation. The bell can ring in multiple regions at once." Kornhuber warned that the heat waves will almost certainly become worse in coming decades, as the world continues to warm.
https://phys.org/news/2019-12-large-atmospheric-jet-stream-global.html2019 Arctic Report Card: Near-Record Warmth With Near-Record Sea Ice Losses
The Arctic region took a beating in 2019, with near-record-warm air and ocean temperatures resulting in widespread melting of the Greenland ice sheet, low sea-ice extents and shifts in the distribution of commercially valuable marine species, according to NOAA’s 14th-annual Arctic Report Card released Tuesday at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting in San Francisco. The report also found that as the Arctic warms, permafrost regions might already be a net source of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, a feedback that could exacerbate overall global warming.
https://weather.com/news/climate/news/2019-12-10-arctic-report-card-near-record-warmth-losses-in-sea-ice-bering-seaHow Africa will be affected by climate change
The African continent will be hardest hit by climate change. There are four key reasons for this: First, African society is very closely coupled with the climate system; hundreds of millions of people depend on rainfall to grow their food. Second, the African climate system is controlled by an extremely complex mix of large-scale weather systems, many from distant parts of the planet and, in comparison with almost all other inhabited regions, is vastly understudied. It is therefore capable of all sorts of surprises. Third, the degree of expected climate change is large. The two most extensive land-based end-of-century projected decreases in rainfall anywhere on the planet occur over Africa; one over North Africa and the other over southern Africa. Finally, the capacity for adaptation to climate change is low; poverty equates to reduced choice at the individual level while governance generally fails to prioritise and act on climate change.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-50726701For Southern Africa, Climate Change Is Real As Prolonged Droughts Are Creating Food Shortages
The United Nations is reporting that prolonged droughts there and across the continent have led to food shortages, which will impact 45 million people. Farming is prone to climate change as both livestock and crops are reactive to changes in temperatures and precipitation. And hunger is thriving in those countries exposed to climate extremes. In southern Africa, temperatures are rising at twice the global average. Low-lying regions are particularly susceptible, which is notable because Africa’s CO2 levels are comparatively small. “We’ve had the worst drought in 35 years in central and western areas during the growing season,” said Margaret Malu, for the World Food Programme (WFP) in Africa ... “With the region so prone to shocks and afflicted by high rates of chronic hunger, inequality and structural poverty, climate change is an existential emergency which must be tackled with the utmost urgency”, said Robson Mutandi, IFAD Director for the Southern Africa Hub.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2019/11/07/for-southern-africa-climate-change-is-real-as-prolonged-droughts-are-creating-food-shortages/Our climate is like reckless banking before the crash – it’s time to talk about near-term collapse
The science and the warnings focus on curtailing the emission of heat-absorbing gases into the atmosphere ... these warnings are not connected with complex human systems, such as food, finance and logistics, leaving them to evolve as if climate change didn’t exist. Terms such as “tipping points” are on their own technical, distant and abstract, while humans are wired to prioritise the short-term. This failure to connect the dots means humanity has rapidly entered uncharted territory ... [Our] just-in-time economy has been designed around assumptions of a stable world, in which an action always leads to a simple and predictable outcome. But it now sits on top of a hugely unstable and complex platform – our physical world, increasingly disrupted by climate change ... food shocks are likely to get much worse. The risk of multi-breadbasket failure is increasing.
https://theconversation.com/our-climate-is-like-reckless-banking-before-the-crash-its-time-to-talk-about-near-term-collapse-128374Greenland's ice sheet melting seven times faster than in 1990s
Ice is being lost from Greenland seven times faster than it was in the 1990s, and the scale and speed of ice loss is much higher than was predicted in the comprehensive studies of global climate science by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ... Greenland has lost 3.8 trillion tonnes of ice since 1992, and the rate of ice loss has risen from 33 billion tonnes a year in the 1990s to 254 billion tonnes a year in the past decade ... The scale and speed of the ice loss surprised the team of 96 polar scientists behind the findings, published on Tuesday in the journal Nature. The Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise comprised 26 separate surveys of Greenland from 1992 to 2018, with data from 11 different satellites and comparisons of volume, flow and gravity compiled by experts from the UK, NASA in the US, and the European Space Agency.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/10/greenland-ice-sheet-melting-seven-times-faster-than-in-1990sTaku Glacier, once the Juneau Icefield’s last advancing glacier, is now in retreat
A soon-to-be-published research paper will show how climate change is responsible for the glacier’s recent about-face into retreat. But scientists, Juneau-area hunters and residents have seen it coming for decades ... what scientists like Scott McGee could see is that the icefield was already thinning because of global warming. “And if the glaciers up here are getting thinner and there’s more melting down below, if it continues for how many years, eventually the glaciers will disappear,” McGee said. “It’d take a long time, granted, because the Taku (Glacier) is so thick.” Global warming was talked about in kind of hushed tones back then. And I really couldn’t get my head wrapped around how glaciers could disappear. But fast-forward 20 years, and it’s happening. After advancing for most of the last century, the Taku Glacier is now retreating.
https://www.alaskapublic.org/2019/12/06/taku-glacier-once-the-juneau-icefields-last-advancing-glacier-is-now-in-retreat/Last remaining glaciers in the Pacific will soon melt away
The glaciers in Papua, Indonesia, are "the canaries in the coal mine" for other mountaintop glaciers around the world, said Lonnie Thompson, one of the senior authors of the study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "These will be the first to disappear; the others will certainly follow," said Thompson, distinguished university professor in the School of Earth Sciences and senior research scientist at the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center at The Ohio State University. The study suggests that the glacier will disappear in the next 10 years, most likely during the next strong El Niño. Thompson said it is likely that other tropical glaciers, such as those on Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and Quelccaya in Peru, will follow.
https://phys.org/news/2019-12-glaciers-pacific.htmlThe world's supply of fresh water is in trouble as mountain ice vanishes
The snow and icy glaciers that drape the high mountains play a crucial role for over 1.6 billion people—over 20 percent of Earth’s human population today ... The high-mountain “water towers” of the planet act like giant storage tanks ... For decades scientists have recognized that climate change will affect the amount of water stored in the high mountain water towers and the paths it takes as it flows out. The high mountains are warming faster than the world’s average ... A growing and developing population worldwide is likely to result in an exponential increase in water demand [plus] political tension over water rights in many parts of the world, make water towers vulnerable. The Indus is the world’s most vulnerable water tower, the authors say, along with the Amu Darya, the Ganges, the Tarim, and the Syr Darya. South American water towers are also extraordinarily fragile. And North America and Europe are not exempt from pressure.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/12/water-towers-high-mountains-are-in-trouble-perpetual/With Sea Level Rise, We've Already Hurtled Past a Point of No Return
Research on past climates suggests we've already hurtled past one significant point of no return ... "We’ve already baked in 20 meters of sea level rise,” says James White, a University of Colorado scientist who has studied ancient climates to gain insights about the future ... the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere hit a high of about 411 parts per million this year, up from about 280 in preindustrial times. And, crucially, the rate of CO2's increase has been accelerating over the past decade, not slowing ... Thanks in large measure to that relatively high level of CO2 in the atmosphere, temperatures in the mid-Pliocene were about 2 degrees Celsius warmer than they are today [and] studies suggest that sea level was 10 to 35 meters, or 30 to 115 feet, higher than today ... Twenty meters is about in the middle of this range.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/with-sea-level-rise-weve-already-hurtled-past-a-point-of-no-returnDisappearing frontier: Alaska's glaciers retreating at record pace
Alaska will soon close a year that is shaping up as its hottest on record, with glaciers in the "Frontier State" melting at record or near-record levels, pouring waters into rising global seas, scientists said after taking fall measurements. Lemon Creek Glacier in Juneau, where records go back to the 1940s, had its second consecutive year of record mass loss, with 3 meters erased from the surface, U.S. Geological Survey glaciologist Louis Sass told Reuters. Melt went all the way up to the summit, said Sass ... Drastic melting was also reported at Kenai Fjords National Park, which former President Barack Obama once visited to call attention to climate change. There, Bear Glacier, a popular tourist spot, retreated by nearly a kilometer in just 11 months, according to August measurements by the National Park Service. "It's almost like you popped it and it started to deflate," said Nate Lewis, a Seward-based wilderness guide.
http://news.trust.org/item/20191206112950-npe5t‘A crisis situation’: Extinctions loom as forests are erased in Mozambique
Nallume’s forest, home to the chameleon and other wildlife — including more species Bayliss suspects are new to science — is rapidly disappearing as residents from nearby communities chop down its trees for lumber and burn it for food. Bayliss estimates that at its current pace of deforestation, it will be gone in 10 to 20 years. And it’s not the only one. Dotted throughout the northern half of the country, most of Mozambique’s mountaintop forests are rapidly vanishing as farmers, hunters and loggers hack away their trees for food and money. That’s why Bayliss, Muianga and Platts are here. They are surveying the wildlife of Mount Nallume before it’s too late and the forest and its animals are gone forever.
https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/a-crisis-situation-extinctions-loom-as-forests-are-erased-in-mozambique/Oceans losing oxygen at unprecedented rate, experts warn
Oxygen in the oceans is being lost at an unprecedented rate, with “dead zones” proliferating and hundreds more areas showing oxygen dangerously depleted, as a result of the climate emergency and intensive farming, experts have warned ... Low oxygen levels are also associated with global heating, because the warmer water holds less oxygen and the heating causes stratification, so there is less of the vital mixing of oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor layers.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/07/oceans-losing-oxygen-at-unprecedented-rate-experts-warnAmerica's Freshwater Mussels Are Going Extinct--Here's Why That Sucks
North America’s freshwater mussels now need some conservation muscle. Pretty much wherever they’re found, the shelled bivalves are disappearing. Many of the 300-plus mussel species in the United States have already been added to the endangered species list; many more are waiting for similar protection ... In part that’s because the very water the mussels filter through their bodies has also often become dangerous to them. “They’re the canary in the coal mine for our freshwater resources—the first thing to start disappearing when you have water-quality issues.”
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/americas-freshwater-mussels-are-going-extinct-heres-why-that-sucks/Fish all gone! Gulf of Alaska fishery to close for the first time ever [cod, salmon, more]
[COD] “We’re on the knife’s edge of this over-fished status,” North Pacific Fisheries Management Council member Nicole Kimball said ... Warming ocean temperatures linked to climate change are wreaking havoc on a number of Alaska’s fisheries ... assessment this fall put Gulf cod populations at a historic low, with “next to no” new eggs ... [SALMON] Alaskan pink salmon fisheries season was marked by a low flow [creating] unprecedented pre-spawning die-offs and unusually late migration into the streams. According to the Prince William Sound Science Center, [the salmon] finally started, what was for many, an ill-fated journey into the streams after some rain in early September. The rain stopped and the rivers dried up again. Soon thousands of fish were restricted to tide pools without enough water to return to the bays. They all suffocated ... [MORE] thousands of short-tailed shearwaters birds migrating from Alaska were washing up dead on Sydney's iconic beaches [due to] incredible fish shortages in the Pacific Ocean ... The birds were migrating back to southern Australia to breed after spending the summer in Alaska [and] need to be at full strength to make the 14,000km trip over the Pacific but the krill and other fish they feed on have apparently dwindled due to sea temperatures rising.
https://www.thebigwobble.org/2019/12/fish-all-gone-gulf-of-alaska-fishery-to.htmlClimate change triggers widespread Pakistan migration
Pakistan recently has been placed fifth on the list of countries vulnerable to climate change by the Global Climate Risk Index for 2020 ... climate migration is taking place in all four provinces -- Sindh, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhaw (KP), and Balochistan -- and the northern Gilgit-Baltistan region. “Almost 50% of Pakistan’s population is increasingly becoming vulnerable to climate change, which may trigger another wave of mass migration.”
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/environment/climate-change-triggers-widespread-pakistan-migration/1667231As Climate Change Worsens, A Cascade of Tipping Points Looms
Some of the most alarming science surrounding climate change is the discovery that it may not happen incrementally — as a steadily rising line on a graph — but in a series of lurches as various “tipping points” are passed. And now comes a new concern: These tipping points can form a cascade, with each one triggering others, creating an irreversible shift to a hotter world. A new study suggests that changes to ocean circulation could be the driver of such a cascade. A group of researchers, led by Tim Lenton at Exeter University, England, first warned in a landmark paper 11 years ago about the risk of climate tipping points. Back then, they thought the dangers would only arise when global warming exceeded 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. But last week, Lenton and six co-authors argued in the journal Nature that the risks are now much more likely and much more imminent. Some tipping points, they said, may already have been breached at the current 1 degree C of warming. The new warning is much starker than the forecasts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which critics say has until now played down the risks of exceeding climate tipping points, in part because they are difficult to quantify.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/as-climate-changes-worsens-a-cascade-of-tipping-points-loomsFour Ways the Climate Crisis Could Trigger a 2008-Style Economic Crash
Any day now, a catastrophic event caused by climate change could detonate a financial bomb that incinerates powerful companies, sends fireballs through our financial system, blasts the U.S. economy, and devastates millions of Americans ... Wall Street's denial of climate dangers is setting us up for a 2008-style financial explosion where "risk spreads in a way that cannot be contained or isolated." Here are some of the ways that he can see this bomb being set off. 1. A devastating Florida hurricane bankrupts a major insurer; 2. Insurers flee California wildfire zones and mortgages crater; 3. Massive declines in oil demand make investors panic; 4. The housing market goes literally and figuratively underwater
https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/ne8amk/four-ways-the-climate-crisis-could-trigger-a-2008-style-economic-crashFlorida Keys Deliver a Hard Message: As Seas Rise, Some Places Can’t Be Saved
Officials in the Florida Keys announced what many coastal governments nationwide have long feared, but few have been willing to admit: As seas rise and flooding gets worse, not everyone can be saved. And in some places, it doesn’t even make sense to try. On Wednesday morning, Rhonda Haag, the county’s sustainability director, released the first results of the county’s yearslong effort to calculate how high its 300 miles of roads must be elevated to stay dry, and at what cost. Those costs were far higher than her team expected — and those numbers, she said, show that some places can’t be protected ... Administrators and elected officials are going to have to start to rely on a “word nobody likes to use,” Mr. Gastesi said, “and that’s ‘retreat.’”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/climate/florida-keys-climate-change.htmlAmid rising seas, East Coast on pace for record-breaking tides: 'The new normal'
The East Coast is on pace to see record-breaking tides this year, and tides along the Gulf Coast also are trending higher, said William Sweet, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration oceanographer ... as temperatures warm around the world, sea levels are rising as a result of the expansion of warming ocean water and the melting of land-based glaciers – turning king tides into record-breaking tides and fulfilling scientists’ predictions on the effects of warming global temperatures ... slowing of the Gulf Stream current, also related to climate warming, may be a key factor combining with sea-level rise to push water levels higher ... NOAA’s Sweet would like to see the term “king tide” updated for what he sees as a new reality. After all, king tides have always been around, but communities weren’t flooding because of them 20 years ago. “We might as well call it what it is,” he said. “It’s sea-level rise flooding ... That’s our future.”
https://usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/11/26/king-tides-2019-flooding-possible-florida-south-carolina-georgia/4306001002/Prospects look bleak for Canadian mountains, Arctic and coasts, says IPCC
The effects of human-caused climate change will be dramatic and severe in mountain and Arctic regions of Canada ... The IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere says climate change will cause up to 80 per cent loss of glaciers, disruptions of recreational and cultural activities in mountain regions and heightened risk of landslides and other hazards, water shortages and unprecedented sea-level rise ... commitments made so far on greenhouse gas reductions still have the world on a path to warm by three to four degrees Celsius in the lives of children who are already born. “Emissions have, in other words, continued unchecked on a business-as-usual scenario.”
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/12/03/news/prospects-look-bleak-canadian-mountains-arctic-and-coasts-says-ipccEl Nino Swings More Violently in the Industrial Age, Hard Evidence Says
El Ninos have been very intense in our times, which stands to worsen storms, drought, and coral bleaching in El Nino years. A new study has found compelling evidence in the Pacific Ocean that the stronger El Ninos are part of a climate pattern that is new, strange and appears unique to the industrial age. This is the first known time that enough physical evidence spanning millennia has come together to allow researchers to say that definitively. The data show demonstrably that El Ninos, La Ninas, and the climate phenomenon that drives them have been swinging more broadly in the era of human-induced climate change. “What we’re seeing in the last 50 years is outside any natural variability. It leaps off the baseline.”
https://rh.gatech.edu/news/629322/el-nino-swings-more-violently-industrial-age-hard-evidence-saysThere's Literally a Million Times More Microplastic [Pieces] in Our Oceans Than We Realized
The amount of microplastic in our ocean—that is, pieces of plastic measuring smaller than 5 millimeters—is a million times greater than previously estimated, according to new research published in the science journal Limnology and Oceanography Letters. This means the concentrations of micro-sized bits of plastic inundating our oceans isn’t two or three times more than scientists had previously estimated—but more like five to seven times greater, according to the authors of the paper, led by Jennifer Brandon from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/theres-literally-a-million-times-more-microplastic-in-o-1840175488Climate Impacts From a Removal of Anthropogenic Aerosol Emissions
Limiting global warming to 1.5 or 2.0°C requires strong mitigation of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Concurrently, emissions of anthropogenic aerosols will decline, due to coemission with GHG, and measures to improve air quality ... Here we show the climate impacts from removing present‐day anthropogenic aerosol emissions ... induces a global mean surface heating of 0.5–1.1°C ... The northern hemisphere is found to be more sensitive to aerosol removal than greenhouse gas warming, because of where the aerosols are emitted today.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2017GL076079
see also http://www.climatecodered.org/2018/02/quantifying-our-faustian-bargain-with.htmCooling role of particulate matter on warming Earth stronger than previously thought
The relationship between aerosols (particulate matter) and their cooling effect on the Earth due to the formation of clouds is more than twice as strong as was previously thought. As the amounts of aerosols decrease, climate models that predict a faster warming of the Earth are more probable. These are the conclusions of researcher Otto Hasekamp from SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, who published the results in Nature Communications.
https://phys.org/news/2019-12-cooling-role-particulate-earth-stronger.htmlRevealed: 'monumental' NSW bushfires have burnt 20% of Blue Mountains world heritage area
More than 10% of the area covered by New South Wales national parks has been burned in this season’s bushfires, including 20% of the Blue Mountains world heritage area ... amount of bushland destroyed within NSW national parks dwarfs that of the entire previous fire season, when 80,000 hectares were lost. Ten times that amount has burnt since July.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/03/revealed-monumental-nsw-bushfires-have-burnt-20-of-blue-mountains-world-heritage-areaCreeping silent crisis’ seen menacing world’s crops
[W]ater shortages could jeopardise up to 40% of all irrigated crops by 2040, a US think tank said on Monday. Erratic rainfall caused by climate change also threatens the water supply for a third of crops that rely on monsoon ... Scientists say water supplies are threatened by many factors, including climate change and mismanagement, but farming is one of the largest factors, using 70% of freshwater. On Monday, the think tank launched an online tool called Aqueduct Food, which maps water risks for more than 40 crops, including banana, coffee, soybean and cotton. Among irrigated crops, it found nearly 67% of wheat, 64% of maize and 19% of rice could be in areas with extremely high water stress by 2040.
https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/international/creeping-silent-crisis-seen-menacing-worlds-crops/In nations rich and poor, climate-related disasters on the uptick
Japan, the Philippines and Germany top a list of countries worst hit by climate-enhanced extreme weather last year, with Madagascar and India close behind, researchers said Wednesday. Flood-inducing rains, two deadly heatwaves, and the worst typhoon to hit Japan in a quarter century—all in 2018—left hundreds dead, thousands homeless and more than $35 billion (31.5 billion euros) in damage nationwide, according to a report from environmental thinktank Germanwatch. Category 5 Typhoon Manghut—the most powerful tropical storm of the year—ripped through northern Philippines in September, displacing a quarter of a million people and unleashing lethal landslides, according to the group's updated Global Climate Risk Index. In Germany, meanwhile, a sustained summer heatwave and drought along with average temperatures nearly 3C above normal over a four-month stretch resulted in 1,250 premature deaths and losses of $5 billion, mostly in agriculture. 2018's top weather disasters showed that even the world's most advanced and resilient economies can find themselves at the mercy of meteorological events amplified by global warming.
https://phys.org/news/2019-12-nations-rich-poor-climate-related-disasters.htmlHottest November on record: NIWA climate scientists
New Zealand has just experienced its hottest November on record, according to NIWA climate scientists. Data from NIWA’s Seven-Station Series, which began in 1909, shows that last month’s temperature was 1.55C above the 30-year average ... extreme high temperatures mark the first time on record that 30°C has been exceeded in Taupo and Rotorua in November.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC1912/S00009/hottest-november-on-record-niwa-climate-scientists.htmA vast heat wave is endangering sea life in the Pacific Ocean. Is this the wave of the future?
A vast region of unusually warm water has formed in the northeastern Pacific Ocean, and scientists are worried that it could devastate sea life in the area ... the marine heat wave rivals a similar one that arose in 2014 and persisted for two years. That heat wave, known simply as “the blob,” occupied roughly the same region of the Pacific and became known for triggering widespread die-offs of marine animals including sea birds and California sea lions ... likely that global warming will exacerbate heat waves in the future, given the excessive amounts of heat that oceans have absorbed in recent years.
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/vast-heat-wave-endangering-sea-life-pacific-ocean-wave-future-ncna1067456Global Warming Prediction Sounds Alarm for Climate Fight
The world’s average temperature is rising faster than previously thought, headed for a gain that may be triple the goal set by almost 200 countries. The findings by the World Meteorologic Organization suggest an increase of 3 degrees to 5 degrees Celsius (5.4 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century. It’s another indication of how far off track the planet is in meeting its target to contain global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius since the dawn of the industrial revolution. “If we wanted to reach a 1.5 degree increase we would need to bend emissions and at the moment countries haven’t been following on their Paris pledges,” WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas told reporters in Madrid.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-03/global-temperature-headed-toward-5-degree-increase-wmo-saysDecember Marked By Record Temperatures In Iceland
December temperature records were broken in the south, Morgunblaðið reports. There, the temperature journeyed up to 19.7º C in Kvísker í Öræfum, located in the Skaftafell National Park area, breaking the previous record of 18.4º C ... “There have been several times the country has hit 20º C in November, but never in December,” said meteorologist Einar Sveinbjörnsson.
https://grapevine.is/news/2019/12/03/december-marked-by-record-temperatures-in-iceland/Flooding Far From Over, As Floods May Shutter Some Farms Forever
As landowners along the Missouri River in states like Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri face continued flooding, a harsh reality is setting in: it could take years for levees to be fixed, and some farmland may be forced out of production forever. The flooding of 2019 is far from over for farmers along the Missouri River – water continues to suffocate farmland ... “more than 240 days that the local river gauge has been at flood stage ... haven’t had a break in the inflow of water to work on the levee” ... “chances are high flooding will last into the spring and even summer next year ... entire basin is seeing soil that’s saturated and now the soil is freezing. When it rains and snows, it’s not going to soak into the soil. It's all going to run to the river and in the lower basin the same situation” ... The scars of 2019 could last for generations. Waters says some flooded farmland is too far damaged and may be forced out of production forever.
https://www.agprofessional.com/article/flooding-far-over-floods-may-shutter-some-farms-foreverDrones Reveal The Greenland Ice Sheet Fracturing in Real Time
Scientists said Monday they had used a drone to observe the rapid fracturing and draining of a lake on the Greenland ice sheet, a phenomenon that may become more frequent as a result of climate change ... Many of the lakes drain in just a few hours, creating vast openings at the base of the ice, up to a kilometre deep. Meltwater from surface streams continues to flow down them for the rest of the melt season, creating some of the world's largest waterfalls ... The water that fell under the ice served as a lubricant. Even more surprising was that this bed of water lifted the glacier's height by 55 centimetres (22 inches), the team said. "That's a kilometre of ice lifted up half a meter, so you can imagine the kind of pressures that were involved," said Chudley, a doctoral student at Cambridge.
https://www.sciencealert.com/drones-reveal-the-greenland-ice-sheet-fracturing-in-real-timeGlobal greenhouse gas emissions will hit yet another record high this year, experts project
The world has lost another year in the quest to finally start reducing its carbon emissions, which scientists say is crucial to avoid the steadily worsening impacts of climate change. Instead of beginning a long-awaited decline, global greenhouse gas emissions are projected to [reach] another record high, according to a new analysis published Tuesday. Total carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and industry totaled 36.8 billion tons, according to an estimate from the Global Carbon Project, an academic consortium that produces the figures annually.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/12/03/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-will-hit-yet-another-record-high-this-year-experts-project/Climate change: Study underpins key idea in Antarctic ice loss
It's long been suspected but scientists can now show conclusively that thinning in the ring of floating ice around Antarctica is driving mass loss from the interior of the continent. A new study finds the diminishing thickness of ice shelves is matched almost exactly by an acceleration in the glaciers feeding in behind them ... "The response is essentially instantaneous," said Prof Hilmar Gudmundsson from Northumbria University, UK. "If you thin the ice shelves today, the increase in flow of the ice upstream will increase today - not tomorrow, not in 10 or 100 years from now; it will happen immediately."
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50625396
reporting on a study at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019GL085027UNEP: 1.5C climate target ‘slipping out of reach’
Unless the world begins to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions the 1.5C goal of the Paris Agreement “will slip out of reach,” according to the latest UN Environment Programme (UNEP) emissions gap report. The annual report, now in its 10th year, provides a “bleak” assessment of the ever-growing gap between actual emission reduction commitments by countries and those necessary to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement: to limit warming to “well-below 2C above preindustrial levels” and pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C ... report suggests that there is no sign of GHG emissions peaking in the next few years.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/unep-1-5c-climate-target-slipping-out-of-reachThe Limits of Clean Energy
The transition to renewables is going to require a dramatic increase in the extraction of metals and rare-earth minerals, with real ecological and social costs ... In 2017, the World Bank released a little-noticed report that ... models the increase in material extraction that would be required to build enough solar and wind utilities to produce an annual output of about 7 terawatts of electricity by 2050. That’s enough to power roughly half of the global economy. By doubling the World Bank figures, we can estimate what it will take to get all the way to zero emissions—and the results are staggering: 34 million metric tons of copper, 40 million tons of lead, 50 million tons of zinc, 162 million tons of aluminum, and no less than 4.8 billion tons of iron ... a massive increase over existing levels of extraction ... will exacerbate an already existing crisis of overextraction. Mining has become one of the biggest single drivers of deforestation, ecosystem collapse, and biodiversity loss around the world. Ecologists estimate that even at present rates of global material use, we are overshooting sustainable levels by 82 percent.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/09/06/the-path-to-clean-energy-will-be-very-dirty-climate-change-renewables/Warming at the poles will soon be felt globally in rising seas, extreme weather
As Earth trudges steadily toward a dangerously warm future, a new report on the outlook for the polar regions says the Arctic is already there ... warming far more quickly than anywhere else on the planet. Temperatures climbed nearly 1C in the past decade alone ... unprecedented changes, including drastic ice losses on land and sea, galloping permafrost thaw, raging wildfires, unseasonal storms, earlier springs, and more ... record July heat melted billions of tons of ice off the Greenland ice sheet. Wildfires blazed across millions of acres from Alaska to Siberia ... Summer sea ice, which has been shrinking more than 10 percent a decade over the past 40 years, is projected to essentially disappear within 20 to 25 years ... latest work suggests that Arctic sea ice is now shrinking faster than most current climate models project.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/12/arctic/
see also https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-12/uoc--oft112219.phpClimate models have accurately predicted global heating, study finds
The findings confirm that since as early as 1970, climate scientists have had a solid fundamental understanding of the Earth’s climate system and the ability to project how it will respond to continued increases in the greenhouse effect. Since climate models have accurately anticipated global temperature changes so far, we can expect projections of future warming to be reliable as well. The research examines the accuracy of 17 models published over the past five decades.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/04/climate-models-have-accurately-predicted-global-heating-study-finds
see also https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-models-got-it-right-on-global-warming/
reporting on a study at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019GL085378Amazon fires intensify Andes glacier melt
Smoke from burning forests in the Amazon can intensify glacier melt, researchers say, fuelling concern about a water crisis in South America. The team found evidence that snow and ice was being "darkened", accelerating the melt rate, threatening supplies. Melting tropical glaciers provide water for millions of people in the region. Scientists modelled the movement and effect of smoke particles from fires on Andean glaciers, and checked their conclusions against satellite images. And they say the impact will be felt across the continent ... Dr de Magalhães Neto said: "Once deposited on the glacier, the [black carbon darkens] the snow/ice surface, which reduces its ability to reflect solar radiation - or sunlight." That darkened surface then absorbs more of the sun's energy, which amplifies melting.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50573623Rainfall pattern changing across globe, India not left out
The rainfall pattern across the globe is changing due to rapid warming of the Indo-Pacific Ocean and the changes have brought a decline in rainfall pattern in north India too, a study said on Wednesday. In the study, led by Roxy Mathew Koll of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, and published in the journal Nature, the researchers report a twofold expansion of the Indo-Pacific warm pool -- the largest expanse of the warmest ocean temperatures on the earth. They find that the expansion of this warm pool has altered the most dominant mode of weather fluctuation originating in the tropics, known as the Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO). The changes in the MJO behaviour have increased the rainfall over northern Australia, west Pacific, the Amazon basin, southwest Africa and southeast Asia (Indonesia, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea). At the same time these changes have brought a decline in rainfall over central Pacific, along the west and east coast of the US (eg, California), north India, east Africa, and the Yangtze basin in China. Over north India, the impact is reduction of rainfall during the winter-spring season (November-April).
https://english.mathrubhumi.com/technology/science/rainfall-pattern-changing-across-globe-india-not-left-out-1.4320609Heat stress is causing desert bird populations to collapse
As the Mojave Desert in California and Nevada becomes hotter and drier, birds need more water to stay cool. Species that can’t get enough water are rapidly declining in this iconic desert ecosystem, ecologists reported recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Some birds may die solely from overheating, but a more serious problem facing most species is how much time they must spend trying to cool down. This decreases their time spent breeding, leading to smaller population sizes. Heat-stressed individuals “may survive, but ultimately the population is doomed,” said Barry Sinervo, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and co-author of the paper. The study was led by postdoctoral researcher Eric Riddell of the University of California, Berkeley.
https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/heat-stress-is-causing-desert-bird-populations-to-collapse/Farmers and animals struggle in drought-hit Botswana
Around 38,000 livestock depend on the waters of Lake Ngami in northern Botswana, but the animals—like the lake itself—have been stricken by a crippling drought ... Southern Africa has been hard hit by intensifying extreme weather conditions such as drought and floods, leaving millions in need of food aid. Zambia is in the throes of a drought which has affected the 2018/19 farming season. Around 2.5 million people are facing food shortages, according to official figures. In Zimbabwe, nearly a third of the 16 million population are in need of aid and at least half of these face acute hunger.
https://phys.org/news/2019-08-farmers-animals-struggle-drought-hit-botswana.htmlAfter two years of rain in a single day, Djibouti is submerged
Flash flooding has hit the small but strategic East African nation of Djibouti, where the government and the United Nations say the equivalent of two years' rain has fallen in a single day. Several regional countries including Kenya are struggling after heavy rains, with more to come. A joint Djibouti-UN statement on Thursday said up to a 250,000 people have been affected in recent days. With heavy rains forecast through the end of the month that number could grow. Djibouti has been called one of the world's most vulnerable non-island nations in the face of climate change as sea levels rise.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/africa/after-two-years-of-rain-in-a-single-day-djibouti-is-submerged-20191129-p53faj.htmlNine climate tipping points now 'active,' warn scientists
More than half of the climate tipping points identified a decade ago are now "active", a group of leading scientists have warned. This threatens the loss of the Amazon rainforest and the great ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland, which are currently undergoing measurable and unprecedented changes much earlier than expected. This "cascade" of changes sparked by global warming could threaten the existence of human civilisations. Evidence is mounting that these events are more likely and more interconnected than was previously thought, leading to a possible domino effect.
https://phys.org/news/2019-11-climate-scientists.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03595-010 things to know about the Emissions Gap 2019
The Emissions Gap could also be called the “Commitment Gap”. It measures the gap between what we need to do and what we are actually doing to tackle climate change ... In 10 years of producing the emissions gap report, the gap between what we should be doing and what we actually are is as wide as ever. On the brink of 2020, we now need to reduce emissions by 7.6 per cent every year from 2020 to 2030 ... If we do nothing beyond our current, inadequate commitments to halt climate change, temperatures can be expected to rise 3.2°C above pre-industrial levels, with devastating effect.
https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/10-things-know-about-emissions-gap-2019World on course for more than 3 degree spike, even if climate commitments are met
Even if countries meet commitments made under the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world is heading for a 3.2 degrees Celsius global temperature rise over pre-industrial levels, leading to even wider-ranging and more destructive climate impacts, warns a report from the UN Environment Programme, released on Tuesday. The annual Emissions Gap Report, which compares where greenhouse gas emissions are heading, versus where they need to be, shows that emissions need to fall by 7.6 per cent each year over the next decade, if the world is to get back on track towards the goal of limiting temperature rises to close to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/11/1052171Carbon dioxide levels reach highest recorded levels in human history
The last time the Earth had comparable concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was approximately 3 million years ago, when the temperature was approximately 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer and sea levels were up to 20 meters (65 feet) higher. "There is no sign of a slowdown, let alone a decline, in greenhouse gases concentration in the atmosphere despite all the commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change," said Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization.
https://www.cnet.com/news/carbon-dioxide-levels-reach-highest-recorded-levels-in-human-historyOnce a clean energy leader, China is now reviving coal
The world’s biggest carbon emitter is doubling down on coal, a new report finds, and global investment in clean energy is faltering.
The climate targets laid out in the Paris Climate Agreement are looking increasingly lofty. Coal use is rising in China and other developing countries in Asia, and investments in clean and renewable energy sources are declining, the MIT Technology Review reports. The prodigious economic growth of China, India and other emerging markets is predicted to continue for decades. If these surging economies continue to run on fossil fuels, the predicted carbon dioxide emissions place the world on a path toward climate disaster. China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is increasing the electricity it generates by burning coal, according to a new report. The country added nearly 43 gigawatts from coal power plants from Jan. 2018 to June 2019. The rest of the world’s use of coal declined by 8 gigawatts in the same period. Even more troubling, China is working on bringing another 150 gigawatts-worth of coal plants online — about the same amount of electricity produced by coal plants in the entire European Union.
https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/climate-change/471964-once-a-clean-energy-leader-china-is-nowThe New Climate Math: The Numbers Keep Getting More Frightening
Scientists keep raising ever-louder alarms about the urgency of tackling climate change, but the world’s governments aren’t listening ... The new report, which emerged last week from the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), is one of the most important pieces of research in years. What it means is, the world is producing endlessly more coal and oil and gas than safety allows ... The SEI report is the most damning documentation of our plight yet, and it powerfully makes the case that we should be working at least as hard to cap supply as to depress demand ... the numbers, and the attitudes of leaders like Trudeau, not to mention Trump, not to mention Putin, are a kind of cryptic suicide note for the planet, one written in numerals and not letters. They are an admission that we simply can’t rein ourselves in — an immoral refusal to heed physics and chemistry ... we have to actually do the climate math. It’s not optional.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/the-new-climate-math-the-numbers-keep-getting-more-frighteningSpain could lose its biggest glacier in just 20 years
Such is the rate of global warming that scientists predict that the Lost Mountain glacier in northern Spain will disappear altogether within twenty years. For the scientists at the Pyrenean Institute of Ecology who are monitoring it, Monte Perdido's glacier is shrinking scarily fast ... 90 percent of the glaciers in the Pyrenees have already disappeared.
https://www.euronews.com/2019/11/24/spain-could-lose-its-biggest-glacier-in-just-20-yearsStalled weather patterns will get bigger due to climate change
Climate change will increase the size of stalled high-pressure weather systems called "blocking events" that have already produced some of the 21st century's deadliest heat waves, according to a Rice University study. Atmospheric blocking events are middle-latitude, high-pressure systems that stay in place for days or even weeks. Depending upon when and where they develop, blocking events can cause droughts or downpours and heat waves or cold spells ... The research was supported by NASA, the National Academies' Gulf Research Program, the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation).
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191113075107.htmCoal Knew Too: Explosive Report Shows Industry Was Aware of Climate Threat as Far Back as 1966
It wasn't just big oil that knew about climate change decades ago.
A new report shows conclusively that the coal industry was aware of the climate impacts of burning fossil fuels as far back as 1966—and, like other sectors of the fossil fuel industry with knowledge of the consequences of their business model, did next to nothing about it.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/22/coal-knew-too-explosive-report-shows-industry-was-aware-climate-threat-far-back-1966The Collapse of Civilization May Have Already Begun
Scientists disagree on the timeline of collapse and whether it's imminent. But can we afford to be wrong? And what comes after?
“It is now too late to stop a future collapse of our societies because of climate change.” These are not the words of a tinfoil hat-donning survivalist. This is from a paper delivered by a senior sustainability academic at a leading business school to the European Commission in Brussels, earlier this year. Before that, he delivered a similar message to a UN conference: “Climate change is now a planetary emergency posing an existential threat to humanity.” ... a growing number of experts not only point at the looming possibility that human civilization itself is at risk; some believe that the science shows it is already too late to prevent collapse. The outcome of the debate on this is obviously critical: it throws light on whether and how societies should adjust to this uncertain landscape. Yet this is not just a scientific debate. It also raises difficult moral questions about what kind of action is warranted to prepare for, or attempt to avoid, the worst. Scientists may disagree about the timeline of collapse, but many argue that this is entirely beside the point. While scientists and politicians quibble over timelines and half measures, or how bad it'll all be, we are losing precious time. With the stakes being total collapse, some scientists are increasingly arguing that we should fundamentally change the structure of society just to be safe.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xwygg/the-collapse-of-civilization-may-have-already-begunPainfully slow hurricanes, deadly heat, and cities without water: What the climate crisis will look like in the next 10 years, according to experts
We only have a decade to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. That’s the warning the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) put out last year. But so far, nations are not slashing emissions enough to keep Earth’s temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels – the threshold established in the Paris climate agreement. “What we know is that unabated climate change will really transform our world into something that is unrecognizable,” Kelly Levin, a senior associate at the World Resources Institute’s climate program, told Business Insider. That transformation has already begun. The last few years saw record-breaking temperatures, catastrophic and bizarre storms, and unprecedented ice melt. That’s all likely to get worse by 2030. Here’s what we can expect in the next 10 years. [Detailed descriptions of very bad outcomes.]
https://www.businessinsider.nl/climate-change-in-the-next-decade-2019-11Venice Isn’t Italy’s Only Weather Disaster. Rome and Florence Are Also Under Threat
All across the country, extreme weather has flooded rivers, downed trees, caused mudslides, and wreaked collective havoc. And according to a new report called “The Climate Has Already Changed” released Tuesday by Italy’s environmental watchdog group Legambiente, this is just the beginning. The report paints a grim picture of how climate change is impacting the Italian peninsula, which is geographically doomed thanks to rising seas on three sides. The authors list 40 coastal cities at risk, including Venice, Trieste, Ravenna, Pescara, La Spezia, Cagliari, Oristano, and Trapani, that could face widespread evacuations of its citizens by 2050.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/venice-isnt-italys-only-weather-disaster-widespread-flooding-threatens-florence-and-rome-tooFuture climate forcing potentially without precedent in the last 420 million years
Humanity’s fossil-fuel use, if unabated, risks taking us, by the middle of the twenty-first century, to values of CO2 not seen since the early Eocene (50 million years ago). If CO2 continues to rise further into the twenty-third century, then the associated large increase in radiative forcing, and how the Earth system would respond, would likely be without geological precedent in the last half a billion years.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14845Fossil fuel production on track for double the safe climate limit
‘We’re in a deep hole over the climate crisis and we need to stop digging,’ warn experts The world’s nations are on track to produce more than twice as much coal, oil and gas as can be burned in 2030 while restricting rise in the global temperature to 1.5C, analysis shows. The report is the first to compare countries’ stated plans for fossil fuel extraction with the goals of the Paris climate agreement, which is to keep global heating well below 2C above pre-industrial levels, and to aim for 1.5C. It exposes a huge gap, with fossil fuel production in 2030 heading for 50% more than is consistent with 2C, and 120% more than that for 1.5C ... The report was produced by the UN Environment Programme and a coalition of research organisations. It complements an earlier UN analysis showing the current Paris agreement pledges to cut emissions would still lead to a catastrophic 3-4C rise.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/20/fossil-fuel-production-on-track-for-double-the-safe-climate-limitA third of tropical African plants face extinction
A third of tropical African plants are on the path to extinction, according to a new assessment. Much of western Africa, Ethiopia, and parts of Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are the hardest hit regions, standing to lose more than 40% of their richness of plants ... The findings of the study, published in Science Advances, are based on a revised method for assessing extinction risk.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50477684Climate Change Will Bring More Fire Tornadoes to Australia
Fire tornadoes are set to become a more common feature of the Australian landscape as climate change takes hold later this century. That’s according to new research from the University of New South Wales’s Climate Change Research Centre in Sydney, which found the hot, dry and windy conditions that fuel “catastrophic pyrocumulonimbus wildfires” are not only likely to occur more frequently in southeast Australia, but also earlier in the spring and summer. These devastating fires are so large and ferocious that they generate their own weather systems, making them almost impossible to control.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-18/more-fire-tornadoes-to-hit-australia-as-climate-change-sets-inWaterbird population has fallen as much as 90 per cent in Australia's east, shows 37-year study
The drought has decimated the population of waterbirds across eastern Australia, with researchers saying numbers have fallen by as much as 90 per cent in the last four decades. When Sydney scientist Richard Kingsford and his team from the University of NSW began their research in the early 1980s, they clocked up to a million waterbirds in aerial surveys. "Now it's crashed to less than 100,000," Professor Kingsford said. "While the birds could have gone elsewhere, it's most likely that they've died."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-19/drought-and-water-policy-to-blame-for-water-bird-decline/11715412Local water scarcity spilling over into global crisis, researchers warn
Population growth and climate change are putting increasingly intense pressure on the planet’s limited water supplies ... ”All the local crises around the world are building up to a global crisis,” Torgny Holmgren, executive director of the Stockholm International Water Institute, told a conference on the issue ... By 2050, FAO estimates food demand globally will rise by 50% but “we don’t have 50% more water to allocate to agriculture”, he noted, adding it is already the dominant water user. Demand for water is also surging in fast-growing cities ... Getting enough water to everyone is particularly difficult as climate change brings more erratic rainfall, with many places hit by floods and droughts in turn, conference speakers said.
https://www.financialexpress.com/lifestyle/health/local-water-scarcity-spilling-over-into-global-crisis-researchers-warn/1769107/After the warmest ever Arctic summer could come the mildest winter
The summer of 2019 was the warmest on record, and the trend will continue into early 2020, researchers from the Arctic Regional Climate Centre (ArcRCC) Network conclude. The forecasts support evidence of drastic changes in the region. Arctic temperatures continue to warm at more than twice the global average and the extent of winter sea-ice is at record low levels. During a recent session in the Arctic Climate Forum, experts from across the Arctic region discussed forecasts for the next half year. They agree that surface air temperatures during winter 2019-2020 will be above normal across the majority of the Arctic regions. The session was organized by the Norwegian Meteorological Institute and held in the form of video conference.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/2019/11/after-warmest-ever-arctic-summer-could-come-mildest-winterBah humbug! North Pole lacks enough ice for sculptures
The annual Christmas in Ice sculpture park won't open this year in North Pole, Alaska, because of a lack of ice. It's the first cancellation since the event started ... there isn't enough ice on ponds to harvest for ice carving. The lack of ice on lakes and ponds follows a warm October in Alaska's interior ... North Pole has been almost 8 degrees warmer than normal, said Rick Thoman, a climate specialist at the International Arctic Research Center in Fairbanks. Even warmer temperatures were recorded last year and in 2013.
https://kcby.com/news/offbeat/bah-humbug-north-pole-lacks-enough-ice-for-sculpturesArctic Ocean could be ice-free for part of the year as soon as 2044
Among the current generation of models, some show ice-free Septembers as early as 2026; others suggest the phenomenon will begin as late as 2132. The UCLA study, which was published in Nature Climate Change, focuses the predictions to a 25-year period ... [This study] assessed 23 models' depiction of seasonal ice melt between 1980 and 2015 and compared them with the satellite observations. They retained the six models that best captured the actual historical results and discarded the ones that had proven to be off base, enabling them to narrow the range of predictions for ice-free Septembers in the Arctic.
https://phys.org/news/2019-11-arctic-ocean-ice-free-year.htmlIce loss causing Arctic to reflect less heat
Scientists say soot is not the major contributor, as levels have dropped recently, while warming has continued. The findings have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The Arctic region has warmed significantly since the 1980s, up to three times as much as the average seen elsewhere across the globe ... found that sea-ice, snow on top of sea-ice and ice on land contributed equally to the region's albedo effect. "These three factors contributed almost equally to the reduction of the surface albedo," explained co-author Hailong Wang, an earth scientist from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in the US.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50381328The climate science is clear: it's now or never to avert catastrophe
If we don’t solve it soon, we will never solve it, because we will pass a series of irrevocable tipping points – and we’re clearly now approaching those deadlines ... many researchers set 2020 as the date by which carbon emissions would need to peak if we were to have any chance of meeting the accord’s goals. Under the most plausible scenario, they wrote, “even if we peak in 2020 reducing emissions to zero within 20 years will be required,” and that is an ungodly steep slope. But if we wait past 2020 it’s not a slope at all – it’s just a cliff, and we fall off it. [IPCC said] if we hadn’t managed a fundamental transformation of the planet’s energy systems by 2030, our chance of meeting the Paris temperature targets is slim to none. And anyone who has ever had anything to do with governments knows: if you want something big done by 2030, you better give yourself a lot of lead time. In fact, it’s possible we’ve waited too long: the world’s greenhouse gas emissions spiked last year, and ... it’s hard to imagine we won’t see the same depressing thing this year.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/20/climate-crisis-its-now-or-never-to-avert-catastrophePlastics outnumber baby fish 7-to-1 in some coastal nurseries
Larval fish congregate in ocean slicks — ribbons of calm water that form naturally on the ocean’s surface — to feast on an abundance of prey. Prey-sized plastics also accumulate in these fish nurseries, outnumbering the fish 7-to-1 and ending up in the stomachs of many, researchers report online November 11 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ... The nets snagged eight times as many fish in ocean slicks than in adjacent waters, confirming the slicks’ role as an early fish nursery. But inside these slicks, the tiny swimmers were outnumbered by plastic 7–1 ... Larval fish play a big role in the ocean food web. Seabirds skim them off the water’s surface, while larger fish, such as tuna, eat them from below. If larval fish ate plastic, the predators that eat them could accumulate potentially harmful levels of plastic themselves, the researchers say. Humans also eat some of those fish when full grown, such as mahi mahi, and their predators. To Whitney, the study underlines how insidious plastics are in the environment ... “Climate change is a huge punch to ocean fish. Overfishing another punch. And now, at their most vulnerable stages, there’s yet another human induced impact.”
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/plastics-outnumber-baby-fish-some-coastal-nurseries
reporting on a study at https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/11/05/1907496116Greenland airport becomes latest victim of climate change
Greenland's main airport is set to end civilian flights within five years due to climate change, as the melting of permafrost is cracking the runway ... authorities will start building a new facility from scratch ... Greenland is the world's largest island roughly and around 80 per cent of the surface is covered in ice sheet. But global warming is drastically reshaping Greenland, causing the ice sheet to melt at a faster rate than previously thought, according to recent research. The airport's situation shows how the built environment, and not just the natural environment, is being hit by climate change.
https://www.euronews.com/2019/11/15/greenland-airport-becomes-latest-victim-of-climate-changeCalifornia landfills are belching high levels of climate-warming methane
The largest sources of methane released to the atmosphere can now be spotted from the sky. A team of researchers used airborne remote sensing to pinpoint the exact locations of some of California’s biggest belchers of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Of those concentrated “superemitters,” landfills were the biggest sources in the Golden State, followed by dairy farms and the oil and gas industry ... Landfills contributed 41 percent of emissions. Dairies and the oil and gas sector contributed 26 percent each, Riley Duren, an electrical engineer and research scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and colleagues report November 6 in Nature.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/california-landfills-are-belching-high-levels-climate-warming-methaneMelting permafrost in Siberia is creating climate change refugees
For the 5.4 million people who live in Russia’s permafrost zone, the new climate has disrupted their homes and their livelihoods. Rivers are rising and running faster and entire neighbourhoods are falling into them. Arable land for farming has plummeted by more than half ... The impact on farming has been catastrophic ... Zyryanka and the roughly 2,000-square-mile area surrounding it has warmed by more than 3C when the past five years are compared with the mid- to late 1800s. Some regions of Siberia bordering on the Arctic Ocean are warming even faster, the analysis shows.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/climate-change-refugees-siberia-permafrost-melt-a9146616.htmlStalled weather patterns will get bigger due to climate change
Climate change will increase the size of stalled high-pressure weather systems called "blocking events" that have already produced some of the 21st century's deadliest heat waves, according to a Rice University study. Atmospheric blocking events are middle-latitude, high-pressure systems that stay in place for days or even weeks. Depending upon when and where they develop, blocking events can cause droughts or downpours and heat waves or cold spells. Blocking events caused deadly heat waves in France in 2003 and in Russia in 2010. Using data from two sets of comprehensive climate model simulations, Rice fluid dynamicists Ebrahim Nabizadeh and Pedram Hassanzadeh, and colleagues found that the area of blocking events in the northern hemisphere will increase by as much as 17% due to anthropogenic climate change. The study, which is available online from Geophysical Research Letters, was co-authored by Da Yang of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Davis, and Elizabeth Barnes of Colorado State University.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191113075107.htmClimate Whiplash: Wild Swings in Extreme Weather Are on the Rise
[P]henomenon, variously known as “climate whiplash” or “weather whiplash,” that scientists say is likely to increase as the world warms. The intensity of wildfires these days in places like California are a symptom of climate change, experts say, but the whiplash effect poses a different set of problems for humans and natural systems ... “There has been an assumption that the main thing we have to contend with climate change is increased temperatures, decreased snowpack, increased wildfire risk” on the West Coast, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Those things are still true, but there is this other dimension we will have to contend with — the increased risk of extreme flood and drought, and rapid transitions between the two.” ... weather whiplash could mean an intense drought year followed by record rains that don’t allow planting or that wash fertilizer into waterways ... Tree ring data shows a significant increase in climate volatility in the last 60 years.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/climate-whiplash-wild-swings-in-extreme-weather-are-on-the-riseGlacier in Russian Arctic Goes From Moving 60 Feet a Year to 60 Feet a Day
Cold-based glaciers exist at high latitudes that receive little snow or rain. They rarely move more than a few yards per year. University of Colorado Boulder glaciologist Michael Willis was studying the Vavilov Ice Cap on October Revolution Island in the Kara Sea north of Siberia when he discovered the glacier began sliding dozens of times faster than is typical, according to a blog post from NASA. “The fact that an apparently stable, cold-based glacier suddenly went from moving 20 meters per year to 20 meters per day was extremely unusual, perhaps unprecedented,” Willis said. “The numbers here are simply nuts. Before this happened, as far as I knew, cold-based glaciers simply didn’t do that ... couldn’t do that.” The change is clear in Landsat satellite imagery that has been collected since 1985, according to NASA.
https://weather.com/news/news/2019-04-08-russian-glacier-moving-much-fasterHail Has Damaged Insurance Market for Car Dealers. Parametric Insurance May Help.
Hail is wreaking havoc in the market for auto dealer lot insurance. In 2018, Zurich North America, one of the major commercial auto insurance providers, decided not to renew policies with hundreds of dealerships throughout the middle of the U.S., citing “catastrophic” losses due to hail damage ... Over the past decade, hail damage to vehicles, buildings and crops has accounted for an average of almost $10 billion annually, according to Steve Bowen, meteorologist and head of catastrophe insight for Aon Plc. Those costs are growing, he said, because hail reports are becoming more frequent ... This creates a problem for insurance underwriters, who typically use historical patterns to set prices. Add climate change to the equation, and the uncertainty can result in prohibitively expensive policies ... Kubicek anticipates that climate change will continue to throw insurance markets into disarray. "This is going to keep happening."
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2019/11/14/548468.htm‘Insect apocalypse’ poses risk to all life on Earth, conservationists warn
Report claims 400,000 insect species face extinction amid heavy use of pesticides
The “unnoticed insect apocalypse” should set alarm bells ringing, according to conservationists, who said that without a halt there will be profound consequences for humans and all life on Earth. A new report suggested half of all insects may have been lost since 1970 as a result of the destruction of nature and heavy use of pesticides. The report said 40% of the 1million known species of insect are facing extinction ... the first global scientific review, published in February, said widespread declines threaten a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/13/insect-apocalypse-poses-risk-to-all-life-on-earth-conservationists-warnLast Arctic Ice Refuge Is Disappearing
The oldest and thickest Arctic sea ice is disappearing twice as fast as ice in the rest of the Arctic Ocean, according to new research. A new study in AGU’s journal Geophysical Research Letters finds ice in the Arctic Ocean north of Greenland is more mobile than previously thought, as ocean currents and atmospheric winds are likely transporting the old, thick ice found there to other parts of the Arctic. As a result, ice mass in the area – the last place researchers think will lose its year-round ice cover – is declining twice as fast as ice in the rest of the Arctic, according to the new findings.
https://news.agu.org/press-release/last-arctic-ice-refuge-is-disappearing/Climate Change Is Breaking Open America's Nuclear Tomb
The Marshall Islands say that plutonium is leaking into the Pacific Ocean from the concrete dome the U.S. built to dispose of nuclear waste During the Cold War, the United States nuked the Marshall Islands 67 times. After it finished nuking the islands, the Pentagon dropped biological weapons on the islands. Once the U.S. was finished, it scooped the irradiated and ruined soil from the islands, poured it into a crater left behind from a nuclear detonation, mixed it all with concrete, and covered the whole thing in a concrete dome. They called it “The Tomb.” According to a report from The Los Angeles Times, climate change is breaking that dome open ... The Tomb contains not just the irradiated soil and metal scrap from the Pacific proving grounds, but also 130 tons of soil shipped in from Nevada ... The Nuclear Claims Tribunal, an independent ruling body with the authority to arbitrate legal relations between the United States and the Marshall Islands, awarded the Marshall Islands $2 billion in damages in 2001. Washington has paid only $4 million ... By the end of the century, experts believe the sea levels could rise by four or five feet, submerging the Marshall Islands and The Tomb. Under that kind of pressure, the concrete dome will crack, spilling America’s Cold War waste into the Pacific.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3kxmav/climate-change-is-breaking-open-americas-nuclear-tombThis is not normal: what's different about the NSW [Australia] mega fires
Unprecedented dryness; reductions in long-term rainfall; low humidity; high temperatures; wind velocities; fire danger indices; fire spread and ferocity; instances of pyro-convective fires (fire storms – making their own weather); early starts and late finishes to bushfire seasons. An established long-term trend driven by a warming, drying climate. The numbers don’t lie, and the science is clear. If anyone tells you, "This is part of a normal cycle" or "We’ve had fires like this before", smile politely and walk away, because they don’t know what they’re talking about.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/this-is-not-normal-what-s-different-about-the-nsw-mega-fires-20191110-p5395e.htmlArctic Shifts to Carbon Source – Stunning Reversal After Capturing Carbon for Tens of Thousands of Years
A NASA-funded study suggests winter carbon emissions in the Arctic may be adding more carbon into the atmosphere each year than is taken up by Arctic vegetation, marking a stark reversal for a region that has captured and stored carbon for tens of thousands of years. The study, published October 21, 2019, in Nature Climate Change, warns that winter carbon dioxide loss from the world’s permafrost regions could increase by 41% over the next century if human-caused greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current pace. Carbon emitted from thawing permafrost has not been included in the majority of models used to predict future climates.
https://scitechdaily.com/arctic-shifts-to-carbon-source-stunning-reversal-after-capturing-carbon-for-tens-of-thousands-of-years/Climate change could end mortgages as we know them
For the financial sector, adapting to climate change isn't just an issue of improving their market share. "It is a function of where there will be a market at all," wrote Jesse Keenan, a scholar who studies climate adaptation, in the Fed's introduction ... The housing market doesn't yet factor in the risk of climate change, which is already affecting many areas of the U.S., including flood-prone coastal communities, agricultural regions and parts of the country vulnerable to wildfires. In California, for instance, 50,000 homeowners can't get property or casualty insurance because of the increased risk to their homes.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-could-end-mortgages-as-we-know-them/Climate risk – A new normal
The past two full years – 2017 and 2018 – were the most costly back-to-back years on record for weather-related disasters say insurance companies, with economic losses exceeding $650 billion. Moreover, 2018 was the fourth costliest year on record for weather-related events, even though there were no events on the scale of hurricanes Katrina in 2005, and Harvey, Irma and Maria in 2017. Experts believe 2018 represents a ‘new normal’, when a large number of relatively small natural disasters added up to substantial losses ... Investment firm Schroders estimates global economic losses from climate change could reach $23 trillion per year in the long term if action isn’t taken. That’s almost four times the impact of the 2008 financial crisis.
https://www.risk.net/risk-management/7147041/climate-risk-a-new-normalThe Baymen’s Nightmare: All the Scallops Are Dead
You could tell it was going to be a bad scallop season just by looking in the parking lot of the Shelter Island Yacht Club. When the scallops are abundant, gulls pluck them from shallows, drop them on the macadam from a height, and swoop down to eat the meat from the cracked shell. This October, for the first time in years, the yacht club parking lot was not carpet-bombed with scallop shells. Sure enough, when bay scallop season opened on Monday, the baymen of Long Island brought news. Most of the adult scallops in Peconic Bay were dead ... in fewer than 50 years, according to one expert on bay scallop biology, human activity driving climate change has threatened scallops with extinction.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/nyregion/peconic-bay-scallop-season.htmlThe climate chain reaction that threatens the heart of the Pacific
The salmon catch is collapsing off Japan’s northern coast, plummeting by about 70 percent in the past 15 years. The disappearance of the fish coincides with another striking development: the loss of a unique blanket of sea ice that dips far below the Arctic to reach this shore. The twin impacts — less ice, fewer salmon — are the products of rapid warming in the Sea of Okhotsk, wedged between Siberia and Japan. The area has warmed in some places by as much as 3 degrees Celsius since preindustrial times, making it one of the fastest-warming spots in the world ... The rising temperatures are starting to shut down the single most dynamic sea ice factory on Earth ... Its decline has a cascade of consequences well beyond Japan as climate dominoes begin to fall.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/world/climate-environment/climate-change-japan-pacific-sea-salmon-ice-loss/Insect decline more extensive than suspected
Compared to a decade ago, today the number of insect species on many areas has decreased by about one third. This is the result of a survey of an international research team led by scientists from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) ..."Previous studies, however, either focused exclusively on biomass, i.e. the total weight of all insects, or on individual species or species groups. The fact that a large part of all insect groups is actually affected has not been clear so far," says Dr. Sebastian Seibold, a scientist with the Terrestrial Ecology Research Group at TUM. In a large-scale biodiversity study, an international research team headed by scientists at TUM surveyed a large number of insect groups in Brandenburg, Thuringia and Baden-Württemberg between 2008 and 2017. Now the team has published its analysis in the scientific journal “Nature”.
https://www.tum.de/nc/en/about-tum/news/press-releases/details/35769/Study Confirms Our Oceans Are Already Losing Vast Quantities of Fish
Fish populations in the world's oceans are depleting at an alarming rate, new research has found, with worrying consequences for those higher up the food chain – which includes humans ... The researchers looked at how ocean warming affected 235 populations of fish worldwide, covering 124 species across 38 ecological regions ... Warming waters are usually bad news for fish: not only does warmer water contain less oxygen, it also impairs bodily functions, which in many fish occur at the same temperature as the water. If you've ever felt the oppression of a hot summer day, you've got an idea of what we're talking about ... With fish stocks supplying a significant chunk of animal protein in the world's diet – especially in coastal, developing countries – the trend is a worrying one.
https://www.sciencealert.com/new-research-confirms-our-warming-oceans-are-losing-a-huge-amount-of-fishGlobal Warming Is Already Destroying New England’s Fisheries
In the North Atlantic, the melting of the Greenland ice sheet has triggered a slowing of ocean currents that routinely circulate cooler water into New England. “Since 2010, we’ve had weaker flow in that cold water current,” said Andrew Pershing, Chief Scientific Officer at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. “Those changes in circulation are part of this large-scale reorganization of the North Atlantic.” ... It’s left the Gulf of Maine with a warming level at almost four times the global ocean average ... The Gloucester fishermen still working have started delaying maintenance on their boats and letting some insurance policies lapse. They endure more frequent and more intense storms, the kind that keep your boat docked for five days until the ocean swells calm down. They target flounder and haddock for now, and wonder if southern species like the blue crabs of the Chesapeake Bay might migrate up in time for their last years at sea. They’ve acknowledged—as others so far have not—the fact that this won’t be one transition, but several. As David Wallace Wells wrote this year, it’s not the “new normal.” It’s “the end of normal.”
https://newrepublic.com/article/155586/global-warming-already-destroying-new-englands-fisheriesClimate crisis: 11,000 scientists warn of ‘untold suffering’
The world’s people face “untold suffering due to the climate crisis” unless there are major transformations to global society, according to a stark warning from more than 11,000 scientists ... There is no time to lose, the scientists say: “The climate crisis has arrived and is accelerating faster than most scientists expected. It is more severe than anticipated, threatening natural ecosystems and the fate of humanity.” The statement is published in the journal BioScience on the 40th anniversary of the first world climate conference, which was held in Geneva in 1979. The statement was a collaboration of dozens of scientists and endorsed by further 11,000 from 153 nations.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/05/climate-crisis-11000-scientists-warn-of-untold-sufferingAcross Arctic Canada, sea ice levels are again at record lows
As of Oct. 15, sea ice levels hit 5.118 million square kilometres, making them the lowest on record, which began in 1968. “Depending on the area, we could be up to a month behind where we should be at this time of year,” said Gilles Langis, senior ice forecaster with the meteorological service of Canada ... From April onward, every month has ranked in the top three warmest ... What’s going on this year is representative of something larger. “Under the influence of global heating caused by human-induced greenhouse gases emissions, we have seen a sharp decrease in the extent of Arctic sea [ice] since 1979,” says Pascal Peduzzi, Director of GRID-Geneva, in a press release published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/across-arctic-canada-sea-ice-levels-are-again-at-record-lowsAbrupt shifts in Arctic climate projected
Researchers from McGill University project that as the permafrost continues to degrade, the climate in various regions of the Arctic could potentially change abruptly, in the relatively near future. Their research, which was published today in Nature Climate Change, also suggests that as the permafrost degrades, the severity of wildfires will double from one year to the next and remain at the new and higher rate ... "What we came away with, was a picture of alarming changes to climate driven by permafrost degradation."
https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-10/mu-asi103019.php
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0614-6Decade-long drought in Chile wipes out hives as bees are left without flowers
[A] punishing, decade-long drought is making life difficult for honey bees ... Daniel Barrera, a bee industry expert with the agriculture ministry, said a precise count of hives lost this year will not be available until 2020. But bleak reports from the field, he said, were more than enough to warrant government aid for beekeepers. ... officials say climate change has made the current [drought] longer and more severe. Rainfall in September in Santiago was down nearly 80% versus the historical average ... “There’s no water anywhere,” Mejias said. “The bees are suffering just the same as cattle, crops and people.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chile-environment-bees/decade-long-drought-in-chile-wipes-out-hives-as-bees-are-left-without-flowers-idUSKBN1XB3T5East Africa reels from deadly floods in extreme weather
A powerful climate phenomenon in the Indian Ocean stronger than any seen in years is unleashing destructive rains and flooding across East Africa—and scientists say worse could be coming. Violent downpours in October have displaced tens of thousands in Somalia, submerged whole towns in South Sudan and killed dozens in flash floods and landslides in Kenya, Ethiopia and Tanzania. Rising waters have wiped out livestock and destroyed harvests in swathes of the region still reeling from severe drought. Close to a million people in South Sudan alone are affected, with growing fears of disease outbreaks and starvation.
https://phys.org/news/2019-10-east-africa-reels-deadly-extreme.html"This will only get worse in the future": Experts see direct line between California wildfires and climate change
California is likely to continue to experience larger and more destructive wildfires as the nation's most populated state gets hotter and drier. A recent study published in Earth's Future suggests that the increasing size of wildfires occurring across California in the last 50 years is attributable to climate change drying out the landscape ... The six most destructive fire seasons in state history have occurred in the last 10 years, and 15 of the 20 largest California fires took place since 2000.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/this-will-only-get-worse-in-the-future-experts-find-direct-line-between-california-wildfires-and-climate-change/The World Is Not Going To Halve Carbon Emissions By 2030, So Now What?
Last year [IPCC] reported that “limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.” Specifically, “Global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching ‘net zero’ around 2050” ... The evidence shows clearly that the world is far from being on a path that will come anywhere close to that goal. That is not an opinion, it is just math ... There is simply no evidence that the world is, or is on the brink of, making “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” that would be required for the deep decarbonization associated with a 1.5°C temperature target.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerpielke/2019/10/27/the-world-is-not-going-to-reduce-carbon-dioxide-emissions-by-50-by-2030-now-whatGlobal vulnerability to sea level rise worse than previously understood
A new digital elevation model ... shows that many of the world’s coastlines are far lower than has been generally known and that sea level rise could affect hundreds of millions of more people ... Some countries, such as the United States, use a remote-sensing technology called lidar to reliably map the heights of their coastlines ... Where lidar data are not available, researchers and analysts rely on one of several global datasets, most typically through a NASA project known as SRTM [which] are less reliable than lidar [because] SRTM data measure the tops of features that protrude from the ground—such as buildings and trees—as well as the ground itself. As a result, SRTM data generally overestimate elevation [which] produce underestimates of future inundation driven by sea level rise.
https://climatecentral.org/news/report-flooded-future-global-vulnerability-to-sea-level-rise-worse-than-previously-understoodCarbon bomb: Study says climate impact from loss of intact tropical forests grossly underreported
A new study in the journal Science Advances says that carbon impacts from the loss of intact tropical forests has been grossly underreported ... when they factored in full carbon accounting ... they discovered that the figure skyrocketed by a factor of more than six times. Said the study's lead author Sean Maxwell of WCS and the University of Queensland: "Our results revealed that continued destruction of intact tropical forests is a ticking time bomb for carbon emissions. There is an urgent need to safeguard these landscapes because they play an indispensable role in stabilizing the climate."
https://phys.org/news/2019-10-carbon-climate-impact-loss-intact.html
reporting on a study at https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/10/eaax2546.fullAmphibian 'apocalypse' caused by most destructive pathogen ever
For decades, A silent killer has slaughtered frogs and salamanders around the world by eating their skins alive. Now, a global team of 41 scientists has announced that the pathogen—which humans unwittingly spread around the world—has damaged global biodiversity more than any other disease ever recorded. The new study, published in Science on Thursday, is the first comprehensive tally of the damage done by the chytrid fungi Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) and Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal). In all, the fungi have driven the declines of at least 501 amphibian species, or about one out of every 16 known to science. Of the chytrid-stricken species, 90 have gone extinct or are presumed extinct in the wild. Another 124 species have declined in number by more than 90 percent. All but one of the 501 declines was caused by Bd.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/03/amphibian-apocalypse-frogs-salamanders-worst-chytrid-fungus/Prolonged Missouri River flooding could last all winter
Flooding along the Missouri River has stretched on for seven months in places and could endure through the winter ... There are several reasons for the flooding, including high levels along the river, saturated ground and broken levees. And with forecasters predicting a wetter-than-normal winter, it’s possible flooding could continue in some places all the way until spring, when the normal flood season begins. “There’s no end in sight. None at all,” said Tom Bullock ... In Missouri’s Holt County, where Bullock serves as emergency management director, roughly 30,000 acres (12,140 hectares) of the 95,000 acres (38,445 hectares) that flooded last spring remain underwater, and at least some of that floodwater is likely to freeze in place this winter. Similar conditions exist in places along the lower Missouri River, where broken levees will likely take several years to repair. Nearly every levee in Holt County has multiple breaches and many haven’t even been examined yet. Repairs aren’t likely to start on most of the area’s levees until next year, Bullock said. One key contributor to the flooding is that the river remains high because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is still releasing massive amounts of water from upstream dams to clear space in the reservoirs to handle next spring’s flooding ... any significant rain or snow in the region could lead to new flooding because the soil is too saturated to absorb most of it and many rivers are high, according to the National Weather Service.
https://apnews.com/4495e896075044fc82264bfccb0bc09fChukchi Sea ice coverage reaches record low
With a poor start for ice forming in northern Alaska waters this season, the latest climate forecasts predict sea ice may not reach Western Alaska until December ... according to climatologist Rick Thoman, the Chukchi Sea currently has the least amount of ice it’s ever had. “Here in Western Alaska I think the most common question is: where is the sea ice at?” Thoman said. “And it’s still very far north, we’re at record low sea ice extent in the Chukchi Sea, near record low in the Beaufort Sea ... the odds favor significantly warmer (temperatures) than that 30-year average,” Thoman said. “That’s not surprising given where we’re at with sea surface temperatures and very late, very low sea ice.”
https://www.alaskapublic.org/2019/10/28/chukchi-sea-ice-coverage-reaches-record-low/First pictures and video of the largest methane fountain so far discovered in the Arctic Ocean
A record high methane gas emission in a shape of an underwater ‘fountain’ was registered at the beginning of October east of Bennett island in the East Siberian Sea ... water ‘so violently boiling with methane bubbles’ that scientists skipped using plastic cones for sampling and instead collected the gas in buckets. ‘This was the most powerful seep I have ever observed. No one has ever recorded anything similar’ said head of the expedition Igor Semiletov, who has participated in 45 Arctic expeditions. Unexpectedly high speed of degradation of subsea permafrost has been recorded. 'In some areas the roof of subsea permafrost thawed to the stability horizons of gas hydrates.'
https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/first-pictures-and-video-of-the-largest-methane-fountain-so-far-discovered-in-the-arctic-ocean/Shell made a film about climate change in 1991 (then neglected to heed its own warning)
Oil giant Shell has spent millions of dollars lobbying against measures that would protect the planet from climate catastrophe. But thanks to a film recently obtained by De Correspondent, it’s now clear that their position wasn’t born of ignorance. Shell knows that fossil fuels put us all at risk – in fact, they’ve known for over a quarter of a century. Climate of Concern, a 1991 educational film produced by Shell, warned that the company’s own product could lead to extreme weather, floods, famines, and climate refugees, and noted that the reality of climate change was "endorsed by a uniquely broad consensus of scientists."
https://thecorrespondent.com/6285/shell-made-a-film-about-climate-change-in-1991-then-neglected-to-heed-its-own-warning
see also https://thecorrespondent.com/6286/if-shell-knew-climate-change-was-dire-25-years-ago-why-still-business-as-usual-todayRapid Glacial Melt Near Mount Everest Peaks Threatens Nepali Communities
Near the peaks of Mount Everest – towering some 5.6 miles above sea level – the ancient Khumbu Glacier is melting. Never before in the last 70 years has the massive ice rock melted more quickly than it is now. It is losing thickness at an unprecedented rate – about 131 feet in the last 10 to 15 years, to be exact. And the Nepali communities surrounding the Khumbu are feeling the consequences.
https://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/glacial-melt-near-mount-everest-threatens-nepali-communities/River of Trash: How Plastic Pollution Is Making Central American Communities Uninhabitable
Guatemala’s Motagua River pours into the Caribbean, carrying with it a daily freight of trash washed out of overcrowded city dumps and unofficial landfills hundreds of miles upstream. Worldwide, an estimated 80 percent of ocean plastic comes from land as “mismanaged waste” ... result is a noxious chowder of sewage, industrial and agricultural runoff, and an ever-replenished flotilla of plastic trash, churning out from the river mouth toward the massive Mesoamerican reef ... the beaches here and in neighboring Honduras are regularly buried in artificial tidewrack of toothbrushes, makeup containers, old syringes and bottles of IV fluid, action figures, streamers of plastic film, and foil chip bags ... Since the first synthetic plastic appeared in 1907, we’ve made 8.3 billion tons of the stuff, 5 billion of which is still sloshing around the world ... researchers found that 90 percent of the marine plastic washed out of just 10 rivers, including the Yangtze, the Nile, and the Ganges ... between 5 and 12 million tons of plastic flow from land into the sea every year.
https://theintercept.com/2019/10/27/plastic-pollution-guatemala/Climate change may see one in four US steel bridges collapse by 2040
Bridges in the US and other high-income countries are ageing and deteriorating ... [A team at Colorado State University studied] the effects of increasing temperatures on steel bridges around the US. In particular, they focused on what would happen when joints that are clogged with dirt and debris are exposed to the higher temperatures expected in the years ahead as the climate warms. Clogging is a common problem, especially in deteriorating bridges, but it is costly to address. This clogging prevents sections from being able to safely expand and strains parts of the bridge that weren’t designed to withstand the resulting load. [The team] analysed data on the condition of around 90,000 bridges across the US and [found that] one in four bridges are at risk of a section failing in the next 21 years, rising to 28 per cent by 2060 and 49 per cent by 2080. Almost all are set to fail by 2100.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2221040-climate-change-may-see-one-in-four-us-steel-bridges-collapse-by-2040/U.S. Military Could Collapse Within 20 Years Due to Climate Change, Report Commissioned By Pentagon Says
The senior US government officials who wrote the report are from several key agencies including the Army, Defense Intelligence Agency, and NASA. The study called on the Pentagon to urgently prepare for the possibility that domestic power, water, and food systems might collapse due to the impacts of climate change as we near mid-century. The report was commissioned by General Mark Milley, Trump's new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, making him the highest-ranking military officer in the country ... The two most prominent scenarios in the report focus on the risk of a collapse of the power grid within “the next 20 years,” and the danger of disease epidemics. Both could be triggered by climate change in the near-term, it notes ... without urgent reforms, the report warns that the US military itself could end up effectively collapsing as it tries to respond to climate collapse ... paints a frightening portrait of a country falling apart over the next 20 years due to the impacts of climate change on “natural systems such as oceans, lakes, rivers, ground water, reefs, and forests.” Current infrastructure in the US, the report says, is woefully underprepared: “Most of the critical infrastructures identified by the Department of Homeland Security are not built to withstand these altered conditions.” ... Also at “high risk of temporary or permanent closure due to climate threats” are US nuclear power facilities. There are currently 99 nuclear reactors operating in the US, supplying nearly 20 percent of the country’s utility-scale energy. But the majority of these, some 60 percent, are located in vulnerable regions which face “major risks” including sea level rise, severe storms, and water shortages ... The report's authors believe that domestic military operations will be necessary to contain future disease outbreaks ... “Climate change is introducing an increased risk of infectious disease to the US population. It is increasingly not a matter of ‘if’ but of when there will be a large outbreak.” ... The report describes water scarcity as a near-term risk driving civil unrest and political instability. By 2040, global demand for fresh water will exceed availability, and by 2030 one-third of the world population will inhabit “water-stressed regions”.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbmkz8/us-military-could-collapse-within-20-years-due-to-climate-change-report-commissioned-by-pentagon-says
reporting on a study at [pdf] https://climateandsecurity.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/implications-of-climate-change-for-us-army_army-war-college_2019.pdfTaking the Heat: Potential Fetal Health Effects of Hot Temperatures
Several epidemiological studies over the past five years have reported associations between high temperatures and adverse pregnancy outcomes, including preterm birth, stillbirth, and low birth weight, as well as congenital heart defects ... “When more and more studies start to pile up and coalesce around the same conclusion, we have to pay attention, especially when there’s biological plausibility behind the outcome,” says Nathaniel DeNicola, an obstetrician–gynecologist at the George Washington University Hospital in Washington, DC, and environmental health expert for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/EHP6221Amazon rainforest 'close to irreversible tipping point'
Soaring deforestation coupled with the destructive policies of Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, could push the Amazon rainforest dangerously to an irreversible “tipping point” within two years ... After this point the rainforest would stop producing enough rain to sustain itself and start slowly degrading into a drier savannah, releasing billions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, which would exacerbate global heating and disrupt weather across South America. The warning came in a policy brief published this week by Monica de Bolle, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington DC.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/23/amazon-rainforest-close-to-irreversible-tipping-pointAn ecosystem-wide reproductive failure with more snow in the Arctic
Although public interest has long been focused on general warming trends and trends towards a lower sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean, this summer saw the realization of another predicted trend: that of increasing precipitation during the winter months and of increased year-to-year variability. In a well-studied ecosystem in Northeast Greenland, this resulted in the most complete reproductive failure encountered in the terrestrial ecosystem during more than two decades of monitoring: only a few animals and plants were able to reproduce because of abundant and late melting snow. These observations, we suggest, should open our eyes to potentially drastic consequences of predicted changes in both the mean and the variability of arctic climate.
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000392Climate Sensitivity of High Arctic Permafrost Terrain Demonstrated by Widespread Ice-Wedge Thermokarst on Banks Island
[C]limate-driven thaw of hilltop ice-wedge networks is rapidly transforming uplands across Banks Island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Change detection using high-resolution WorldView images and historical air photos, coupled with 32-year Landsat reflectance trends, indicate broad-scale increases in ponding from ice-wedge thaw on hilltops, which has significantly affected at least 1500 km2 of Banks Island.
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/10/6/954Global impacts of thawing Arctic permafrost may be imminent
The Arctic permafrost, frozen soil that is chock full of carbon, is a ticking time bomb. When it thaws because of global warming ... scientists believe it is likely to release more carbon than it absorbs from new plant growth—adding to the atmosphere’s burden and accelerating climate change. But studies in the Arctic have been so limited that no one could say when that time would come. It’s here now, according to research published today by a large team of scientists in Nature Climate Change ... scientists from the Permafrost Carbon Network estimate that permafrost released an average of 1662 teragrams of carbon each winter from 2003 to 2017—double that of past estimates.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/10/global-impacts-thawing-arctic-permafrost-may-be-imminentPermafrost emits more carbon in winter than plants absorb in summer: study
Research has found Arctic soil has warmed to the point where it releases more carbon in winter than northern plants can absorb during the summer. The finding means the extensive belt of tundra around the globe — a vast reserve of carbon that dwarfs what's held in the atmosphere — is becoming a source of greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change ... The research by scientists in 12 countries and from dozens of institutions is the latest warning that northern natural systems that once reliably kept carbon out of the atmosphere are starting to release it ... What's more, the pace of the emissions is likely to increase.
https://www.vancourier.com/permafrost-emits-more-carbon-in-winter-than-plants-absorb-in-summer-study-1.23984137Record temperatures reveal long-term heating
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts on behalf of the European Union, has announced record temperatures for September on a global level, making it the fourth month in a row to be close to or breaking a temperature record. The last four months have been exceptionally warm on a global level. June 2019 was the warmest June on record, July the warmest month ever recorded in this data set, and August 2019 settling for the second warmest August. September 2019 was on-par with record temperatures. All this is a reminder of the long-term trend in global heating.
https://theecologist.org/2019/oct/15/record-temperatures-reveal-long-term-heatingUnderstanding extinction — humanity has destroyed half the life on Earth
"If you take the overall biomass on Earth before humanity arrived on the scene, it was about twice what it is now," said Ron Milo, a professor of plant and environmental sciences at the Weizmann Institute of Science ... Earth's population nears eight billion people, but that only accounts for 0.01% of our planet's overall biomass. Yet, despite the fact that we represent tiny fraction of life on Earth, humanity has had an outsized impact on species around the world that are threatened with extinction ... The recent UN biodiversity report, the IPBES global assessment, concluded that up to one million wild species are now at risk of extinction due to human activities. "Species are going extinct, it seems, many times more rapidly than they have in any time in recent history. And you have to go back towards the last major extinction event in order to find extinction rates of this nature. So it's somewhere at least 10 to 100 times — maybe even up to a 1,000 times more rapidly — that species are going extinct," said Kai Chan, a professor at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia and co-author of the UN report ... our planet now has 20-fold more biomass in domesticated livestock like cows, pigs and sheep than in all the wild mammals — like elephants, caribou and whales — combined. And there are twice as many domesticated birds as there are wild ones. The more wild species we lose, the less diverse life on Earth becomes. This has consequences like increasing the vulnerability of our agricultural systems.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/oct-19-2019-understanding-the-anthropocene-extinction-regenerating-cartilage-and-more-1.5324707/understanding-extinction-humanity-has-destroyed-half-the-life-on-earth-1.5324721Net-Zero Carbon Dioxide Emissions By 2050 Requires A New Nuclear Power Plant Every Day
[Author describes the problem using] units called “million tons of oil equivalent” or mtoe. In 2018 the world consumed 11,743 mtoe in the form of coal, natural gas and petroleum. The combustion of these fossil fuels resulted in 33.7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. In order for those emissions to reach net-zero, we will have to replace about 12,000 mtoe of energy consumption expected for 2019. (I ignore so-called negative emissions technologies, which do not presently exist at scale.) Another useful number to know is that there are 11,051 days left until January 1, 2050. To achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions globally by 2050 thus requires the deployment of >1 mtoe of carbon-free energy consumption (~12,000 mtoe/11,051 days) every day, starting tomorrow and continuing for the next 30+ years. Achieving net-zero also requires the corresponding equivalent decommissioning of more than 1 mtoe of energy consumption from fossil fuels every single day ... The amount of energy reflected in 1 mtoe is approximated by that produced by the Turkey Point nuclear plant over a year. So the math here is simple: to achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, the world would need to deploy 3 Turkey Point nuclear plants worth of carbon-free energy every two days, starting tomorrow and continuing to 2050. At the same time, a Turkey Point nuclear plant worth of fossil fuels would need to be decommissioned every day, starting tomorrow and continuing to 2050 .. [alternatively] we can substitute wind energy as a measuring stick. Net-zero carbon dioxide by 2050 would require the deployment of ~1500 wind turbines (2.5 MW) over ~300 square miles, every day starting tomorrow and continuing to 2050.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerpielke/2019/09/30/net-zero-carbon-dioxide-emissions-by-2050-requires-a-new-nuclear-power-plant-every-day/#5c6794de35f7Poppies, dandelions and daisies bloom in never before seen Arctic oases
‘Blooming’ might be the last word to associate with the Arctic, yet pictures below show meadows bursting with life as brightly-coloured flowers blossom in lush green grass. And while vegetation in khasyreis, basins of drained Arctic lakes, is less of a surprise, researchers discovered ‘bursts of life’ next to a residential settlement where permafrost ice veins were broken when people dug sand pits. The photographed area is 70th parallel north - with a distance to North Pole of only 1043 miles - where Russia has its northernmost residential settlements of Western Siberia. There, in bleak Arctic tundra summer-2019 expedition organised by Tomsk State University found oases of rich vegetation formed in places of actively thawing permafrost.
http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/poppies-dandelions-and-daisies-bloom-in-never-before-seen-arctic-oases/Researchers investigate dramatic melt of glaciers in Peru
The study, published September 30, 2019 in the journal The Cryosphere, used satellite data to measure the changes in glaciers across the Peruvian Andes Mountains between 2000 and 2016. The researchers identified a glacial retreat of 29% for the period – an area roughly equivalent to 80,000 soccer fields.
https://earthsky.org/earth/disappearing-peruvian-glaciersSwiss glaciers shrink ten percent in five years
Switzerland's glaciers have lost a tenth of their volume in the past five years alone -- a melting rate unmatched during observations stretching back more than a century, a study showed Tuesday. Measurements on 20 Swiss glaciers have shown that melt rates this year have reached "record levels", according to the annual study on the state of the glaciers, published by the Cryospheric Commission at the Swiss Academy of Sciences. The study, released amid growing global alarm over climate change, found that intense heatwaves over the summer in Switzerland had dashed hopes that an exceptionally snow-filled winter would limit the glacier melt this year.
https://www.thelocal.ch/20191015/swiss-glaciers-shrink-10-percent-in-five-years-study‘Witnessing extinction in the flames’ as the Amazon burns for agribusiness
The vast and biodiverse Triunfo do Xingu protected area in the Brazilian Amazon lost 22 percent of its forest cover between 2007 and 2018, with figures this year indicating the rate of deforestation is accelerating ... The surge in deforestation, driven largely by cattle ranching, is part of a wider trend of encroachment into protected areas across the Brazilian Amazon under the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro, according to conservationists ... Most of those who have been clearing land in recent months are doing so without the licensing needed to legally develop the territory for industrial activity, sources in the region say. They also appear to be carving out chunks of forest that are far larger than what is permitted within the Triunfo do Xingu area under its protected status.
https://news.mongabay.com/2019/10/witnessing-extinction-in-the-flames-as-the-amazon-burns-for-agribusiness/In the Mountains, Climate Change Is Disrupting Everything, from How Water Flows to When Plants Flower
The melting of glaciers and loss of snow has a cascading effect for ecosystems, agriculture and billions of people downstream.
Mountain snowpack is shrinking and melting earlier in the spring. Warmer and longer summers dry out vegetation and increase the threat of wildfires in western mountain forests, where the fire season has lengthened by at least a month since 1979. The growing wildfire risk is just part of an accelerating cycle of global warming impacts in the world's mountain regions ... global warming impacts represent an existential threat to millions of people in the Andes, the Himalaya, the European Alps, and the U.S. Mountain West ... With continued high emissions, the glaciers will all but vanish ... 2019 study showed that the fivefold increase in the extent of California's wildfires since the 1970s was "very likely driven by drying of fuels promoted by human‐induced warming."
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07102019/mountain-climate-change-disruption-glaciers-water-ecosystems-agriculture-plants-foodIndigenous farming practices failing as climate change disrupts seasons
Climate change is upending millions of people’s lives, yet few communities are seeing their crops and worldviews crumble quite like those that rely on indigenous weather forecasting. Dependent in many cases on millennia-old trial and error, as well as analyses of the landscape to gauge planting cycles, their fields are withering as the conditions on which the calendars are predicated change. Without that accumulated wisdom to fall back on—bird migrations, wind direction, stars, and more—farmers are feeling particularly defenseless just as other consequences of climate change complicate their lives ... Until 20 years ago, this calendar was “almost perfect,” says Ismail Elgizouli, a Sudanese scientist and former acting chair of the UN’s Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But now “due to climate change there is variability from one year to another.”
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/10/climate-change-killing-thousands-of-years-indigenous-wisdom/Humans Are Disturbing Earth's Carbon Cycle More Than the Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Did
This striking finding comes from a suite of papers published today (Oct. 1) in the journal Elements, authored by several teams of researchers from the Deep Carbon Observatory ... As the asteroid plowed into Earth with billions of times the energy of an atomic bomb, shock waves from the blast triggered earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and wildfires, possibly ejecting as much as 1,400 gigatons (that's 1,400 billion tons) of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere ... Still, even the highest estimated Chicxulub-related CO2 emissions are less than the cumulative, ongoing emissions associated with man-made climate change. Those emissions, the researchers wrote, amount to about 2,000 gigatons of CO2 pumped into the sky since the year 1750. It almost goes without saying at this point that, due to a failure to take meaningful global climate action, man-made emissions are still increasing every year.
https://www.livescience.com/anthropogenic-warming-like-dinosaur-killing-asteroid.htmlClimate change will hit Mediterranean hard and fast, study says
Temperatures in the region have risen by 1.5 degrees Celsius from the preindustrial period, above the global average [rise] of 1.1 degrees Celsius, according to the study. By 2040, temperatures are forecast to rise in the region by 2.2 degrees Celsius ... Droughts will become “more frequent and/or more intense” ... with a fall in rainfall of up to 30 percent in some areas ... “The inevitable calamities of climate change are looming across the Mediterranean at a faster rate than we thought”
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/10/11/world/science-health-world/climate-change-will-hit-mediterranean-hard-fast-study-says/Sea 'Boiling' With Methane Discovered In Siberia: 'No One Has Ever Recorded Anything Like This Before'
Researchers on an expedition to the East Siberian Sea said the "methane fountain" was unlike anything they had seen before ... With global temperatures increasing, scientists are concerned the warming will result in more permafrost thawing, causing more methane to be released, leading to even more warming. This is known as a positive feedback loop ... Methane levels around the fountain were nine times higher than average global concentrations. The following day they found another methane fountain.
https://www.newsweek.com/methane-boiling-sea-discovered-siberia-1463766Current climate change was predicted 40 years ago
Forty years ago, a group of renowned scientists anticipated the recent changing trend in our planet’s climate record. Using the increasing concentration values of gases such as carbon dioxide, they were able to come up with a fairly close approximation of what our climate would be like today [and] would become a starting point for a myriad of research projects relating to changing greenhouse gas concentrations and climate change ... the Charney Report would become a clear example of how to conduct rigorous science. First examining the physics and chemistry behind the phenomena studied, then presenting a hypothesis of the problem and, finally, based on their scientific knowledge, making predictions ... Over the last 40 years [Earth] has been warming up at a rate similar to what Charney and his colleagues anticipated.
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/news/article/current-climate-change-was-predicted-40-years-agoDying Salmon, Wildfires, Heat Waves, Vanishing Ice: In Alaska, Climate Change Is Impossible to Ignore
July was Alaska’s hottest month in recorded history, thanks in part to that torrid heat wave. March through August? The state’s warmest six-month period, with temperatures hovering 6.4 degrees F above long-term averages. From vanished sea ice to skies choked with wildfire smoke to animals appearing where they shouldn’t or not appearing where they should, the impacts of a fast-warming climate were visible everywhere residents looked. “I have just felt overwhelmed trying to keep up with everything this year,” said Rick Thoman, a climate scientist with the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy who co-authored a report in August summarizing the environmental changes unfolding across the state. “It’s been running from one fire to another, almost literally.” ... Across the North Slope, shorelines are eroding as warm ocean waters gnaw away at thawing permafrost bluffs ... Fires torched some 2.6 million acres across the state this year ... Big years like it are occurring far more often than they used to.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/dying-salmon-wildfires-heat-waves-vanishing-ice-in-alaska-climate-change-is-impossible-to-ignore-896284/Record power shutoffs in California are set to become the new normal
Amid fierce winds and dry conditions, the utility company that services more than a third of California will cut power to an unprecedented swath of the state as a preventative measure against wildfires. And with Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) at fault for two of the deadliest wildfires in California’s history in just the past two years, major power shutoffs are set to become a new normal ... PG&E will shut off power to portions of 34 of the state’s 58 counties [for up to a week], affecting almost 800,000 homes and businesses. The preventative shutoff will not be the first the utility has undertaken this year, but it will be the largest ... PG&E declared bankruptcy in January, in part because of potential liabilities from its role in some of the 2017 northern California fires and the 2018 Camp fire that killed a total of 129 people and destroyed tens of thousands of homes.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/08/california-pge-power-shutdown-wildfireSomething strange is happening to Greenland's ice sheet
As the ice slabs continue to spread, the study’s authors predict more and more of Greenland’s surface will become a “runoff zone,” boosting the ice sheet’s contribution to global sea level rise ... “We're watching an ice sheet rapidly transform its state in front of our eyes, which is terrifying,” says lead study author Mike MacFerrin ... “Every handful of years, these big melt summers are doing a number on the firn ... causing this whole process to grow inland pretty quickly.” ... study highlights the fact that the more carbon we spew into the atmosphere, the more we’re likely to transform Earth’s northern ice sheet in insidious and unexpected ways. And that could have consequences that are difficult to anticipate. “We have never observed an ice sheet behaving this way before,” Poinar says. “It’s unprecedented in human scientific history.”
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/09/greenland-ice-getting-denser-thats-bad/We’re About to Become People Fighting Desperately For Survival on a Dying Planet
Climate change, mass extinction, skyrocketing inequality, global economic stagnation, elites totally out of touch with what to do about it, and fascists, authoritarians, and extremists, of every stripe rising in the void, from America to Brazil to India to China. It’s not a pretty picture. And yet one of the great challenges in this grim, dystopian we face — at least a challenge for those of us who wish to be sensible, thoughtful, decent people — as invisible as it is demanding. Can our empathy survive? What about our decency? ... People fighting desperately for survival [will] be approximately 99% of humanity in the near future ... We will become something much more like little packs of desperate wolves, howling in the endless night, searching for something — anything — to consume ... And the snarls and the silence are all that’s left of the people we once were.
https://eand.co/were-about-to-become-people-fighting-desperately-fighting-for-survival-on-a-dying-planet-and-81685d46ee8eClimate crisis: Italian beekeepers suffer 'worst honey harvest ever'
Unusual weather driven by climate change is wreaking havoc on bee populations across Europe, including in Italy where the pollinating insects crucial to food production are struggling to survive ... "a harvest almost halved" ... bitter blend of increased pesticide use, falling prices due to foreign competition and climate change - which affects whole ecosystems, including bees and plants ... Beekeepers in Italy have seen "repeated poor harvests over the past seven years" ... Bees are also being poisoned by pesticides while increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere affect nectar production.
https://www.thelocal.it/20191004/climate-crisis-italian-beekeepers-suffer-worst-honey-harvest-everBiodiversity collapse in UK continues
More than two-fifths of UK species including animals, birds and butterflies have seen significant declines in recent decades, a major study shows ... Thousands of acres of habitats are being lost to development ... Data on nearly 700 species of land, freshwater and sea animals, fish, birds, butterflies and moths reveals that 41 percent have seen populations decline since 1970.
https://theecologist.org/2019/oct/04/biodiversity-collapse-uk-continuesRiver flows all across the globe are dropping
[M]ore than half of watersheds where groundwater is pumped out may see river flow drop, according to the study, published in the journal Nature ... "[W]hen you pump groundwater, you actually may be pumping water from tributary streams that would otherwise go into surface water, bodies, rivers and so on" ... threshold has already been eclipsed in as much as 21 percent of watersheds where pumping is common (about half of watersheds overall) ... a relatively small amount of water withdrawal from an aquifer - as little as a half-meter - can lead to stream loss ... current water policies don't provide much hope that this new threat will be quickly addressed ... The worst news, however, is that groundwater depletion rates and surface impact estimates "are likely to be optimistic," the authors say, "as they do not take into account projected increases in groundwater demand."
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/River-flows-all-across-the-globe-are-dropping-14494573.phpUrgency of climate change may be understated in intergovernmental panel report, expert says
"In almost every ocean basin in which hurricanes and typhoons occur, the largest and strongest ones ever recorded have occurred since 2012. One of the things the new IPCC ocean and cryosphere report emphasized very powerfully is that, in many parts of the world, previously once-per-century extreme sea level events are now going to occur every year by 2050. We're going to have 100-year storms every year ... possibility that we will get to the point where the thawing permafrost is emitting enormous quantities of both carbon dioxide and methane. We know the permafrost contains 2-and-a-half times as much carbon as is now in the atmosphere ... The difficulty in a problem like climate change is the time lag. By the time there are dead bodies in the street, you're already way down the road. At any given time, we're not experiencing everything that we're already committed to. That causes policymakers and publics to underestimate how bad it is ... it'll get a lot less bad if we take action than if we don't ... a vastly better world than business as usual, where, by the turn of this century, you get to 4 or 4.5 degrees C."
https://phys.org/news/2019-10-urgency-climate-understated-intergovernmental-panel.htmlUnited Nations Scientists Say They Underestimated the Rate at Which the Climate Is Changing
In a new report, the scientists say they underestimated the rate at which the climate is changing. For example, while ocean temperatures have been warming at least since 1970, for the past 25 years they’ve warmed twice as fast. As a result, sea level rise has accelerated far more quickly than previously thought. “I’m hoping this is a real wakeup call,” said Robert DeConto, a professor of geosciences at UMass-Amherst and lead author of the report. “We don’t have too many wakeup calls left.”
https://www.capeandislands.org/post/united-nations-scientists-say-they-underestimated-rate-which-climate-changingRadical warming in Siberia leaves millions on unstable ground
Siberia has warmed up faster than almost anywhere else on Earth. Scientists say the planet's warming must not exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius — but Siberia's temperatures have already spiked far beyond that ... an enormous wedge of eastern Siberia called Yakutia, has warmed by more than 3 degrees Celsius since preindustrial times — roughly triple the global average. The permafrost that once sustained farming — and upon which villages and cities are built — is in the midst of a great thaw, blanketing the region with swamps, lakes and odd bubbles of earth ... Rivers are rising and running faster, and entire neighborhoods are falling into them. Arable land for farming has plummeted by more than half ... And then there’s that rotting smell. As the permafrost thaws, animals and plants frozen for thousands of years begin to decompose and send a steady flow of carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere — accelerating climate change. “The permafrost is thawing so fast,” said Anna Liljedahl, an associate professor at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. “We scientists can’t keep up anymore.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/climate-environment/climate-change-siberia/'We're all in big trouble': Climate panel sees a dire future
Sea levels are rising at an ever-faster rate as ice and snow shrink, and oceans are getting more acidic and losing oxygen [IPCC] said in a report issued as world leaders met at the United Nations ... The dire effects will be felt on both land and sea, harming people, plants, animals, food, societies, infrastructure and the global economy ... IPCC requires that its reports be unanimously approved. Because of that, its reports tend to show less sea level rise and smaller harm than other scientific studies, outside experts said. "Like many of the past reports, this one is conservative in the projections" said NASA oceanographer Josh Willis, who studies Greenland ice melt and wasn't part of the report. Willis said people should be prepared for a rise in sea levels to be twice these IPCC projections.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/science/article/New-climate-report-Oceans-rising-faster-ice-14466153.phpScientists Have Been Underestimating the Pace of Climate Change
Consistent underestimation is a form of bias—in the literal meaning of a systematic tendency to lean in one direction or another—which raises the question: what is causing this bias in scientific analyses of the climate system? The question is significant for two reasons. First, climate skeptics and deniers have often accused scientists of exaggerating the threat of climate change, but the evidence shows that not only have they not exaggerated, they have underestimated ... three factors—the push for univocality, the belief that conservatism is socially and politically protective, and the reluctance to make estimates at all when the available data are contradictory—can lead to “least common denominator'' results—minimalist conclusions that are weak or incomplete.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/scientists-have-been-underestimating-the-pace-of-climate-change/Florida Just Got a Sneak Peek of Coming Attractions in the Climate Crisis
Higher sea levels threaten the systems that carry wastewater away from more than one in five households in the United States, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. These homes use septic tanks that rely on dry soil to work properly ... problem is particularly acute for Florida, which has 2.6 million septic systems ... phenomenon in question is called "king tides" ... Manholes become geysers and street flooding becomes deadly. They have nothing to do necessarily with rain—they can occur in bright sunshine—and they are exacerbated by rising sea levels ... According to NOAA, king tides provide a glimpse of future average water levels as sea levels continue to rise ... There also has been flooding in Houston and all over the upper midwest. Houston’s challenge reflects the dilemma facing cities everywhere: As the climate changes, disasters aren’t just becoming more severe, but also more frequent. So even as the amount of damage increases, governments and residents have less time to repair before the next storm hits.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a29343121/florida-king-tide-climate-change-sea-levels-septic-tanks/India bans onion exports after monsoon rains damage crops and prices soar
India banned the export of onions after excessive rainfall damaged crops and reduced harvest, which sent prices soaring ... India is one of the top exporters of onions globally ... The government has tried to bring down domestic prices by releasing supplies from its national buffer stocks. It also set a minimum export price on onion shipments earlier in September at a level it had hoped would discourage foreign buyers.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/02/india-economy-modi-government-bans-onion-exports-after-prices-soar.html'The Most Horrible Drought in Memory'
Detailed meteorological information about the region is available from the branch office of the [Zambia] Agricultural Ministry ... "Ten years ago, we produced about 60,000 tons of corn. In 2019, it is only a measly 5,000 tons" ... A study by South Africa's Environment Ministry found that the subcontinent is at the frontlines of global climate change. In the interior of South Africa, the study found, the temperature is already 2 degrees Celsius higher than it was 100 years ago. In neighboring Botswana, the temperature is even 3 degrees Celsius higher -- the greatest change that has been registered in the southern hemisphere.
https://www.spiegel.de/international/globalsocieties/zambia-drought-increases-risk-of-famine-a-1288843.htmlOcean ecosystems take two million years to recover after mass extinction
Given the real threat of a sixth mass extinction event brought about by human-caused climate breakdown and habitat disruption, we wanted to find out how long the ocean ecosystem took to reboot after the last one ... fossil data revealed that the plant-like, photosynthetic plankton [recovered] probably within a few thousand years after the mass extinction. However, the earliest communities were highly unstable and made up of just a handful of species with unusually small cell sizes ... Communities with larger cell sizes were not reestablished until two million years later, restoring their critical transfer of carbon to the ocean floor to pre-extinction levels.
https://phys.org/news/2019-09-ocean-ecosystems-million-years-recover.htmlWater shortages in Alaska are the latest indicator of climate change
The US Drought monitor lists most of the southern part of Alaska as being in abnormally dry conditions to an extreme drought ... [in] Seldovia the community reservoir held enough water for only 16 days ... The aquifer in Chignik Lagoon ran out of water this summer ... this summer, Anchorage reached 90 degrees Fahrenheit, an all time heat record for the city. This is part of June being the hottest month ever in Alaska’s recorded history ... Experts estimate Alaska is warming 2.5 times faster than the lower 48 US states ... the droughts are also speeding up climate change by creating drier conditions and allowing fires to burn longer ... a preview of what climate change might mean for the rest of the US: less water, more fire.
https://www.earth.com/news/water-shortages-alaska/Thousands of meltwater lakes mapped on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet
A study led by Durham University, working with researchers from Lancaster University, discovered more than 65,000 supraglacial lakes using high-resolution satellite imagery covering five million square kilometres of the ice sheet ... The study shows that meltwater lakes are forming in most coastal areas of the ice sheet, suggesting that East Antarctica could be more susceptible to the effects of a warming climate than previously thought.
https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/thousands-of-meltwater-lakes-mapped-on-the-east-antarctic-ice-sheet
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-50343-5.epdfRapid accelerations of Antarctic Peninsula outlet glaciers driven by surface melt
Atmospheric warming is increasing surface melting across the Antarctic Peninsula ... we show that drainage of surface meltwater to the bed of outlet glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula occurs and triggers rapid ice flow accelerations (up to 100% greater than the annual mean).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12039-2A Hidden, Radioactive Heat Source Seems to Be Melting East Antarctica From Below
[A] new study suggests there's a big source of geothermal heat underneath East Antarctica that we haven't yet factored into our calculations. Ice in this area appears to be melting from the bottom up ... in July scientists announced they had spotted what could be yet another volcanic heat source underneath Antarctica, this time beneath the Pine Island Glacier ... next step is working out how these hot rocks could influence the ice shifts of the future.
https://www.sciencealert.com/a-mysterious-geothermal-heat-source-is-melting-antarctica-from-below
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-35182-0In All of Human History, We Haven't Lived With The Kind of Atmosphere We Have Today
New research on ancient soil has now confirmed that carbon dioxide levels in the past sixty years are the highest we've experienced in all of human history. Throughout the entire Pleistocene era - which started 2,580,000 years ago - the authors found concentrations of CO2 were, on average, roughly 250 parts per million. Yet in the past sixty years or so, that consistency has appeared to rapidly unravel. Today, the findings suggest, our planet has reached 415 ppm for the first time in 2.5 million years ... The findings were published in Nature Communications.
https://www.sciencealert.com/in-all-of-human-history-we-haven-t-lived-with-the-kind-of-atmosphere-we-have-today
see also https://today.tamu.edu/2019/09/25/humankind-did-not-live-with-a-high-carbon-dioxide-atmosphere-until-1965
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12357-5#Sec8Oceans and ice are absorbing the brunt of climate change
The ocean has [absorbed] over 90 percent of the extra heat trapped in the atmosphere by excess greenhouse gases since the 1970s and somewhere between 20 to 30 percent of the carbon dioxide. That means water has buffered land-dwellers against the worst effects of climate change; without it, the atmosphere would have heated up much more than the average of 1 degree it already has ... But the ocean’s buffering influence has come at a cost, with a fingerprint that is becoming ever clearer to scientists and anyone else paying attention to the natural world. “The payback from oceans taking up all that heat is enormous”.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/09/ipcc-report-climate-change-affecting-ocean-ice/Drought-hit Australian towns prepare for 'unimaginable' water crisis
“A lot of towns are forecast to run out at the same time – and then where do you get the water from?” he said, referring to an area that is home to some 180,000 people. It is part of a much bigger problem in a country unused to widespread financial hardship; Australia has enjoyed growth for a generation yet livelihoods are now at risk from drought worsened by climate change, a predicament more familiar to developing countries. Parts of northern and inland New South Wales, along with southern Queensland, have been in drought since 2016 ... Sydney’s biggest dam, Warragamba, has dropped to 50%, after almost being at capacity less than three years ago.
https://nationalpost.com/pmn/environment-pmn/drought-hit-australian-towns-prepare-for-unimaginable-water-crisis-2Winter storms are speeding up the loss of Arctic sea ice
Arctic sea ice is already disappearing rapidly but our research shows winter storms are now further accelerating sea ice loss ... heat from the storms warms up the air, snow and ice, slowing down the growth of the ice. Moisture from the storms falls as snow on the ice. After the storm, the blanket of snow insulates the ice from the cold air, further slowing the growth of the ice for the remainder of winter. The strong winds during the storms push the ice around and break it into pieces, making it more fragile and deforming it, more like a boulder field. The strong winds also stir the ocean below the ice, mixing up warmer water from deeper waters to the surface where it melts the ice from below ... The broken up and deformed ice drifts faster, reaching warmer waters where it melts sooner and faster [thus] winter storms precondition the ice to a faster melt in the following spring with an impact that continues well into the following season ... Arctic winter storms are increasing in frequency and this is likely due to climate change. With the thinner Arctic sea ice cover and shallower warmer water in the Arctic Ocean, the mechanisms we observed during the winter storms will likely strengthen and the overall impact of winter storms on Arctic ice is likely to increase in the future.
https://theconversation.com/winter-storms-are-speeding-up-the-loss-of-arctic-sea-ice-121105
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-45574-5Revealed: hundreds of migrant workers dying of heat stress in Qatar each year
[H]undreds of thousands of migrant workers toiled in temperatures of up to 45C for up to 10 hours a day ... a huge strain on the human cardiovascular system, with extreme heat stress leading to fatal heart attacks ... recent research published in the Cardiology Journal by a group of leading climatologists and cardiologists concluded that the deaths were likely to be caused by heatstroke ... [wetbulb] reading of 28C and above is internationally accepted as the point at which the human body is dangerously affected ... “As global temperatures rise because of the climate crisis, the health risk posed by heat stress will have devastating health consequences for millions, yet is still not being seen as the emergency that it is,” says Professor Tord Kjellstrom, a consultant on environmental and occupational health for the United Nations and co-author of the Cardiology Journal report.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/oct/02/revealed-hundreds-of-migrant-workers-dying-of-heat-stress-in-qatar-each-yearGoldman Sachs released a 34-page analysis of the impact of climate change. And the results are terrifying.
The bank's Global Markets Institute, led by Amanda Hindlian, warned of "significant" potential risks to the world's largest cities, which are especially vulnerable to more frequent storms, higher temperatures, rising sea levels, and storm surges ... Goldman's researchers said that when starting the study they took a broad consensus that human activity, namely emission of greenhouse gasses "is causing the earth to warm in ways that are affecting the climate." Natural ecosystems would be damaged, and risks to human health would rise, as well as pressures on food and drinking water. Agriculture would also be massively affected: "Warmer temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns could reduce yields and nutritional quality as well change growing seasons and agricultural zones around the world."
https://www.businessinsider.nl/goldman-sachs-climate-change-threatens-new-york-tokyo-lagos-cities-2019-9/The past, present and future of climate change
[The] explosion of fossil-fuel use is inseparable from everything else which made the 20th century unique in human history ... a report prepared by America’s Presidential Science Advisory Committee in 1965 marks the first time that politicians were made directly aware of the likely climate impact of all this ... At present further warming is certain, whatever the world does about its emissions. This is in part because, just as a pan of water takes time to boil when the gas below is lit, so the world’s mean temperature is taking time to respond to the heating imposed by the sky above. It is also because what matters is the total amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, not the rate at which it increases. Lowering annual emissions merely slows the rate at which the sky’s heating effect gets stronger ... Thus, in its simplest form, the 21st century’s supertanker-U-turn challenge: reversing the 20-fold increase in emissions the 20th century [and] doing it all while expanding the economy enough to meet the needs and desires of a population which may well be half again as large by 2100 as it is today ... climate negotiators of the world have, over the past decade, increasingly come to depend on the idea of “negative emissions”. Instead of not putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at all, put it in and take it out later. Unfortunately, technologies capable of delivering negative emissions of billions of tonnes a year for reasonable prices over decades do not exist.
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2019/09/21/the-past-present-and-future-of-climate-changeAlaska's sea ice has completely melted away
The most rapidly changing state in the U.S. has no sea ice within some 150 miles of its shores, according to high-resolution sea ice analysis from the National Weather Service. The big picture is clear: After an Arctic summer with well above-average temperatures, warmer seas, and a historic July heat wave, sea ice has vanished in Alaskan waters ..."This is definitely an extreme year — even by more recent standards in a changed Arctic," noted Walt Walt Meier, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center ... "I’m losing the ability to communicate the magnitude ... I’m running out of adjectives to describe the scope of change we’re seeing."
https://mashable.com/article/alaska-sea-ice-melt-2019Extreme sea level events ‘will hit once a year by 2050’
Extreme sea level events that used to occur once a century will strike every year on many coasts by 2050, no matter whether climate heating emissions are curbed or not, according to a landmark report by the world’s scientists. The stark assessment of the climate crisis in the world’s oceans and ice caps concludes that many serious impacts are already inevitable, from more intense storms to melting permafrost and dwindling marine life. The report from [PCC] and approved by its 193 member nations, says that “all people on Earth depend directly or indirectly on the ocean” and ice caps and glaciers to regulate the climate and provide water and oxygen. But it finds unprecedented and dangerous changes being driven by global heating.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/25/extreme-sea-level-events-will-hit-once-a-year-by-2050From Antarctica to the Oceans, Climate Change Damage Is About to Get a Lot Worse, IPCC Warns
The changes are happening faster than many scientists expected to see, and they're often intricately connected, with cascading effects that can ripple through ecosystems. As global temperatures rise, time is running out ... glaciers and sea ice melt, snowpack declines and permafrost thaws ... oceans have absorbed 90 percent of the excess heat and about a quarter of the carbon dioxide from human activities, leading to greater acidification ... [the researchers] found interconnections and a magnitude of change that hadn't been as clear before ... More than a billion people live in areas that the report focuses on, but climate change impacts to the oceans and cryosphere will have much wider reach ... "It's bad, and it's going to get much, much worse—that's the bottom line."
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25092019/ipcc-cryosphere-ocean-report-climate-change-sea-level-rise-greenland-antarctica2050 is too late – we must drastically cut emissions much sooner
Even if we assume a straight-line reduction to zero emissions in 2050, we would still generate a carbon overdraft approximately three times our allowable budget. In fact, the latest date by which we could draw a straight line from our current level of emissions to zero and still remain within the budget would be 2025 ... It is dangerously misleading for advanced nations to set target dates as far out as 2050. Doing so ignores the importance of staying within a fair carbon budget and gives a false impression that action can be delayed.
https://theconversation.com/2050-is-too-late-we-must-drastically-cut-emissions-much-sooner-121512Mont Blanc glacier could collapse at any moment, Italy warns
A staggering 250,000 cubic meters (8.8 million cubic feet) of ice could break away from the Planpincieux glacier on the Grandes Jorasses mountain in the Mont Blanc massif, experts at the Valle d'Aosta regional government and the Fondazione Montagna Sicura (Safe Mountain Foundation) reported in an analysis published this week ... "These phenomena once again show that the mountain is going through a phase of strong change due to climatic factors, therefore it is particularly vulnerable," Stefano Miserocchi, mayor of nearby Courmayeur, said in a statement.
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/mont-blanc-glacier-collapse-intl-scli/index.htmlFuel To The Fire
How a US law intended to reduce dependence on fossil fuels has unleashed an environmental disaster in Indonesia
NASA researchers say the accelerated destruction of Borneo’s forests contributed to the largest single-year global increase in carbon emissions in two millenniums, an explosion that transformed Indonesia into the world’s fourth-largest source of such emissions. Instead of creating a clever technocratic fix to reduce American’s carbon footprint, lawmakers had lit the fuse on a powerful carbon bomb that, as the forests were cleared and burned, produced more carbon than the entire continent of Europe.
https://features.propublica.org/palm-oil/palm-oil-biofuels-ethanol-indonesia-peatland/What all Climate Models are failing to predict: The increasingly likely Mad Max scenario
Let’s just be honest with ourselves. Climate Change mitigation isn’t going very well. In fact, it is a joke. At a time when society should be making Herculean efforts to reorganise our very economies, something already a bit of an ambitious fantasy given our previous record, we want to make things even harder for ourselves: we take a Herculean leap backwards by burning the Amazon. The climate mitigation models, which give us 10 years to make significant changes, are not factoring in one huge variable in their complicated algorithms: the “looney” factor. There are far too many crazies in power to be able to predict a safe, unhindered path to mitigation that is actually doable and realistic.
https://medium.com/@george.gpt/what-all-climate-models-are-failing-to-predict-the-increasingly-likely-mad-max-scenario-f29c818bd01aVenus Could Have Supported Life for Billions of Years, Says Study
The study presented last week at the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC-DPS), showed that Venus contained water and maintained moderate temperatures for 2-3 billion years. The scientists hypothesise that the stable climate of Venus with an Earth-like carbonate-silicate cycle was disrupted around 750 million years ago by a global resurfacing event. Resurfacing refers to intense volcanic activity across the globe where lava covers most of the planet's surface. Astronomers say that the habitable conditions for 2-3 billion years are long enough for life to emerge.
https://weather.com/en-IN/india/science/news/2019-09-23-venus-could-have-supported-life-billions-years-nasa-study
see also https://www.space.com/planet-venus-could-have-supported-life.htmlIntrepid scientists witness final days of Venezuelan glacier
As their country falls apart, a hardy team of scientists in Venezuela is determined to transcend the political and economic turmoil to record what happens as the country's last glacier vanishes ... Scientists say Venezuela will be the first country in South America to lose all its glaciers.
https://www.dailyherald.com/article/20190924/news/309249997Communities in Ethiopia's Somali Region face chronic drought linked to climate change
The Somali Region has suffered from chronic drought for several years, with the worst stretch recorded in 2016, from which many households have yet to recover ... "Our research has strongly suggested that climate change has contributed to this decline [in rainfall]," research geographer Chris Funk from the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) told DW. "FEWS NET research has advanced a clear causal explanation linking warming in the Western Pacific to increased rainfall near Indonesia and disruptions in the East African long rains."
https://www.dw.com/en/communities-in-ethiopias-somali-region-face-chronic-drought-linked-to-climate-change/a-50551806‘Worse Than Anyone Expected’: Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions
Greenhouse gas emissions from commercial air travel are growing at a faster clip than predicted in previous, already dire, projections, according to new research ... The United Nations aviation body forecast that airplane emissions of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, will reach just over 900 million metric tons in 2018, and then triple by 2050 ...[but] emissions from global air travel may be increasing more than 1.5 times as fast as the U.N. estimate. The researchers analyzed nearly 40 million flights around the world last year ... one study found that the rapid growth in plane emissions could mean that by 2050, aviation could take up a quarter of the world’s “carbon budget,” or the amount of carbon dioxide emissions permitted to keep global temperature rise to within 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels ... Underlying the growth in aviation emissions is the rapid expansion of air travel worldwide.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/climate/air-travel-emissions.htmlCountries must triple climate emission cut targets to limit global heating to 2C
An assessment backed by the world’s major climate science bodies has found commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions must be at least tripled and increased by up to fivefold if the world is to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris climate agreement ... current plans would lead to a rise in average global temperatures of between 2.9C and 3.4C by 2100, a shift likely to bring catastrophic change across the globe ... The report says many of the changes linked to the temperature rise, including long-lasting heatwaves, record-breaking wildfires, declining sea ice and glaciers, cyclones, floods and drought, have hit sooner and harder than predicted a decade ago.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/23/countries-must-triple-climate-emissions-targets-to-limit-global-heating-to-2c
see also https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49773869New feedback phenomenon found to drive increasing drought and aridity
A new Columbia Engineering study indicates that the world will experience more frequent and more extreme drought and aridity than currently experienced [and] that land-atmosphere feedbacks would further intensify concurrent soil drought and atmospheric aridity in a warmer climate. The study was published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) ... "we are finding stronger coupling between drought and aridity than between drought and heatwaves," says Sha Zhou, the study's lead author and a postdoc working with Gentine. "Concurrent drought and aridity also have a stronger impact on the carbon cycle and so we felt this was a critical point to study." The team discovered that the feedback of soil drought on the atmosphere is largely responsible for increasing the frequency and intensity of atmospheric aridity. In addition, the soil moisture-precipitation feedback contributes to more frequent extreme low precipitation and soil moisture conditions in most regions.
https://phys.org/news/2019-09-feedback-phenomenon-drought-aridity.html
reporting on a study at https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1904955116Pizol glacier: Swiss hold funeral for ice lost to global warming
A Swiss glacier lost to global warming has been commemorated at a memorial service in the Alps. Dozens of people took part in Sunday's "funeral march" to mark the disappearance of the Pizol glacier. The glacier, in the Glarus Alps of northeastern Switzerland, has shrunk to a tiny fraction of its original size. Scientists say the glacier has lost at least 80% of its volume just since 2006, a trend accelerated by rising global temperatures ... a study by Swiss researchers suggests that, by 2050, at least half of Switzerland's glaciers could vanish. The Pizol has diminished to such an extent, "from a scientific perspective it is no longer a glacier"
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49788483
see also https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/glacier-funeral-switzerland-pivol-climate-change-global-warming-a9116046.htmlSurface melting causes Antarctic glaciers to slip faster towards the ocean, new research shows
The new research, published today in Nature Communications, shows that accelerations in Antarctic Peninsula glaciers' movements coincide with spikes in snowmelt. This association occurs because surface meltwater penetrates to the ice bed and lubricates glacier flow. The scientists expect that as temperatures continue to rise in the Antarctic, surface melting will occur more frequently and across a wider area, making it an important factor in determining the speed at which glaciers move towards the sea. Ultimately, they predict that glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula will behave like those in present-day Greenland and Alaska, where meltwater controls the size and timing of variations in glacier flow across seasons and years. The effects of such a major shift in Antarctic glacier melt on ice flow has not yet been incorporated into the models used to predict the future mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and its contribution to sea level rise.
https://phys.org/news/2019-09-surface-antarctic-glaciers-faster-ocean.htmlClimate emergency poses major threat to future global health, say top medics
The climate crisis represents the biggest threat to the future of global health over the next quarter of a century, according to a survey of top medical professionals. The vast majority of members of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, some of whom are responsible for significant discoveries in tropical diseases that plague poorer countries, believe governments and health bodies are failing to prepare adequately for the medical impacts of global heating. They also expressed concern that “misinformation and anti-science” posed a dangerous threat to the future of healthcare. Mass migration, new and emerging diseases, and the impact on health and nutrition of climate-ravaged food supplies were among the top concerns of Royal Society members when asked to predict global health challenges over the next 25 years.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/sep/20/climate-emergency-poses-major-threat-to-future-global-health-say-top-medics
reporting on a study at https://rstmh.org/sites/default/files/files/GlobalHealthReport.pdfUS and Canada have lost three billion birds since 1970
The US and Canada have lost more than one in four birds – a total of three billion – since 1970, culminating in what scientists who published a new study are calling a “widespread ecological crisis”. Researchers observed a 29% decline in bird populations across diverse groups and habitats – from songbirds such as meadowlarks to long-distance migratory birds such as swallows and backyard birds like sparrows. “Multiple, independent lines of evidence show a massive reduction in the abundance of birds,” said Ken Rosenberg, the study’s lead author and a senior scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and American Bird Conservancy ... The population losses are consistent with what scientists have counted among insects and amphibians. The study, published today in the journal Science, did not analyze the reason for the drop. But around the world, birds are thought to be dying more and having less success breeding largely because their habitats are being damaged and destroyed by agriculture and urbanization.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2019/sep/19/us-canada-bird-population-lossesNew climate models show that global warming will be faster than expected
New research suggests that the greenhouse gases we’re putting into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels will heat the planet more quickly than we assumed. By 2100 mean temperatures could rise 6.5 to 7.0 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels if carbon emissions continue unabated, according to two separate models from leading research centers in France ... The 6.5 to 7.0 degrees Celsius mark is two degrees higher than the equivalent scenario (SSP5) set out in [IPCC's] 2014 benchmark 5th Assessment Report. This difference in temperatures comes from refined predictions based on more complex and reliable climate scenarios.
https://www.zmescience.com/science/global-warming-faster-93252342/Temperatures Could Rise Up To 7 Degrees Celsius Above Pre-industrial Levels, Startling Study Shows
France's National Center for Scientific Research CNRS, the atomic energy commission CEA and weather office Meteo-France [showed that] average global temperatures could rise between 6 and 7 degrees Celsius (10.8 degrees to 12.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by 2100. That's far beyond the targets set in Paris at the COP 21 climate conference in 2015, when nations agreed to keep global temperature increase "well below" 2 degrees Celsius.
https://www.newsweek.com/climate-change-temperature-rise-seven-degrees-new-un-report-1459666French wines show hot dry years are now normal
[C]limate scientists and historians ... reconstructed the harvest dates for Burgundy – one of the most important wine regions of France – to highlight the dramatic change in global climate. Grapes in Burgundy are now picked 13 days earlier than the average for the last 664 years. And the advance in harvest dates has been dramatic: almost all since 1988 ... [Growers in Burgundy] each year collectively considered the growing conditions and imposed a date before which no grapes might be picked. And scientists from France, Germany and Switzerland report in the journal Climate of the Past that they worked through all surviving records to provide an accurate record of the harvest date ... “the 664-year-long [Burgundy] grape harvest date series demonstrates that outstanding hot and dry years in the past were outliers, while they have become the norm since transition to rapid warming in 1988,” they write.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/french-wines-show-hot-dry-years-are-now-normal/
reporting on a study at https://www.clim-past.net/15/1485/2019/As Bering Sea ice melts, Alaskans, scientists and Seattle’s fishing fleet witness changes ‘on a massive scale’
For two years, the Bering Sea has been largely without winter ice, a development scientists modeling the warming impacts of greenhouse-gas pollution from fossil fuels once forecast would not occur until 2050 ... The Bering Sea changes brought about by the lack of winter ice represent “the ecosystem of the future,” said Phyllis Stabeno, a Seattle-based oceanographer with the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory who has studied this body of water for 30 years ... industry officials are closely monitoring the science and some are wary as fishermen notice disconcerting changes. “Climate change is really in your face,” said Kevin Ganley, a Washington skipper with nearly 40 years’ experience.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/as-bering-sea-ice-melts-nature-is-changing-on-a-massive-scale-and-alaska-crab-pots-are-pulling-up-cod/Once-frigid Siberia is becoming less inhospitable to humans
Today, only about 27 per cent of Russia's total population lives in this cold, inhospitable region of the northern hemisphere. But in the future, rising temperatures will likely make this massive, 13 million square-kilometer region much more habitable than today ... the very low negative temperatures of the past are no longer the norm. The last decade has brought positive temperature anomalies to the entire region, month after month, year after year. This appears to be the new trend, and future climate scenarios point towards a much warmer Siberia, with average temperatures well above current values. A recent study published in Environmental Research Letters by a U.S.-Russian research team has shown the Siberian climate will be getting warmer consistently as the century progresses.
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/news/article/climate-change-making-siberia-more-habitableHow Long Before These Salmon Are Gone? ‘Maybe 20 Years’
Some 45,000 to 50,000 spring-summer Chinook spawned here in the 1950s. These days, the average is about 1,500 fish, and declining. And not just here: Native fish are in free-fall throughout the Columbia River basin, a situation so dire that many groups are urging the removal of four large dams to keep the fish from being lost. “The Columbia River was once the most productive wild Chinook habitat in the world ... now these fish have maybe four generations left before they are gone,” he said. “Maybe 20 years.” ... Before the 20th century, some 10 million to 16 million adult salmon and steelhead trout are thought to have returned annually to the Columbia River system.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/16/science/chinook-salmon-columbia.htmlThe Power of Fear in the Thawing Arctic
The Arctic had never been hotter in recorded history. Ice was gone from the Bering Sea months early, and on the tundra I knew so well from years on a dogsled, the uncanny warmth also left its mark ... How many years ahead is the peril? Twenty? Ten. They are the tracks of fear, scaled up, past being warning of personal harm. The eroding hills spell out danger at geological magnitude ... But what to do with this fear, both familiar and new, in its tremendous scale? The close instances of fear that schooled my first Arctic years taught me two things: Pay attention, and do not provoke. [But] burning fossil fuels at the current rate is a massive, continuous, accelerating provocation. And rather than retreating, humbled, we are collectively charging into the bush after the bear.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/09/arctic-circle-climate-change-fear/598195/‘Ecological grief’ grips scientists witnessing Great Barrier Reef’s decline
An emerging body of research shows that many people feel loss due to environmental degradation caused by global warming, a phenomenon called ‘ecological grief’. Although researchers are often on the front lines of ecosystem collapse, few studies have investigated the mental and emotional consequences of such work ... “It’s very challenging for researchers to maintain the appearance of being objective while showing that they care about the ecosystems they’re working on,” Suggett says. He thinks a lack of support networks for scientists struggling with the emotional effects of their work could also lead to feelings of isolation.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02656-8Arctic methane levels reach new heights
In August, methane levels above 2040 nmol mol-1 (ppb) were spotted by the Barrow Atmospheric Baseline Observatory, located eight kilometres east of the city of Utqiaġvik (formerly called Barrow) in Alaska. To spot methane levels breaking the 2000ppb mark so sharply in this fragile region is unprecedented ... consistent trend over the last ten years ... “This increase is very bad news for climate change as methane is such a strong climate forcer. Methane emissions are only around 3 per cent of those from carbon dioxide, on a kg basis, but are responsible for approximately a quarter of today’s anthropogenic warming”
https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2019/09/arctic-methane-levels-reach-new-heights-data-shows/It's Now Official: The Northern Hemisphere Just Endured The Hottest Summer on Record
The Northern Hemisphere just had its hottest summer on record since 1880, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data released Monday ... In addition, August was the world's second-hottest such month, according to both NOAA and NASA, with unusually hot conditions seen from pole to pole and across every ocean. What's remarkable about 2019′s record warmth is that it comes in the absence of a strong El Niño event in the tropical Pacific Ocean ... As global average temperatures continue to rise in response to increasing levels of human-produced greenhouse gases, it is becoming easier to exceed climate benchmarks even without strong El Niño events. For example, according to NOAA, the five hottest summers in the Northern Hemisphere have each occurred during the past five years.
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-northern-hemisphere-s-summer-just-obliterated-previous-heat-records-again36 different pesticides found in dead blue and great tits
[T]wo Belgian ngo’s are taken aback by the results of an extensive joint social citizen project into the cause of death of blue and great tits in [Belgium] ... “In total we detected 36 different pesticides in 95 tit nests. This is very alarming. Especially because the tits were 2 weeks old at most and had never been outside the nest. Not only did we find fungicides (used against fungi), we also detected herbicides (against weeds), insecticides (against insects) and biocides. It is highly remarkable that in 89 of the 95 researched nests we discovered DDT [banned since 1974] ... in almost every nest there were one or more pesticides present.”
https://www.sosmezen.be/2019/09/12/36-different-pesticides-found-in-dead-blue-and-great-tits/5th Straight Year of Alaska Seabird Die-Offs Blamed on Starvation Linked to Climate Change
"They are dying of starvation," Robb Kaler, a wildlife biologist and seabird specialist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Anchorage, told weather.com ... previous research has linked the rising number of bird deaths to climate change.
https://weather.com/science/nature/news/2019-09-12-alaska-seabirds-dying-starvationForest fires destroying vital buffer against climate change
With fierce blazes raging in jungles from the Amazon to Indonesia, concerns are mounting about the impact as rainforests play a vital role in protecting the planet against global warming. The latest serious outbreak is in Indonesia, where smog-belching fires started to clear land for agriculture are burning out of control, blanketing the region in toxic smog ... forests worldwide have been logged on an industrial-scale over the decades for timber and to make way for agricultural plantations. The burning of large expanses of trees also releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide ... Farmers and plantation owners are usually blamed for starting the fires as a quick and cheap way to clear land.
https://phys.org/news/2019-09-forest-vital-buffer-climate.htmlHuge decline in songbirds linked to common insecticide
A first ever study of birds in the wild found that a migrating songbird that ate the equivalent of one or two seeds treated with a neonicotinoid insecticide suffered immediate weight loss ... “We show a clear link between neonicotinoid exposure at real-world levels and an impact on birds,” says lead author Margaret Eng, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Saskatchewan Toxicology Center ... The EU banned the use of the chemicals in 2018 because they were killing pollinators. This study is another link in the chain of environmental problems, one showing that the use of neonicotinoids is harming birds, and that bird populations are at risk as a result.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/09/widely-used-pesticide-makes-birds-lose-weightClimate change: Electrical industry's 'dirty secret' boosts warming
Sulphur hexafluoride, or SF6, is widely used in the electrical industry [but] it has the highest global warming potential of any known substance. It is 23,500 times more warming than carbon dioxide (CO2). Just one kilogram of SF6 warms the Earth to the same extent as 24 people flying London to New York return. It also persists in the atmosphere for a long time, warming the Earth for at least 1,000 years ... Researchers at the University of Bristol who monitor concentrations of warming gases in the atmosphere say they have seen significant rises in the last 20 years ... global installed base of SF6 is expected to grow by 75% by 2030 ... SF6 is a synthetic gas and isn't absorbed or destroyed naturally.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49567197UN trade chief: Climate crisis could see collapse of some economies
United Nation’s trade chief has said climate change poses an “existential threat to commodity-dependent developing countries” and highlighted the need to diversify economies and exports ... “The climate crisis…will result in the collapse of some economies if decisive action is not taken now,” UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi stressed on Wednesday ... The climate crisis puts commodity-dependent developing countries most at risk because their economies depend on sectors which are highly exposed to extreme weather events ... commitments made by countries to mitigate climate change under the Paris Agreement are not ambitious enough but must instead be quadrupled to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. For this, stronger political will and greater mobilization of financial and human resources are necessary.
https://www.dhakatribune.com/world/2019/09/12/un-trade-chief-climate-crisis-could-see-collapse-of-some-economiesResearchers unearth 'new' mass-extinction
New analysis brings total of species extinctions to six
A team of scientists has concluded that earth experienced a previously underestimated severe mass-extinction event, which occurred about 260 million years ago, raising the total of major mass extinctions in the geologic record to six ... "Massive eruptions such as this one release large amounts of greenhouse gases, specifically carbon dioxide and methane, that cause severe global warming, with warm, oxygen-poor oceans that are not conducive to marine life ... In terms of both losses in the number of species and overall ecological damage, the end-Guadalupian event now ranks as a major mass extinction, similar to the other five."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190909105555.htm$1 million a minute: the farming subsidies destroying the world - report
The public is providing more than $1m per minute in global farm subsidies, much of which is driving the climate crisis and destruction of wildlife, according to a new report. Just 1% of the $700bn (£560bn) a year given to farmers is used to benefit the environment, the analysis found. Much of the total instead promotes high-emission cattle production, forest destruction and pollution from the overuse of fertiliser. The security of humanity is at risk without reform to these subsidies, a big reduction in meat eating in rich nations and other damaging uses of land, the report says ... A series of major recent reports have concluded the world’s food system is broken. It is driving the planet towards climate catastrophe while leaving billions of people either underfed or overweight, 130 national academies of science and medicine concluded in November.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/16/1m-a-minute-the-farming-subsidies-destroying-the-worldExpert Tells House Committee Climate Change Could Wreck US Economy
Marshall Burke, who holds a doctorate in agricultural and resource economics, studies the impact global warming has on economic inequality. On Wednesday he testified before the House Financial Services Committee during a hearing on climate change and macroeconomics. The warnings Burke issued were stark: If, by 2050, the U.S. fails to mitigate the effects of climate change by reducing greenhouse gases, the cost to the nation’s economy is an estimated $5 trillion. If, by 2100, conditions are no better, the year-to-year damage of intensified storms, higher temperatures, rising sea levels and their cumulative effect on key markets such as the financial sector, real estate, manufacturing and customer service will result in damage in the tens of trillions, he said.
https://www.courthousenews.com/expert-tells-house-committee-climate-change-could-wreck-u-s-economy/Eight More Effects of Climate Change: Some Surprising, Some Fatal
Climate change will take its toll across the economy, in some unexpected places, a panel of experts told members of Congress last week. Unmitigated climate change has already cost the U.S. economy $1 trillion, said economist Marshall Burke, an assistant professor of earth system science at Stanford University, and that cost will rise to $5 trillion by 2050 ... Lost Productivity: economic output falls in hot years ... Cognitive Decline: cognitive function declines when it’s hot: people perform office tasks less effectively, and kids learn less ... Violent Crime: violent assault, sexual violence, and homicide all increase on days or months where temperatures are above normal ... Suicide: tens of thousands of additional suicides in the US ... Civil Unrest: documented large increases in civil conflict and organized crime as temperatures rise ... Immigration: this conflict drives substantial international migration into wealthier countries ... Inequality: economic damages from climate change will be many times higher in poorer counties ... Insurance Collapse: insurance executives ranked climate change the number one risk faced by their industry.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/09/15/eight-more-surprising-and-sometimes-fatal-effects-of-climate-change/Climate change is already here. 2020 could be your last chance to stop an apocalypse
The temperature reached a record-breaking 90 degrees in Anchorage this summer and an unprecedented 108 degrees in Paris. We can watch glaciers melting and collapsing on the web; ice losses in Antarctica have tripled since 2012 ... entire cities are running out of water, thanks, scientists say, to a dangerous combination of mismanagement and climate change ... 18 of the 19 warmest years ever recorded have occurred since 2000. The last five years have been the hottest since record-keeping began ... By burning fossil fuels for energy, humans have added so much carbon (and other greenhouse gases) to the atmosphere that we are changing nature itself, imperiling the delicate interdependence among species and putting our own survival at risk ... burning of carbon fuels needs to end; yet unless policies and politics change dramatically, it won’t end ...overall emissions have increased ... total carbon levels in the atmosphere reached 414.8 parts per million in May, the highest recorded in 3 million years. The richer human society becomes, it seems, the more we poison the world.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-climate-change-crisis-global-warming-part-1-story.htmlThis Is Not the Sixth Extinction. It’s the First Extermination Event
From the “insect apocalypse” to the “biological annihilation” of 60 percent of all wild animals in the past 50 years, life is careening across every planetary boundary that might stop it from experiencing a “Great Dying” once more. But the atrocity unfolding in the Amazon, and across the Earth, has no geological analogue — to call it the “sixth extinction event” is to make what is an active, organized eradication sound like some kind of passive accident. This is no asteroid or volcanic eruption or slow accumulation of oxygen in the atmosphere due to cyanobacteria photosynthesis. We are in the midst of the First Extermination Event, the process by which capital has pushed the Earth to the brink of the Necrocene, the age of the new necrotic death.
https://truthout.org/articles/this-is-not-the-sixth-extinction-its-the-first-extermination-eventPlant growth has declined drastically around the world due to dry air
A lack of water vapour in the atmosphere has caused a global decline in plant growth over the past two decades, resulting in a decline in growth rates in 59 per cent of vegetated areas worldwide. Studying four global climate datasets, Wenping Yuan at Sun Yat-sen University in Zhuhai, China and his colleagues found that the decline is correlated with a vapour pressure deficit in the atmosphere, which has increased sharply over more than 53 percent of vegetated areas since the late 1990s ... The team projects that VPD will continue to rise in the decades to come. “This atmospheric drought will last into the end of this century.”
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2213529-plant-growth-has-declined-drastically-around-the-world-due-to-dry-air/Another vital forest at risk: Scientists fear warming water could be killing off Puget Sound’s kelp beds
In portions of Puget Sound, these sunken canopies are vanishing, and scientists fear the consequences to local ecosystems ... Bull kelp canopy near Squaxin Island is down to about a third of its size compared to just six years ago. Only a few dozen individual bull kelp remain in the bed near Fox Island ... “We measured record high temperatures at kelp sites,” Berry said. When waters approach 70 degrees Fahrenheit, it stresses bull kelp reproduction.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/another-vital-forest-at-risk-scientists-fear-warming-water-could-be-killing-off-puget-sounds-kelp-beds/What Is Nitrous Oxide and Why Is It a Climate Threat?
Nitrous oxide is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide, and it also depletes the ozone layer. Since it also has a shorter life span, reducing it could have a faster, significant impact on global warming. But the largest source of nitrous oxide is agriculture, particularly fertilized soil and animal waste, and that makes it harder to rein in. "[N]itrous oxide is so much a food production issue" ... Like other greenhouse gases, nitrous oxide absorbs radiation and traps heat in the atmosphere, where it can live for an average of 114 years, according to the EPA [and] can damage the ozone layer, which humans rely on to prevent most of the sun's ultraviolet radiation from reaching earth's surface ... Especially in larger farming operations, livestock manure presents a two-fold emissions problem: it emits an enormous amount of methane, but it can create nitrous oxide too.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11092019/nitrous-oxide-climate-pollutant-explainer-greenhouse-gas-agriculture-livestockSudden warming over Antarctica to prolong Australia drought
The unusual event, known as "sudden stratospheric warming," started in the last week of August when the atmosphere above Antarctica began heating rapidly, scientists at Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said in a report. "The Bureau of Meteorology is predicting the strongest Antarctic warming on record ... leapt up more than 40 degrees warmer than normal in the course of three weeks," he said.
https://phys.org/news/2019-09-sudden-antarctica-prolong-australia-drought.htmlOil and gas companies approve $50 billion of major projects that undermine climate targets and risk shareholder returns
The first study to identify individual projects that are inconsistent with the Paris Agreement finds that no major oil company is investing to support its goals of keeping global warming “well below” 2˚C and to “pursue efforts” to limit it to a maximum of 1.5˚C. Investors are under huge pressure to determine which energy companies are “Paris-compliant”. It warns that fossil fuel demand will have to fall to meet international climate targets, and only the lowest cost projects will deliver an economic return under these goals ... “Every oil major is betting heavily against a 1.5˚C world and investing in projects that are contrary to the Paris goals."
https://www.carbontracker.org/oil-and-gas-companies-approve-50-billion-of-major-projects-that-undermine-climate-targets-and-risk-shareholder-returns/World losing area of forest the size of the UK each year, report finds
The rate of loss has reached 26m hectares (64m acres) a year, a report has found, having grown rapidly in the past five years despite pledges made by governments in 2014 to reverse deforestation and restore trees ... The New York declaration on forests was signed at the UN in 2014, requiring countries to halve deforestation by 2020 and restore 150m hectares of deforested or degraded forest land. But the rate of tree cover loss has gone up by 43% since the declaration was adopted, while the most valuable and irreplaceable tropical primary forests have been cut down at a rate of 4.3m hectares a year. The ultimate goal of the declaration, to halt deforestation by 2030 – potentially saving as much carbon as taking all the world’s cars off the roads – now looks further away than when the commitment was made ... While some countries have embarked on tree-planting schemes ... these have been far outweighed by the loss of existing forests.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/12/deforestation-world-losing-area-forest-size-of-uk-each-year-report-findsDangerous new hot zones are spreading around the world
Roughly one-tenth of the globe has already warmed by more than 2 degrees Celsius, when the last five years are compared with the mid- to late 1800s. That's more than five times the size of the United States. Some entire countries, including Switzerland and Kazakhstan, have warmed by 2C. Austria has said the same about its famed Alps ... About 20 percent of the planet has warmed by 1.5 degrees Celsius, a point at which scientists say the impacts of climate change grow significantly more intense ... Extreme warming is helping to fuel wildfires in Alaska, shrink glaciers in the Alps and melt permafrost across Canada’s Northwest Territories. It is altering marine ecosystems and upending the lives of fishermen who depend on them, from Africa to South America to Asia ... scientists expect this to continue and steadily worsen.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/climate-environment/climate-change-world/‘In for a roasting’: Australia ‘on brink’ of ‘apocalyptic’ conditions
According to a recent report by senior researchers from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, we’re in for higher than normal spring temperatures. And less rain. It’s all because of record warm temperatures in the air swirling above Antarctica ... NSW and southern Queensland — already in parts devastated by bushfires so early in the season — are set to face worsening conditions and an even more catastrophic bushfire season ... “In the coming weeks the warming is forecast to intensify, and its effects will extend downward to earth’s surface, affecting much of eastern Australia over the coming months,” the forecasters warn. It is likely to be the most severe Antarctic warming event on record ... This compounds an already disastrous winter for New South Wales and much of Queensland. There, soil moisture levels actually decreased over what should have been their wet season. So spring — and summer — will be starting from an already devastatingly dry low.
https://www.couriermail.com.au/technology/in-for-a-roasting-australia-on-brink-of-apocalyptic-conditions/news-story/73d731e4a07f6b9c39b18897faa0e085Climate Disaster Looms as Earth Burns Up
In 2010, the prestigious Met Office Hadley Centre/UK said average temperatures would likely be 4C above pre-industrial by 2055, “if greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) did not slow down.” Well, guess what’s happened to GHGs? Asking the question is the answer. And, worse yet, it would bring in its wake a 16C rise in Arctic temperatures where at least twice the amount of carbon already in the atmosphere is frozen in time, waiting to be released via permafrost thawing. And, +16C would do that fast. Accordingly, recent scientific field studies found thawing permafrost 70 years ahead of schedule in the High Arctic ... What happens if 4C hits by 2055? According to Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, one of Europe’s most eminent climate scientists, director of the Potsdam Institute, “At 4C Earth’s ... carrying capacity estimates are below 1 billion people.” Echoing that opinion, professor Kevin Anderson of the prestigious Tyndall Centre for Climate Change stated, “Only about 10% of the planet’s population would survive at 4C.” A global average of 4C means land temperatures would be 5.5C-6C hotter, especially inland from coasts. The tropics would be too hot for people to live and most of the temperate regions would be desertified ... according to the New Scientist, in 2003: “The EPI says it is confident that the August heat wave has broken all records for heat-related deaths and says the world must cut the carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming.” But, today, that’s a bad joke with CO2 in 2003 at 378 ppm [yet today at] 410 ... most ecosystems will collapse with breakdown of organic material, leading to ever-greater emissions of carbon that is self-perpetuating ... half of the planet would be uninhabitable ... As of today, CO2 at 410 ppm has powered through the 280-ppm ceiling of the past 400,000 years like a hot knife through butter ... What happens next is a gamble.
https://www.citywatchla.com/index.php/2016-01-01-13-17-00/los-angeles/18319-climate-disaster-looms-as-earth-burns-upWater shortages pose growing risk to global stability
Securing access to clean water and protection against flooding and tsunamis is critical to safeguarding society against the effects of climate change, according to the 2019 World Risk Report published Thursday ... Increasing occurrences of heat waves, hurricanes, and droughts mean water security is an ever-greater global issue. Water shortages could lead to wars, the 2019 report said.
https://www.dw.com/en/water-shortages-pose-growing-risk-to-global-stability/a-50394997Boats Stranded as Drought Dries China’s Canals
[T]he worst drought in decades has left rivers in East China at their lowest level for decades. This has created congestion on canals, as vessels loaded with cargo crowd the gates to locks, waiting for them to fill with enough water so they can travel along the waterway.
https://www.caixinglobal.com/2019-09-11/photo-essay-boats-stranded-as-drought-dries-chinas-canals-101461442.htmlA Supercharged Marine Heat Wave Is Roasting the Pacific
Ocean temperatures have skyrocketed in the northeast Pacific ... could spell trouble for wildlife and fisheries from Alaska to California, according to data scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released on Thursday ... abnormally warm waters extend from Alaska to Canada and as far west as Hawaii. ... churn usually pushes warm surface waters around and allows cool, nutrient-rich water from below to rise and take its place. Without that mixing, surface heat quickly built up. And it without the aforementioned nutrients from the cooler water below the surface, the heat wave has disrupted the food chain ... fisheries managers expected 4.8 million salmon to spawn up British Columbia’s Fraser River, but only 628,000 fish showed up ... "what used to be unexpected is becoming more common," Cisco Werner, NOAA Fisheries Director of Scientific Programs and Chief Science Advisor, said in a statement.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/a-supercharged-marine-heat-wave-is-roasting-the-pacific-1837928320Alaska just had the most ridiculous summer. That's a red flag for the planet.
With the Arctic warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, America's "Last Frontier" feels like the first in line to see, smell and feel the unsettling signs of a climate in crisis. There are the smoky skies and dripping glaciers, dead salmon and hauled-out walrus but scientists also worry about the changes that are harder to see, from toxic algae blooms in the Bering Sea to insects from the Lower 48 bringing new diseases north. The head shaking among longtime locals really began on the Fourth of July, when at 90 degrees, Anchorage was hotter than Key West ... after decades of seeing their warnings fall on deaf ears -- especially in a state funded by oil -- scientists like Brettschneider hope that the indisputable clues across a baked Alaska will inspire real action, from Juneau to Washington, DC. "We've talked about these things occurring in decades or in centuries, but ... it's happening right now and it's visible right now and it's noticeable right now," the University of Alaksa climatologist says. "The opportunity to do things about it is right now and not decades down the road."
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/09/weather/alaska-climate-crisis-summer-weir-wxc/index.htmlWool production, sheep numbers hit 100-year lows as widespread drought continues
[Y]ears of ongoing drought across all key production areas is now forcing producers to offload breeding stock to slaughter. "The more the drought impacts on the farmers, we either see the farmers taking their animals [or] getting rid of them, losing their breeding stock" ... years of ongoing drought across all key production areas is now forcing producers to offload breeding stock to slaughter ... The drought has also meant sheep grow less wool ... "Everybody's running out of water."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-08/drought-sees-wool-production-hit-100-year-low/11261042World 'gravely' unprepared for effects of climate crisis – report
The world’s readiness for the inevitable effects of the climate crisis is “gravely insufficient”, according to a report from global leaders. This lack of preparedness will result in poverty, water shortages and levels of migration soaring, with an “irrefutable toll on human life” ... study says the greatest obstacle is not money but a lack of “political leadership that shakes people out of their collective slumber” ... The report has been produced by the Global Commission on Adaptation (GCA), convened by 18 nations including the UK. It has contributions from the former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, environment ministers from China, India and Canada, the heads of the World Bank and the UN climate and environment divisions, and others ... The report says severe effects are now inevitable.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/10/climate-crisis-world-readiness-effects-gravely-insufficient-reportI am a CNN meteorologist. I used to be a climate crisis skeptic
I've been a meteorologist at CNN since 1999 ... for a long time I didn't think that global warming gasses would overwhelm the earth enough to change its climate. As a skeptic, I didn't deny climate change existed. I was questioning the data behind the science ... I started attending climate conferences, and continued to consume more and more of the data coming in about climate change. I like to say that I didn't go from denier to believer; I went from skeptic to scholar ... As this alarming rate of warming continues, it is evident that humans are responsible ... The problem is that people are only looking at the weather out their windows. When you look at the crisis from a global perspective, you start to see evidence of a devastating future.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/04/weather/climate-change-skeptic/index.htmlWhat If We Stopped Pretending?
The climate apocalypse is coming. To prepare for it, we need to admit that we can’t prevent it. The goal has been clear for thirty years, and despite earnest efforts we’ve made essentially no progress toward reaching it. Today, the scientific evidence verges on irrefutable. If you’re younger than sixty, you have a good chance of witnessing the radical destabilization of life on earth—massive crop failures, apocalyptic fires, imploding economies, epic flooding, hundreds of millions of refugees fleeing regions made uninhabitable by extreme heat or permanent drought. If you’re under thirty, you’re all but guaranteed to witness it ... New research, described last month in Scientific American, demonstrates that climate scientists, far from exaggerating the threat of climate change, have underestimated its pace and severity ... The rise might, in fact, be far higher ... I don’t see human nature fundamentally changing anytime soon. I can run ten thousand scenarios through my model, and in not one of them do I see the two-degree target being met.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-if-we-stopped-pretendingClimate change could halve crop production in southern Europe by 2050, report warns
Europe needs to reshape its agricultural sector, the European Environmental Agency (EEA) warned on Wednesday, as climate change could halve production of cereals in southern Europe ... "New records are being set around the world due to climate change and the adverse effects of this change are already affecting agricultural production in Europe" ... report highlights that most of the EEA member countries already have national adaptation strategies in place but stresses that they are rarely implemented at farm level due to a lack of financing, access to know-how and policy support to adapt.
https://www.euronews.com/2019/09/05/climate-change-could-halve-crop-production-in-southern-europe-by-2050-report-warnsClimate change: Greenland's ice faces melting 'death sentence'
Dr Jason Box of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), says he's unnerved by the potential dangers and that coastal planners need to "brace themselves" ... it's the recent increase in the average temperature that's being felt in Greenland's ice: "Already effectively that's a death sentence for the Greenland ice sheet because also going forward in time we're expecting temperatures only to climb ... So, we're losing Greenland - it's really a question of how fast"... the ice is not only being melted by the air, as the atmosphere heats up, but also by warmer water reaching underneath the fronts of the glaciers. One NASA scientist describes the ice as being under a hair-dryer and at the same time also on a cooker.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49483580On the front lines of climate change in the world's northernmost town
Since 1970, average annual temperatures have risen by 4 degrees Celsius in Svalbard, with winter temperatures rising more than 7 degrees, according to a report released by the Norwegian Center for Climate Services in February ... He compares climate change to an accident that we can’t help staring at, feeling lucky we weren’t the victim. “When people slow down to look at a car crash, climate change is like that because everyone is slowing down to look at the accident but not realizing that we are actually the car crash.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-svalbard-widerimage/on-the-front-lines-of-climate-change-in-the-worlds-northernmost-town-idUSKCN1VO19MStanford researchers use vintage film to show Thwaites Glacier ice shelf in Antarctica melting faster than previously observed
The researchers made their findings by comparing ice-penetrating radar records of Thwaites Glacier with modern data. The research appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Sept. 2. “By having this record, we can now see these areas where the ice shelf is getting thinnest and could break through,” said lead author Dustin Schroeder, an assistant professor of geophysics at Stanford University’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences ... The research was supported by NASA, NSF and the George Thompson Fellowship at Stanford University.
https://news.stanford.edu/press-releases/2019/09/02/vintage-film-rev-glacier-meltingNew Data: Brazilian Amazon Fires Have Released 104-141 Million Metric Tons of CO2
A new analysis estimates this year’s Brazilian Amazon fires have produced between 104 and 141 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), according to scientists at Woods Hole Research Center and IPAM-Amazônia. That is equivalent to annual tailpipe carbon pollution from 22.6 to 30.6 million cars, or the annual CO2 emissions from the entire state of North Carolina. The number of fires in the Brazilian Amazon this year is already 60% higher than levels seen over the last three years ... “It’s important to understand these aren’t wildfires of the sort we’re familiar with in the western United States. The majority of the burning we’re seeing now is the end result of a months-long process that began with people cutting trees to clear the land for cattle grazing or growing crops. These cut trees were left to dry and only now are they being set on fire to finish the job of land clearing” said WHRC Associate Scientist Wayne Walker.
http://whrc.org/new-data-brazilian-amazon-fires-have-released-104-141-million-metric-tons-of-co2Melting glaciers, as well as ice sheets, raising Earth's seas
As the planet's polar ice sheets destabilise amid rising temperatures, a landmark UN assessment of Earth's retreating frozen spaces is also set to spell out how melting mountain glaciers will impact humanity in the decades to come ...Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets lost roughly 400 billion tonnes of mass annually in the decade to 2015 ... But glaciers high up mountains also lost around 280 billion tonnes of ice each year during the same period ... Their retreat is likely to impact inland communities the world over, for whom glaciers are a key water source. The glaciers nestled high in the Himalayas provide water for 250 million people in nearby valleys and feed the rivers upon which a further 1.65 billion people rely for food, energy and income. One study referenced in the IPCC report warns that Asian high mountain glaciers could lose more than a third of their ice, even if humans slash greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming to 1.5 Celsius (2.6 Fahrenheit). A continuation of "business-as-usual" in the coming decades with a global economy still powered mainly by fossil fuels could see two thirds lost.
https://phys.org/news/2019-08-glaciers-ice-sheets-earth-seas.htmlEurope Is Warming Even Faster Than Climate Models Predicted
Over the past seven decades, the number of extreme heat days in Europe has steadily increased, while the number of extreme cold days has decreased, according to new research. Alarmingly, this trend is happening at rates faster than those proposed by climate models ... Europe is getting progressively hotter, and the data bears this out. What’s disturbing, however, and as new research published today in Geophysical Research Letters points out, this warming trend is occurring faster than the projections churned out by most European climate models. And as the new paper also notes, the observed increases in temperatures “cannot be explained by internal variability” ... the number of days with extreme heat across Europe more than tripled ... Meanwhile, days featuring extreme cold temperatures are now on the decline, decreasing twofold or threefold depending on the location ... Climate scientists have already shown that Europe is getting warmer, but the new study was an effort to test the reliability of local climate models by cross-referencing local observational data ... gathered from around 4,000 weather stations across Europe.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/europe-is-warming-even-faster-than-climate-models-predi-1837669154
see also https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-08/agu-ewf082819.php
reporting on a study at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019GL082062Why have 500 million bees died in Brazil in the past three months?
While thousands of fires roar and crackle through the Amazon rainforest, Brazil faces a quieter tragedy playing out in farm country: the silence of empty hives. Earlier this year, beekeepers reported losing over 500 million honeybees in only three months. The speed and scale of the die-offs recall colony collapse disorder, a malady that began decimating bees across North America and Europe in 2006. But the symptoms are tellingly different. Where colony collapse caused worker bees to abandon their hives and disappear, the bees in Brazil are dropping dead on the spot. And where scientists blamed colony collapse on a combination of factors, the evidence in Brazil points to one overarching cause: pesticides. The parallels between Brazil’s Amazon crisis and its bee die-offs are many. Just as the relaxation of forestry rules has led to more fires, so have loosened pesticide restrictions exposed more bees to lethal doses.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/29/500-million-bees-brazil-three-monthsGreat Barrier Reef outlook now 'very poor', Australian government review says
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority’s outlook report, published every five years, finds coral reefs have declined to a very poor condition and there is widespread habitat loss and degradation affecting fish, turtles and seabirds. It warns the plight of the reef will not improve unless there is urgent national and global action to address the climate crisis, which it described as its greatest threat ... The report says rising sea temperatures and extreme events linked to climate change, such as the marine heatwaves that caused mass coral bleaching in the northern two-thirds of the reef in 2016 and 2017, are the most immediate risks. Other major threats include farming pollution, coastal development and human use, such as illegal fishing. The report says water quality is improving too slowly and continues to affect many inshore areas ... the report showed that, while there were some small areas of progress, Australia was failing the reef. “Overall, there is very little good to report whatsoever.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/30/great-barrier-reef-outlook-now-very-poor-australian-government-review-saysAt 4C of warming, would a billion people survive? What scientists say.
In May this year, Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, told The Guardian that in a 4°C-warmer world: “It’s difficult to see how we could accommodate a billion people or even half of that ... There will be a rich minority of people who survive with modern lifestyles, no doubt, but it will be a turbulent, conflict-ridden world” ... at the Copenhagen science conference, Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, then director of the Potsdam Institute, and one of Europe’s most eminent climate scientists, told his audience: “In a very cynical way, it’s a triumph for science because at last we have stabilized something –- namely the estimates for the carrying capacity of the planet [at 4°C], namely below one billion people” ... "Professor Kevin Anderson, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, believes only around 10 per cent of the planet’s population – around half a billion people – will survive if global temperatures rise by 4C [and] the other thing to remember is that 4C is a global average. It's probably nearer 5C on land, and would be up to 15C in some areas. There's no evidence to suggest that humanity can actually survive at this sort of temperature" ... in 2006 James Lovelock — scientist extraordinaire, inventor of the microwave oven and propounder of the Gaia thesis — told an audience that the Earth has a fever that could boost temperatures by up to 8°C, making large parts of the surface uninhabitable and threatening billions of peoples’ lives. He said a traumatised Earth might only be able to support less than a tenth of its six billion people. [also includes a discussion of what a 4C world would look like]
http://www.climatecodered.org/2019/08/at-4c-of-warming-would-billion-people.htmlThere is no ice left on Northern Sea Route
The Arctic shortcut that connects Asia and Europe is open and ice-free and shipping appears smooth, also for vessels without ice class standards. The last pieces of frozen water vanished in mid-August and ice-data shows that the whole route now is free of ice. That includes the East Siberian Sea, the area that normally has the longest-lasting white sheet.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2019/08/there-no-ice-left-russias-northern-sea-routeMassive Siberian forest fire could melt permafrost, freeing massive methane stores
At the end of the month, the Siberian forest fire stretched across 6.4 million acres ... Like the Amazonian fires, the Siberian fires have the potential to accelerate global warming ... their ash and soot, which releases black carbon, pose a massive threat to the Arctic region’s ice sheets. They could accelerate melting, which will increase the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere ... melting of the ice sheets might free previously-trapped permafrost methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide and which is not absorbed in photosynthesis.
https://www.salon.com/2019/08/27/massive-siberian-forest-fire-could-melt-permafrost-freeing-massive-methane-storesAcid oceans are shrinking plankton, fuelling faster climate change
Increasingly acidic oceans are putting algae at risk, threatening the foundation of the entire marine food web ... increased seawater acidity reduced Antarctic phytoplanktons’ ability to build strong cell walls, making them smaller and less effective at storing carbon ... Many studies [have looked at] the effects of seawater acidification on “calcifying” creatures. However, we wanted to know if other, non-calcifying, species are at risk ... Our new research adds yet another group of organisms to the list of climate change casualties. It emphasises the urgent need to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels.
http://theconversation.com/acid-oceans-are-shrinking-plankton-fuelling-faster-climate-change-121443Oceans turning from friend to foe, warns landmark UN climate report
The same oceans that nourished human evolution are poised to unleash misery on a global scale unless the carbon pollution destabilising Earth's marine environment is brought to heel, warns a draft UN report obtained by AFP. Destructive changes already set in motion could see a steady decline in fish stocks, a hundred-fold or more increase in the damages caused by superstorms, and hundreds of millions of people displaced by rising seas, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) "special report" on oceans and Earth's frozen zones, known as the cryosphere ... The 900-page scientific assessment is the fourth such tome from the UN in less than a year ... All four conclude that humanity must overhaul the way it produces and consumes almost everything to avoid the worst ravages of climate change and environmental degradation.
https://phys.org/news/2019-08-oceans-friend-foe-landmark-climate.htmlAmazon fires 'extraordinarily concerning', warns UN biodiversity chief
Cristiana Paşca Palmer, the executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, said the destruction of the world’s biggest rainforest was a grim reminder that a fresh approach was needed to stabilise the climate and prevent ecosystems from declining to a point of no return, with dire consequences for humanity. “The Amazon fires make the point that we face a very serious crisis,” she told the Guardian. “But it is not just the Amazon. We’re also concerned with what’s happening in other forests and ecosystems, and with the broader and rapid degradation of nature. The risk is we are moving towards the tipping points that scientists talk about that could produce cascading collapses of natural systems.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/30/amazon-fires-biodiversity-united-nationsBank of Montreal is winding down reinsurance business as climate change risks rise
The Bank of Montreal has decided to exit the majority of its business that provides insurance to insurers, saying climate change is at least partly to blame. BMO chief executive Darryl White noted during a quarterly earnings conference call on Tuesday that the lender, Canada’s fourth largest, had previously said it was reviewing ways to keep its reinsurance business more consistent. “We didn't feel like there was a good symmetry between risk and reward" (Joanna Rotenberg, BMO’s head of wealth management) ... Companies worldwide are grappling with similar issues. In May, the Bank of Canada identified climate change as one of the key vulnerabilities for the financial system, saying it posed “physical risks from disruptive weather events and transition risks from adapting to a lower-carbon global economy.”
https://business.financialpost.com/news/fp-street/bmo-is-winding-down-reinsurance-business-as-climate-change-risks-riseAmazon wildfires set to cause irreversible damage
For weeks, the fires in the Amazon rainforest have attracted international attention. Compared to 2018, the total number of fires increased by 82% between January and August this year. In August alone, almost 26,000 fires were reported ... According to the investigating prosecutor, Paulo de Tarso, most of the fires were lit on state-owned nature reserves. These areas are constantly under threat by landowners, speculators and mine operators.
https://www.dw.com/en/amazon-wildfires-set-to-cause-irreversible-damage/a-50183441The Amazon Is on Fire. So Is Central Africa.
Among the regions at risk is the Congo Basin forest, the second-largest tropical rainforest, after the Amazon, mostly in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The region absorbs tons of carbon dioxide, a key in the fight against climate change, and has been called the world’s “second lung,” following the Amazon ... in Central Africa, they are incinerating savanna and scrubbier land, and mostly licking at the edges of the rainforest ... While some ignite naturally in the dry season, others are deliberately set by farmers to clear land and improve crop yields. In South America the burns spilled into sensitive areas and grew out of control. In Africa, some experts fear the same outcome.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/27/world/africa/congo-angola-rainforest-fires.htmlEurope warming faster than expected due to climate change
New research in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters finds the number of summer days with extreme heat has tripled since 1950 and summers have become hotter overall, while the number of winter days with extreme cold decreased in frequency by at least half and winters have become warmer overall. The new study finds parts of Europe are warming faster than climate models project. "Even at this regional scale over Europe, we can see that these trends are much larger than what we would expect from natural variability. That's really a signal from climate change."
https://phys.org/news/2019-08-europe-faster-due-climate.htmlIt’s official: Parts of California are too wildfire-prone to insure
According to newly released data, it’s simply become too risky to insure houses in big swaths of the wildfire-prone state ... Insurance companies aren’t renewing policies in areas climate scientists say are likely to burn in giant wildfires in coming years ... Between 2015 and 2018, the 10 California counties with the most homes in flammable forests saw a 177 percent increase in homeowners turning to an expensive state-backed insurance program because they could not find private insurance ... “We are seeing an increasing trend across California where people at risk of wildfires are being non-renewed by their insurer ... This data should be a wake-up call for state and local policymakers that without action to reduce the risk from extreme wildfires and preserve the insurance market we could see communities unraveling.” A similar dynamic is likely unfolding across many other Western states.
https://grist.org/article/its-official-parts-of-california-are-too-wildfire-prone-to-insureCan We Survive Extreme Heat?
Humans have never lived on a planet this hot, and we’re totally unprepared for what’s to come Since the 1960s, the average number of annual heat waves in 50 major American cities has tripled. They are also becoming more deadly ... the risk of a heat-driven catastrophe increases every year ... “How likely is this to happen?” I ask. “It’s more a question of when,” Chester says, “not if.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/climate-crisis-goodell-survive-extreme-heat-875198Why Climate Change Is So Hard
What makes climate change different from other environmental calamities isn’t that it’s bigger or farther away or difficult to see ... the key difference is that halting climate change requires us to dramatically alter our way of life ... We’re willing to make modest changes here and there, but dramatic changes? The kind that seriously bite into our incomes and our way of life? Nope. When I mention this to people, a common reaction is disbelief. You really think people will let the planet burn before they’ll give up their cars? That’s exactly what I think, because it’s happened many times before. Over and over, human civilizations have destroyed their environments because no one was willing to give up their piece of it.
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/08/why-climate-change-is-so-hardHawaii Is Losing As Much Of Its Land To Wildfires As Any Other State
“Here in Hawaii, we always talk about sea level rise and that’s been the main focus. You can see it and put metrics on it and it grabs attention,” said Stanbro, who leads Honolulu’s Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency. “But the hurricane stuff, the heat stuff and the fire stuff is what I think will really impact Hawaii before sea level rise gets a chance.”
https://www.civilbeat.org/2019/08/hawaii-is-losing-as-much-of-its-land-to-wildfires-as-any-other-stateRare weather phenomenon amassing in southern hemisphere - Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW)
SSW occurs when the temperature of the stratosphere (30 - 50 km / 18 - 31 miles above ground) over the South Pole rises by more than 25 °C ... In the southern hemisphere's winter, a ring of stormy and freezing weather encircles Antarctica. Known as the polar vortex, it is usually very good at keeping harsh, wintry conditions locked up close to the pole. When a SSW occurs, it can help to weaken or displace the polar vortex in the stratosphere.
https://watchers.news/2019/08/22/southern-hemisphere-sudden-stratospheric-warming-2019Parts of Chile 'turning to desert' in worst drought in 60 years
The emergency status, impacting almost half the country, will see relief measures fast-tracked for the agriculture industry, including drinking water and medicine for animals. In some areas, water for human consumption has become scarce. Cattle are collapsing where they stand and reducing to skeletons in the baking heat, and boats have been left abandoned in dried-out marinas. "We are talking about a process of desertification rather than a temporary drought or absence of rain problem. We are talking about a tendency that has come to stay," Felipe Machado, director of the country's resilience institute.
https://news.sky.com/story/chile-turning-to-desert-in-worst-drought-in-60-years-11792743Brazilian Farmers Believe They Have the Right to Burn the Amazon
Satellite images from the European Space Agency would reveal a river of smoke from forest fires burning across the Amazon rainforest. Photographs taken above the tree cover are even more terrifying. They show a forest that is rapidly vanishing: Since President Jair Bolsonaro took office in January, trees in the Brazilian Amazon have been disappearing at the rate of two Manhattans a week. There have been 39,601 fires so far this year, a 77 percent increase over 2018 ... The stakes couldn’t be higher. The Amazon contains 40 percent of the world’s rainforest and more biodiversity than any other place on the planet. Already 17 percent of the forest is gone. According to Carlos Nobre, one of Brazil’s top climate scientists, even a slight uptick in deforestation could trigger something called dieback, in which the forest heats up, resulting in droughts, floods, and wildfires. Nobre worries we’re nearing a tipping point and that if we reach a 20 to 25 percent threshold of deforestation, more than half the rainforest could die permanently. Weather patterns would change all over South America, and billions of tons of carbon would be released into the atmosphere. Already, Nobre says we are seeing the “first flickers” of permanent change, pointing to three severe droughts in the last 15 years. The most recent, in 2015, caused massive wildfires near the city of Santarem, turning the sky an acrid haze.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/brazilian-farmers-believe-they-have-the-right-to-burn-the-amazon-875879Fires in the Amazon could be part of a doomsday scenario that sees the rainforest spewing carbon into the atmosphere and speeding up climate change even more
The record number of fires raging across the Amazon rainforest in 2019 could be part of a doomsday “dieback” scenario that sees the rainforest spewing carbon into the atmosphere and speeding up climate change even further. More than 74,000 fires have been recorded this year in the rainforest, which produces more than 20% of the world’s oxygen, threatening its future, the billions of plants and animals that call it home, and possibly the entire planet’s health. If more of the Amazon is destroyed, it would not only stop producing this oxygen and supporting this wildlife, but could create a feedback loop that worsens climate change ... Losing 20% of Brazil’s rainforest could result in a feedback loop that would dry trees, leaving them unable to absorb as much carbon, and also becoming much more flammable and likely to spread fire themselves ... This tipping point could cause the Amazon to devolve from a rainforest to a barren, savannah-like landscape that not only fails to produce oxygen but could cause the release of the 140 billion tons of carbon that had been stored in the rainforest into the atmosphere.
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-fires-may-help-dieback-emit-carbon-hurry-climate-change-2019-8The West is trading water for cash. The water is running out
The 1,450-mile-long Colorado River serves as a source of water for seven states, but climate change and overuse have caused its levels to drop precipitously ... When the states came together in the 1920s to sign a compact dividing rights to the river, they were operating from an overly optimistic assessment of how much water was available. Thus behind the eight-ball from the start, increasing water demands in the decades since have created a situation where more water is taken out of the river than flows into it. In March, with the river's main reservoirs now below half of total capacity and the federal government about to step in, the states reached a temporary deal to cut river water use. But in 2026, a more severe reckoning looms when a long-term deal must be struck ... "It wasn't like one state used more water than they were supposed to: Each state is using what they're legally entitled to" ... The 1922 Colorado River Compact was meant to fix this. The agreement meant that some 7.5 million acre-feet of water would be allotted every year to both the Upper Basin (Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico) and the Lower Basin (Nevada, Arizona and California). Since the river flows from north to south, Upper Basin states are obligated to make sure Lower Basin states get their due. But the math was wrong, and there was much less water available over the following years than the signatories had predicted.
https://phys.org/news/2019-08-west-cash.htmlAlaskan Glaciers Are Melting Twice as Fast as Models Predicted
Scientists from the University of Oregon recently found that the underwater section of a glacier in southeast Alaska is melting at rates up to two orders of magnitude greater than those predicted by theory. The results, published in the journal Science, challenge the current models used to predict the melting of tidewater glaciers worldwide ... The results were striking. “We have direct observations that show melt rates are much higher than we we expected”... the study illuminates what portion of the glacier ice being lost to the ocean is the result of underwater ice melting as opposed to calving—the process by which chunks of the glacier break off and float into the ocean as icebergs. “The sub-marine melt rates are higher than we expect” ... With a warming ocean, this news suggests that tidewater glaciers could disappear quicker in response to climate change than previously thought ... if the portion of glacier submerged in ocean water melts quicker, then the rate at which the glacier flows toward the ocean will increase, and the rate of calving will increase as well.
https://glacierhub.org/2019/08/22/alaskan-glaciers-are-melting-twice-as-fast-as-models-predictedHotter, larger fires turning boreal forest into carbon source: research
[W]ith climate change, fires are becoming more frequent, larger and more intense. Researchers from five U.S. and four Canadian universities wanted to see if that was affecting stored carbon. They looked at the impact of the 2014 fire season in the Northwest Territories, which burned the largest area on record. “These were large and severe fires,” said Xanthe Walker of Northern Arizona University. “We thought this is when and where (stored carbon) would burn.” ... the old carbon burned in nearly half of the younger stands where the soil wasn’t as thick. And what didn’t burn rapidly decomposed into the atmosphere. “There are areas where there’s no organic soil left and it’s just exposed mineral soil” ... the boreal forest is gradually becoming younger as fires increase in size and frequency. “Now those old forests are young forests, so when the next forest fire hits that area, those are going to be systems that are vulnerable to legacy carbon release. “We can have thousands of years of productivity stored and then released in a matter of minutes.” ... “I think we’re right on the tipping point now,” Turetsky said. “I think it’s happening in the western provinces already. I think it’s happening in Alaska.”
https://calgaryherald.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/hotter-larger-fires-turning-boreal-forest-into-carbon-source-researchWildfires ignite across Indonesia
As fires rage in Brazil's Amazon rainforest, the south-east Asian nation of Indonesia is witnessing a similarly devastating ecological tragedy unfold. The dry season has arrived in Indonesia - home to some of the world's oldest tropical forests - bringing with it its worst annual fire season since 2015. Close to 700 hotspots have been identified in fire-prone regions in Sumatra, Kalimantan and the Riau islands.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-49444325Plants are going extinct up to 350 times faster than the historical norm
[B]iodiversity loss, together with climate change, are some of the biggest challenges faced by humanity. Along with human-driven habitat destruction, the effects of climate change are expected to be particularly severe on plant biodiversity. Current estimates of plant extinctions are, without a doubt, gross underestimates. However, the signs are crystal clear. If we were to condense the Earth’s 4.5-billion-year-old history into one calendar year, then life evolved somewhere in June, dinosaurs appeared somewhere around Christmas, and the Anthropocene starts within the last millisecond of New Year’s Eve. Modern plant extinction rates that exceed historical rates by hundreds of times over such a brief period will spell disaster for our planet’s future.
https://theconversation.com/plants-are-going-extinct-up-to-350-times-faster-than-the-historical-norm-122255
see also https://phys.org/news/2019-08-extinct-faster-historical-norm.htmlThe Planet Needs a New Internet
Huge changes will be needed because right now, the internet is unsustainable. On the one hand, rising sea levels threaten to swamp the cables and stations that transmit the web to our homes; rising temperatures could make it more costly to run the data centers handling ever-increasing web traffic; wildfires could burn it all down. On the other, all of those data centers, computers, smartphones, and other internet-connected devices take a prodigious amount of energy to build and to run, thus contributing to global warming and hastening our collective demise ... By and large, this infrastructure wasn’t built with a changing climate in mind. Researchers and companies are only now starting to explore how threatened it is, but what they’ve found so far is alarming.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-planet-needs-a-new-internet-1837101745Global heating: ancient plants set to reproduce in UK after 60m years
An exotic plant has produced male and female cones outdoors in Britain for what is believed to be the first time in 60 million years. Botanists say the event is a sign of global heating ... “It is a strong indicator of climate change being shown, not from empirical evidence from the scientists but by plants.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/22/global-heating-ancient-plants-set-to-reproduce-in-uk-after-60m-yearsUK is set to miss net-zero 2050 target with ‘dire consequences’, MPs warn
‘Although the government may be ambitious when it comes to reducing carbon emissions, it is not putting the policies in place’ The UK will miss its legally binding net-zero 2050 target with “dire consequences” unless climate policies are rapidly implemented, MPs have warned the government. Efforts to reduce emissions have been undermined by “unacceptable” cutbacks and delays, according to a report from the Science and Technology Select Committee.
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-uk-carbon-target-global-warmning-a9073256.htmlThe Reason Antarctica Is Melting: Shifting Winds, Driven by Global Warming
A new study helps solve the puzzle of why the continent’s western glaciers are melting so fast
For a long time, scientists had suspected that man-made climate change was likely causing this area of West Antarctica’s ice to thin, but they had not established a direct connection or mechanism. The issue is critical because this is where the majority of the continent’s ice loss is occurring. Now a new study new study published this week in Nature Geoscience appears to have solved the puzzle. A team of researchers in the U.S. and U.K. found that global warming has caused a shift in wind patterns that are ultimately bringing more warm ocean water into contact with the region’s ice.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-reason-antarctica-is-melting-shifting-winds-driven-by-global-warming/Where did all the cod go? Fishing crisis in the North Sea
[A] report published last month by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (Ices) revealed that North Sea cod stocks had fallen to critical levels. Warning that cod was being harvested unsustainably, it recommended a 63% cut in the catch – and that’s on top of a 47% reduction last year ... North Sea cod stocks were once plentiful but plummeted – and came perilously close to collapse – between the early 1970s and 2006. A “cod recovery plan” sought to restore stocks to sustainable levels ... Ices, an international organisation of scientists from countries bordering the North Atlantic, advises governments and the industry on stock levels and the sustainable quotas that can be fished without endangering future stocks. It sounded a warning last year with its recommended cut in the cod catch of 47%, but this year’s assessment – based on extensive scientific research – warned that levels were dangerously low and another two-thirds reduction was needed.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/18/where-did-all-the-cod-go-fish-chips-north-sea-sustainable-stocksEarth Stopped Getting Greener 20 Years Ago
Plant growth is declining all over the planet, and new research links the phenomenon to decreasing moisture in the air—a consequence of climate change. The study published yesterday in Science Advances points to satellite observations that revealed expanding vegetation worldwide during much of the 1980s and 1990s. But then, about 20 years ago, the trend stopped. Since then, more than half of the world’s vegetated landscapes have been experiencing a “browning” trend, or decrease in plant growth.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-stopped-getting-greener-20-years-ago/Sydney's water supply falling at record pace due to drought
Sydney is running down its water supply at the fastest rate on record, with dams expected to fall below half maximum capacity due to the worst drought on record, the government said on Friday ... “Catchments that have been historically reliable are now facing a critical shortage of water ... major (inland) cities run the risk of running out of fresh water in the next 12 months.”
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/08/16/asia-pacific/sydneys-water-supply-falling-record-pace-due-droughtThe UN’s Bleak View Of The Planet’s Future
[IPCC’s special report on climate change and land], which includes the work of 107 experts from 52 countries, is a devastatingly serious outline of what is coming. Its conclusions reflect the science of what is already underway to turn large portions of Earth un-plantable and probably un-livable ... A half-billion people already live in places turning into desert, and soil is being lost between 10 and 100 times faster than it is forming, according to the climate report ... The report details how climate change is threatening food and water supplies for humans, turning arable land to desert, degrading soil and increasing the threat of droughts and other disasters. As have previous studies, it puts most of the blame on fossil fuel-burning power plants and automobiles but adds that agriculture and forestry account for 23% of total human-caused greenhouse gas emissions ... climate change could imperil food security in parts of the world, putting further strain on a food system that’s already stressed.
https://www.dcreport.org/2019/08/14/the-uns-bleak-view-of-the-planets-future/Drying Atmosphere Spurs Decline in Vegetation Growth
Global vegetation growth has stalled in the past two decades because of a long-term deficit in atmospheric water content, according to a new analysis of global climate datasets published in the August 14 issue of Science Advances. The findings reveal that atmospheric water vapor is expected to further wane throughout the 21st century due to rising air temperatures and a decline in the evaporation of the world's oceans. The decrease in atmospheric water cancelled out the effects of higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which would normally boost plant growth. The findings also suggest that if this drying continues, plants may not be able to absorb as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and forest and crop yields potentially could shrink.
https://www.aaas.org/news/drying-atmosphere-spurs-decline-vegetation-growthAnchorage set two heat records on Thursday
Anchorage has now exceeded the cumulative total of all days recorded from 1952 to 2018 in which the average temperature for the day exceeded 70 degrees in this summer alone.
https://www.ktuu.com/content/news/Anchorage-set-two-heat-records-on-Thursday-547672031.htmlA Weather Station Above the Arctic Circle Hit 94.6 Degrees Fahrenheit
According to data released in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) monthly climate analysis, a weather station in Sweden north of the Arctic Circle hit a stunning 94.6 Fahrenheit (34.8 degrees Celsius) last month. As an isolated data point, it would be shocking. But coupled with a host of other maladies, from no sea ice within 125 miles of Alaska to the unruly fires ravaging Siberia, it’s an exclamation point on the climate crisis ... July’s Arctic heat is part of a larger global trend driven by carbon pollution.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/a-weather-station-above-the-arctic-circle-hit-94-6-degr-1837274379Arctic permafrost is thawing fast. That affects us all.
Across nine million square miles at the top of the planet, climate change is writing a new chapter. Arctic permafrost isn’t thawing gradually, as scientists once predicted. Geologically speaking, it’s thawing almost overnight ... releasing vestiges of ancient life — and masses of carbon — that have been locked in frozen dirt for millennia. Entering the atmosphere as methane or carbon dioxide, the carbon promises to accelerate climate change, even as humans struggle to curb our fossil fuel emissions ... new discoveries suggest that the carbon will escape faster as the planet warms ... researchers now suspect that for every one degree Celsius rise in Earth’s average temperature, permafrost may release the equivalent of four to six years’ worth of coal, oil, and natural gas emissions — double to triple what scientists thought a few years ago. Within a few decades, if we don’t curb fossil fuel use, permafrost could be as big a source of greenhouse gases as China, the world’s largest emitter, is today. We aren’t accounting for that. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has only recently started incorporating permafrost into its projections. It still underestimates just how wide Pandora’s freezer could swing open—and how much havoc that could unleash.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/08/arctic-permafrost-is-thawing-it-could-speed-up-climate-change-feature/The New Ruins of the Melting Alps
While the planet as a whole has warmed about 1° Celsius because of greenhouse gas emissions, average temperatures the Alps have risen just under 2° Celsius. Since 1960 — when the Alps first began to be exploited by ski-oriented tourism—the average snow season there has shortened by 38 days. Because of this warming and other factors, there are now almost 200 abandoned ski resorts in the Italian Alps: cemeteries of steel cables, concrete, parking lots, abandoned hotels, and deforested slopes. That number stands to rise ... Clavarino’s images of these near-abandoned places, and the people who remain there, are not simply mementos of a dying region. They’re a warning to the rest of us about the economic and human toll to come as our planet warms.
https://newrepublic.com/article/154261/climate-change-italy-alps-ruins-ski-resortsIncrease in fracking for shale gas has 'dramatically increased' global methane emissions, scientists warn
Researchers from Cornell University looked at the 'chemical fingerprint' of methane in the atmosphere and found a third of methane emissions in the past decade came from shale gas ... If the rise continues in coming decades, it will significantly increase global warming and undercut efforts to meet international targets to curb dangerous climate change under the Paris Agreement, the study warns.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7356247/Fracking-shale-gas-dramatically-increased-global-methane-emissions-scientists-warn.htmlInsect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in toxic pesticides
America’s agricultural landscape is now 48 times more toxic to honeybees, and likely other insects, than it was 25 years ago, almost entirely due to widespread use of so-called neonicotinoid pesticides, according to a new study published today in the journal PLOS One. This enormous rise in toxicity matches the sharp declines in bees, butterflies, and other pollinators as well as birds ... [researchers] determined that the new generation of pesticides has made agriculture far more toxic to insects ... The study found that neonics accounted for 92 percent of this increased toxicity. Neonics are not only incredibly toxic to honeybees, they can remain toxic for more than 1,000 days in the environment ... Nearly all of neonic use in the U.S. is for coating seeds, including almost all corn and oilseed rape seed, the majority of soy and cotton seeds, and many yard plants from garden centers. However only 5 percent of the toxin ends up the corn or soy plant; the rest ends up the soil and the environment. Neonics readily dissolve in water, meaning what’s used on the farm won’t stay on the farm. They’ve contaminated streams, ponds, and wetlands, studies have found.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/08/insect-apocalypse-under-way-toxic-pesticides-agriculture/2C: Beyond The Limit
Extreme climate change has arrived in America
New Jersey may seem an unlikely place to measure climate change, but it is one of the fastest-warming states in the nation. Its average temperature has climbed by close to 2 degrees Celsius since 1895 ... if Earth heats up by an average of 2 degrees Celsius, virtually all the world’s coral reefs will die; retreating ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica could unleash massive sea level rise; and summertime Arctic sea ice, a shield against further warming, would begin to disappear ... analysis of more than a century of [NOAA] temperature data across the Lower 48 states and 3,107 counties has found that major areas are nearing or have already crossed the 2-degree Celsius mark ... The nation’s hot spots will get worse, absent a global plan to slash emissions of the greenhouse gases fueling climate change ... Daniel Pauly, an influential marine scientist at the University of British Columbia, says the 2-degree Celsius hot spots are early warning sirens of a climate shift. “Basically,” he said, “these hot spots are chunks of the future in the present.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/climate-environment/climate-change-america/In the future, only the rich will be able to escape the unbearable heat from climate change. In Iraq, it’s already happening
At a time when European countries are enduring some of the highest temperatures ever recorded, and as extreme weather becomes more common, Baghdad offers a troubling glimpse into a future where only the wealthy are equipped to escape the effects of climate change. A United Nations report released last month warned that the world is heading for a “climate apartheid” scenario, “where the wealthy pay to escape overheating, hunger and conflict while the rest of the world is left to suffer”. In Baghdad, that is already a reality. On 48C days, which are now coming earlier in the year, air conditioners are the most effective way of staying cool. But an electricity crisis in the country is putting even that essential tool out of reach to low-income families.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/climate-change-apartheid-poor-iraq-effects-heatwave-a9049206.htmlAmazon fires generate smoke cloud almost as big as devastating Siberia blaze
While fires in Siberia have created a cloud of smoke larger than the European Union, on the other side of the world, forest blazes in the Amazon are causing a phenomenon of almost the same magnitude. Santiago Gassó, a researcher at NASA's Goddard center, warned on his Twitter account on Tuesday that the surface of Latin America covered by the smoke layer was about 3.2 million square kilometers ... The Brazilian state of Amazonas declared a state of emergency last week due to the increasing number of fires in the region.
https://www.euronews.com/2019/08/14/amazon-fires-generate-smoke-cloud-almost-as-big-as-devastating-siberia-blazeArctic wildfires spew soot and smoke cloud bigger than EU
A cloud of smoke and soot bigger than the European Union is billowing across Siberia as wildfires in the Arctic Circle rage into an unprecedented third month. The normally frozen region, which is a crucial part of the planet’s cooling system, is spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and worsening the manmade climate disruption that created the tinderbox conditions. A spate of huge fires in northern Russia, Alaska, Greenland and Canada discharged 50 megatonnes of CO2 in June and 79 megatonnes in July, far exceeding the previous record for the Arctic.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/12/arctic-wildfires-smoke-cloudTrees in the U.S. facing devastating threats due to invasive species
A team of researchers from Purdue University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has found that trees in the United States are facing devastating threats due to invasive species. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes analyzing thousands of forest plots across the U.S. and the mortality rates due to 15 major tree pest infestations ... The researchers found that approximately 40 percent of all forested land in the U.S. is under threat from invasive species. They also found that such pests are already killing so many trees that 6 million tons of carbon is released into the atmosphere each year.
https://phys.org/news/2019-08-trees-devastating-threats-due-invasive.htmlEarth Stopped Getting Greener 20 Years Ago
The world is gradually becoming less green, scientists have found. Plant growth is declining all over the planet, and new research links the phenomenon to decreasing moisture in the air—a consequence of climate change. The study published yesterday in Science Advances points to satellite observations that revealed expanding vegetation worldwide during much of the 1980s and 1990s. But then, about 20 years ago, the trend stopped ... Since the late 1990s, more than half of the world’s vegetated landscapes have experienced a growing deficit, or drying pattern. Climate models indicate that vapor pressure deficit is likely to continue increasing as the world warms.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-stopped-getting-greener-20-years-ago/Global Sea Level Rise Began Accelerating 30 Years Earlier Than Commonly Thought
Global sea level rise began to accelerate in the 1960s, 30 years earlier than suggested by previous assessments, a new study finds. The study, published in Nature Climate Change, introduces a new technique to more accurately determine historical global sea levels by combining two different statistical approaches ... The implication of this work is that ocean heat uptake will “likely increase again in the near future, further increasing the rate of current sea level rise”
https://truthout.org/articles/global-sea-level-rise-began-accelerating-30-years-earlier-than-commonly-thought/Temperatures to hit 50C during Hajj
Temperatures during Hajj season this year are expected to reach 50 degrees Celsius on some days, Saudi officials said Sunday. Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Meteorology and Environmental protection also expects humidity to reach 85 percent, making the climate feel even hotter.
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1535366/saudi-arabiaThe heat index in Galveston remained above 100 for 40 straight hours. It’s part of another major heat wave.
Heat advisories stretched over 1,000 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border to Georgia, encompassing more than 30 million in the forecast for “dangerous heat.” Galveston failed to drop below 86 degrees Thursday, marking its warmest all-time low temperature on record ... It’s not just Galveston. Much of the Lone Star State is baking, and that heat is set to expand ... With the heat comes sweltering humidity. Dew points close to 80 degrees will make even overnight lows virtually unbearable.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/08/09/heat-index-galveston-has-remained-above-over-hours-its-part-another-major-heat-waveChina is going to get hot
[R]esearchers have found that China faces ... tens of thousands of additional deaths each year. And the problem, they say, will kick in at much lower rates of global warming than those predicted to endanger US cities. Part of the problem, write Yanjun Wang of Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology and colleagues, in the journal Nature Communications, is that temperatures in China have been increasing faster than the global average. But it isn’t the rise in average temperature that is the true problem, Wang’s team writes, so much as the fact that this rise is accompanied by an increase in the number of dangerously hot days.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/climate/china-is-going-to-get-hotRapid Coral Decay Is Associated with Marine Heatwave Mortality Events on Reefs
Severe marine heatwaves have recently become a common feature of global ocean conditions due to a rapidly changing climate. These increasingly severe thermal conditions are causing an unprecedented increase in the frequency and severity of mortality events in marine ecosystems, including on coral reefs. The degradation of coral reefs will result in the collapse of ecosystem services that sustain over half a billion people globally. Here, we show that marine heatwave events on coral reefs are biologically distinct to how coral bleaching has been understood to date, in that heatwave conditions result in an immediate heat-induced mortality of the coral colony, rapid coral skeletal dissolution, and the loss of the three-dimensional reef structure
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(19)30804-8Russia’s Burning! Climate Change Is to Blame
So far this year, a total of 8.3 million hectares (20.5 million acres) of forest has burned out in Russia. That roughly equals the area of Austria; it’s undoubtedly a bad year. At the peak of the wildfires on July 23, the number of fires in the Russian woods was about three times the 17-year average for that day ... The average burned-up area between Jan. 1 and Aug. 1 has increased by two-thirds in the last 10 years ... The increase in fires is almost certainly a consequence of climate change – and, when it comes to Russian forests, not the only consequence.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-08-09/in-russia-s-wildfires-climate-change-is-to-blameAmerica's agriculture is 48 times more toxic than 25 years ago. Blame neonics
The new study, published in the science journal PLOS ONE [says] since neonics were first introduced 25 years ago, US agriculture has become 48 times more toxic to insect life, and neonics are responsible for 92% of that ... dramatic increase in the toxic burden of US agriculture for insects starting in the mid-2000s. That’s when beekeepers began reporting significant losses of their hives. It’s also when the pesticide companies that manufacture neonics, Bayer and Syngenta, found a lucrative new use for these chemicals: coating the seeds of crops like corn and soy that are grown on millions of acres across the country ... This study comes on the heels of the first analysis of global insect populations, which found 40% of species face extinction, with near total insect loss possible by century’s end ... The European Union voted to ban the worst neonics in 2018. But the US government has so far failed to act.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/07/americas-dependence-on-pesticides-especially-neonics-is-a-war-on-natureIndia water crisis flagged up in global report
India is one 17 countries where "water stress" is "extremely high", according to an exhaustive new global report released on Monday. This means that the country is running out of ground and surface water ... The report also ranks nine Indian states and union territories as having "extremely high" water stress ... India is in the grip of acute water scarcity by other measures as well. Large parts of the country have already faced a crippling drought this year - more than 500 million people living in at least 10 states were reportedly affected. And India's sixth largest city - Chennai in the south - ran out of water last month. The water table is also being depleted in Haryana's neighbouring state, Punjab. It's known as the breadbasket of India, but farmers are worried.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-49232374An 88 percent decline in large freshwater animals
Scientists from the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) and international colleagues have now quantified the global decline of big freshwater animals ... From 1970 to 2012, global populations of freshwater megafauna declined by 88 percent, most notably in the Indomalaya (by 99 percent) and Palearctic (by 97 percent) realms—the former covering South and Southeast Asia and southern China, and the latter covering Europe, North Africa and most of Asia. Large fish species such as sturgeons, salmonids and giant catfishes are particularly threatened: with a 94 percent decline, followed by reptiles with 72 percent.
https://phys.org/news/2019-08-percent-decline-large-freshwater-animals.htmlGreenland's ice wasn't supposed to melt like last week until 2070
The Greenland ice sheet covers an area the size of Alaska with enough ice to raise global sea level by more than 20 feet ... Mass losses from Greenland this past week were already approaching levels not expected until 2070 based on the best available models ... it is clear that the Greenland ice sheet is rapidly responding to climate change, even faster than many scientists expected.
https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/456112-greenlands-ice-sheet-wasnt-expected-to-melt-like-this-until-2070Global Ocean Circulation Appears To Be Collapsing Due To A Warming Planet
A recent study published in Nature ... found evidence that Arctic ice loss is potentially negatively impacting the planet's largest ocean circulation system ... AMOC is one of the largest current systems in the Atlantic Ocean and the world ... warm water transported from the tropics to the North Atlantic releases heat to the atmosphere, playing a key role in warming of western Europe. You likely have heard of one of the more popular components of the AMOC, the Gulf Stream which brings warm tropical water to the western coasts of Europe. Evidence is growing that the comparatively cold zone within the Northern Atlantic could be due to a slowdown of this global ocean water circulation ... This trend of increased sea ice melting during summer months does not appear to be slowing. Hence, indications are that we will see a continued weakening of the global ocean circulation system.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2017/08/03/global-ocean-circulation-appears-to-be-collapsing-due-to-a-warming-planetFinancial Times: how the jet stream is changing your weather
Scientists know of only three prior occasions in the past 800 years when there has been melting at the very top of the ice cap [but] it is now the second time this decade it has happened. “The last time we saw melting at the summit, in 2012, we thought it was the extreme of the extremes, and wouldn’t happen again so quickly ... But now we are facing more of these extremes” ... “It is essentially the most important weather phenomenon ... If you had to choose only one piece of information to get a handle on the weather in the northern hemisphere . . . then that would be the jet stream" ... Further complicating the picture is the interaction between the jet stream and the Gulf Stream. The winds have long been known to influence the ocean currents, and a growing body of evidence suggests the ocean currents also influence their atmospheric equivalents ...The changes in the jet stream are something researchers call “non-linear” phenomenon: shifts that can take place suddenly or not at all, that do not proceed in a straight line ... this can exacerbate the effects of climate change. “We have background warming, and we have enhancement due to these non-linear effects, like the changes in the general circulation”
https://www.ft.com/content/591395fe-b761-11e9-96bd-8e884d3ea203In-depth Q&A: The IPCC’s special report on climate change and land
This morning in Geneva, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its special report on climate change and land ... Many of the modelled pathways for limiting global warming to 1.5C rely heavily on a technique called “bioenergy with carbon capture and storage” (BECCS) [which] involves growing crops, using them to produce energy and then capturing the resulting CO2 emissions before storing them [however BECSS] has not yet been proven to work at scale ... while others face significant “policy lags”: “Even some actions that initially seemed like ‘easy wins’ have been challenging to implement, with stalled policies ... response options need sufficient funding, institutional support, local buy-in, and clear metrics for success, among other necessary enabling conditions.”
https://www.carbonbrief.org/in-depth-qa-the-ipccs-special-report-on-climate-change-and-landThis Land Is the Only Land There Is
The planet’s dangerously warmed future is already here. Earth’s land has already warmed more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, the same amount of warming that climate activists are hoping to prevent on a global scale ... Land is extremely scarce, we need it for everything, and we are already using most of it. More than 70 percent of the planet’s ice-free land is already shaped by human activity [and] this human-managed land emits about a quarter of global greenhouse-gas pollution every year. ... Land must be made into a tool in the climate fight [which] will require immediate action from farmers, bankers, conservationists, and policy makers worldwide. And to really succeed, it will require hundreds of millions of affluent people in the Northern Hemisphere to change their diet, eating many more plants and much less meat. These changes must happen fast ... [O]n our current trajectory—and on any trajectory, frankly, where the United States does not adopt a serious climate policy—it’s far more likely that the planet will warm at least 3 degrees Celsius (5.1 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100. That means that average land temperatures will be 10 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than they are today. The IPCC warns that people who live on such a planet will face a “very high risk” of famine, water scarcity, and mass vegetation die-offs ... Climate change requires us to alter the biogeochemical organism that we call the global economy on the fly, in our lifetimes. Such a task should command most of the time and attention of every economist, agriculturalist, investor, executive, and politician—anyone who fancies themselves a leader in the physical workings of the economy, or whatever we call it. It is our shame, and theirs, that they don’t.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/08/how-think-about-dire-new-ipcc-climate-report/595705/A quarter of the world's population is at risk of 'Day Zero' when water will completely run out, report claims
A total of 17 countries, home to more than a quarter of the world's population, are suffering 'extremely high' levels of water stress and taps in these regions could soon run dry. The World Resources Institute's Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas today released a report ranking water stress, drought risk and riverine flood risk around the world. 'Water stress is the biggest crisis no one is talking about. Its consequences are in plain sight in the form of food insecurity, conflict and migration, and financial instability,' said Andrew Steer, CEO of WRI.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7325535/Quarter-worlds-population-facing-extreme-water-stress.htmlAlaska's sea ice has completely melted away
The most rapidly changing state in the U.S. has no sea ice within some 150 miles of its shores, according to high-resolution sea ice analysis from the National Weather Service. The big picture is clear: After an Arctic summer with well above-average temperatures, warmer seas, and a historic July heat wave, sea ice has vanished in Alaskan waters. "Alaska waters are ice free," said Rick Thoman, a climate specialist at the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy ... Arctic sea ice has been either been at record lows or flirting with record lows throughout much of the summer. "I’m losing the ability to communicate the magnitude [of change]," [said] Jeremy Mathis, a longtime Arctic researcher and current board director at the National Academies of Sciences.
https://mashable.com/article/alaska-sea-ice-melt-2019Power-Starved Zimbabwe, Zambia Face Further Drought-Induced Blackouts
The Kariba dam that straddles Zambia and Zimbabwe, the world’s biggest man-made reservoir, is emptying fast, sparking fears the countries may have to cut hydropower production there completely ... a total shutdown at Kariba would be crippling. Zambia gets about a third of its supply from the dam, Zimbabwe almost half ... A severe regional drought has cut water levels at Kariba to 23% of capacity this month from 85% a year ago ... There is good reason for Chizengeya to fear a total shutdown at Kariba. During the drought of 2015-16, water levels were about a meter (3 feet) higher at this time of the year, and the dam bottomed out at 11% before rains refilled it. If higher temperatures this year cause more rapid evaporation and rains are delayed, the risks rise.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-05/power-starved-zimbabwe-zambia-face-further-drought-induced-darkClimate Change Becomes an Issue for Ratings Agencies
One of the main agencies that rates the creditworthiness of big borrowers, including cities and corporations, has brought on board a data firm specializing in climate risks. It's a signal that rating agencies are paying more attention to global warming and its impact in the financial markets ... "More and more, issuers and investors want to know how they are exposed to climate events," said Michael Mulvagh, head of communications in the Americas, Europe, Africa and the Middle East for Moody's Corporation, which owns one of the largest U.S. ratings agencies.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04082019/climate-change-ratings-agencies-financial-risk-cities-companiesInsurers reveal Townsville flood cost, warn region is 'unprofitable'
The insurance cost of the February floods in Townsville has peaked at $1.24 billion, as the industry warns the severity of natural disasters has made it unprofitable to write business in some parts of northern Australia. The Insurance Council of Australia said the devastating floods, a result of record breaking rainfall battering the north Queensland city for several days in early February, had led to around 30,000 insurance claims.
https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/insurers-reveal-townsville-flood-cost-warn-region-is-unprofitable-20190804-p52do5Deathwatch for the Amazon
South America’s natural wonder may be perilously close to the tipping-point beyond which its gradual transformation into something closer to steppe cannot be stopped or reversed, even if people lay down their axes. Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, is hastening the process ... Climate change is bringing the threshold closer every year as the forest heats up. Mr Bolsonaro is pushing it towards the edge. Pessimists fear that the cycle of runaway degradation may kick in when another 3-8% of the forest vanishes—which, under Mr Bolsonaro, could happen soon.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/08/01/deathwatch-for-the-amazonSiberian Wildfires and Heatwaves in Alaska: How the Arctic Is Nearing a Point of No Return
“There’s no path where you can imagine that the Arctic is going to start to cool off again ...it would take a dramatic reversal of the chemical composition of the atmosphere ... as you warm up the environment, you let that natural decomposition process fully play out … You end up with tens or hundreds or thousands of years of plant decomposition happening in one or two or ten years.” That adds up to massive amounts of methane, and ultimately carbon dioxide, being released into the atmosphere, Brettschneider adds. “We think we have a handle on the trajectory of warming, but if we have this unexpectedly large release of methane from permafrost, then we’re going to have to change our assumptions about how fast warming is going to occur, and that change would be faster.”
https://time.com/5641751/arctic-wildfires-heatwaves-alaska-climate-change/In Zimbabwe, the Water Taps Run Dry and Worsen ‘a Nightmare’
More than half of the 4.5 million residents of Harare’s greater metropolitan area now have running water only once a week ... Zimbabwe’s acute water shortage is a result of a particularly bad drought this year, a symptom of climate change. Poor water management has wasted much of the water that remains. Two of Harare’s four reservoirs are empty from lack of rain.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/world/africa/zimbabwe-water-crisis.htmlGreenland's Melting: Heat Waves Are Changing the Landscape Before Their Eyes
"The current melt rate is equivalent to what the model projects for 2070, using the most pessimistic model," Fettweis said. That melting has global implications—if Greenland's ice sheet were to melt entirely, it would result in about 20 feet of global sea level rise ... "I just got some numbers, and basically every single weather station in Greenland has had a warmer than average July," she said. "It's been dry and warm for a really long time ... [The models] are clearly not able to capture some of these important processes ... Somewhere between 1.5 and 2 degrees there's a tipping point after which it will no longer be possible to maintain the Greenland Ice Sheet."
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/01082019/greenland-climate-change-ice-sheet-melt-heat-wave-sea-level-rise-fish-global-warmingBrain-eating amoeba. Flesh-eating bacteria. Climate change will raise Florida’s risks
The scary one making headlines this summer is Vibrio vulnificus, also dubbed in media reports as “flesh-eating bacteria” ... But Vibrio isn’t the only danger found in warming waters. Freshwater lakes and canals can have Naegleria fowleri, also known as the “brain eating amoeba” ... they like it hot. Climate change is creating a more inviting environment for them all — including in waters beyond Florida. Warm spots like Florida are getting hotter for longer periods of time, and areas that were traditionally too cool for any of these pathogens to thrive also are warming up.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article233259169.htmlDecades-old pollutants melting out of Himalayan glaciers
The new research in AGU's Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres finds chemicals used in pesticides that have been accumulating in glaciers and ice sheets around the world since the 1940s are being released as Himalayan glaciers melt as a result of climate change ... The new study shows that even the most remote areas of the planet can be repositories for pollutants and sheds light on how pollutants travel around the globe, according to the study's authors ... Pollutants can travel long distances through the atmosphere on dust particles and water molecules. Previous studies have shown that Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets contain high levels of pollutants that traveled thousands of kilometers before dropping onto ice and being incorporated into glaciers ... "The Earth is a closed system. Everything released on the Earth, stays somewhere on the Earth."
https://phys.org/news/2019-08-decades-old-pollutants-himalayan-glaciers.htmlJuly was world's hottest month on record, WMO says
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says the latest data from the World Meteorological Organization shows that the month of July "at least equalled if not surpassed the hottest month in recorded history" — and it followed the hottest June ever. Guterres said this means the world is on track for the period from 2015 to 2019 "to be the five hottest years on record." He warned that if all nations don't take action now to tackle climate change and global warming, extreme weather events happening now will be "just the tip of the iceberg."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/july-hottest-month-1.5233368Heatwaves amplify near-record levels of ice melt in northern hemisphere
The frozen extremities of the northern hemisphere are melting at a near-record rate as heatwaves buffet the Arctic, forest fires tear through Siberia and glaciers retreat on Greenland fjords and Alpine peaks. Unusually high temperatures are eating into ice sheets that used to be solid throughout the year, according to glaciologists, who warn this is both an amplifying cause and effect of man-made climate disruption across the globe. Greenland – which is home to the world’s second biggest ice sheet – is likely to have shrunk more in the past month than the average for a whole year between 2002 and now, according to provisional estimates from satellite data ... The trend is accelerating ... Temperatures have been 10C or more above normal this week. Even at the summit of the ice sheet – which is 3,200 metres above sea level – there were 10 hours at or above freezing temperatures yesterday, which is extremely rare ... In the Canadian Arctic, which is warming two times faster than the global average, locals have suffered record wildfires, and permafrost is melting decades ahead of predictions.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/02/heatwaves-amplify-near-record-levels-of-ice-melt-in-northern-hemisphereDrought In East Netherlands Now As Bad As Record Years 2018, 1976
According to the Union of Waterboards, the east and south of the country had much less rain than the rest of the Netherlands. These areas are more dependent on rainfall than the rest of the country, because they receive little to no fresh water supply from rivers. The precipitation deficit means that more and more streams are drying up and the groundwater levels are dropping. The heat wave last week did not help.
https://nltimes.nl/2019/08/01/drought-east-netherlands-now-bad-record-years-2018-1976How an accelerated warming cycle in Alaska’s Bering Sea is creating ecological havoc
This summer’s heat, coming three years after scientists proclaimed what was then the longest and hottest Bering Sea marine heat wave in the satellite record, is no one-off. Rather, it is part of a warming spiral that appears to be accelerating, with effects flowing north through the narrow strait into Arctic Ocean waters ... “We’ve fallen off the cliff. We’re not approaching the cliff. We’ve fallen off it,” Rick Thoman, a veteran scientist with the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy, told an audience of Nome residents and visitors at a public forum held at the local college campus.
https://www.arctictoday.com/how-an-accelerated-warming-cycle-in-alaskas-bering-sea-is-creating-ecological-havocThe terrible truth of climate change [By one of the Australian lead authors on the IPCC sixth assessment report]
The latest science is alarming, even for climate scientists
Although the very foundation of human civilisation is at stake, the world is on track to seriously overshoot our UN targets. Worse still, global carbon emissions are still rising ... Examining the Earth’s climatic past tells us that even between 1.5 and 2°C of warming sees the world reconfigure in ways that people don’t yet appreciate. All bets are off between 3 and 4°C, where we are currently headed ... the immensity of what is at stake is truly staggering. Staying silent about this planetary emergency no longer feels like an option for me ... an urgent and pragmatic national conversation is now essential. Otherwise, living on a destabilised planet is the terrible truth that we will all face ... we must respond as we would in an emergency. The question is, can we muster the best of our humanity in time?
https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2019/august/1566136800/jo-lle-gergis/terrible-truth-climate-changeMelted Permafrost in Alaska a Sign of Accelerating Climate Change
A team of scientists and students with Woods Hole Research Center’s Polaris Project are just back from a trip to the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta to study climate impacts. Lead scientist Sue Natali says she’s never seen anything like it in her years of Arctic research, and warns it is a sign of abrupt and accelerating climate change. As part of their research, Natali and her team installed temperature sensors down to a meter at what should have been permafrost. What they discovered was thawing, which in turn created ground collapse at a level she’d never seen before ... “It's definitely climate change,” Natali said. “It's accelerating and the past couple years have been particularly bad. The past winters have been warm. There has been rain when there should be snow, the ground hasn't been frozen in this area." And, she added, "the ground surface didn't freeze until mid-January this year.” In addition to being unsafe, ground collapse also emits higher methane emissions.
https://www.capeandislands.org/post/melted-permafrost-alaska-sign-accelerating-climate-changeGlaciers melting faster in southeast Turkey, sparking concerns
The Cilo-Sat Mountains are the eastern extension of the Taurus mountain range that runs east to west along Turkey's Mediterranean coast and southern border. The range includes Turkey's second highest peak [and] 10 glaciers ... "For the last nine years we have been watching the Cilo Reşko Keviya Pir and Mergan glaciers ... The glaciers are melting very fast lately. In the near future, glaciers, the most important element of this magnificent geography, will be in danger of extinction" ... Onur Köse, a geology professor at the Van Yüzüncü Yıl University (YYU), said melting of glaciers is not only occurring in Hakkari, but on most high peaks in Turkey ... "These glaciers are nearing extinction," Köse said. "Of course, this is not just a problem experienced in Turkey, it's a problem taking place all over the world and a problem of global warming."
https://www.dailysabah.com/environment/2019/07/30/glaciers-melting-faster-in-southeast-turkey-sparking-concernsWorld Economic Forum: Scientists predicted climate change 40 years ago, so why didn't we act sooner?
Forty years ago, a group of climate scientists sat down at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts [which] led to the preparation of what became known as the Charney Report – the first comprehensive assessment of global climate change due to carbon dioxide ... the Charney Report is an exemplar of good science, and the success of its predictions over the past 40 years has firmly established the science of global warming ... The main conclusion of the Report was direct: "We estimate the most probable warming for a doubling of CO₂ to be near 3C with a probable error of 1.5C" ... Over the same period, global average surface temperature has increased by about 0.66C, almost exactly what could have been expected if a doubling of CO2 produces about 2.5C warming – just a bit below their best estimate. A remarkably prescient prediction ... The current crop of climate scientists revere Charney and his co-authors for their insight and clarity. The report exemplifies how good science works: establish an hypothesis after examining the physics and chemistry, then based on your assessment of the science make strong predictions. Here, “strong predictions” means something that would be unlikely to come true if your hypothesis and science were incorrect ... Over the ensuing 40 years, as the world warmed pretty much as Charney and his colleagues expected, climate change science improved ... This subsequent science has, however, only confirmed the conclusions of the Charney Report.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/07/40-years-ago-scientists-predicted-climate-change-and-hey-they-were-right
see also https://phys.org/news/2019-07-charney-years-scientists-accurately-climate.htmlStudy: Rising ocean temperatures killing Guam coral reefs
University of Guam researchers said increased temperatures killed 34% of Guam's coral reefs between 2013 and 2017, The Pacific Daily News reported Monday. About 60% of the reefs along Guam's eastern coast are gone, scientists said. "Never in our history of looking at reefs have we seen something this severe," said Laurie Raymundo, UOG marine lab director and marine biology professor. The study was published in the scientific journal Coral Reefs.
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-guam-reefs-ocean-temperatures.htmlThanks to climate change, parts of the Arctic are on fire. Scientists are concerned
From eastern Siberia to Greenland to Alaska, wildfires are burning ... Peat fires smolder for long periods of time. They ignited at the end of June, and it appears that they're still burning. ... "The fires are burning through long-term carbon stores (peat soil) emitting greenhouse gases, which will further exacerbate greenhouse warming, leading to more fires ... These are some of the biggest fires on the planet ... The amount of CO2 emitted from Arctic Circle fires in June 2019 is larger than all of the CO2 released from Arctic Circle fires in the same month from 2010 through to 2018 put together." ... there really isn't much that can be done, Smith said ... in the Siberian Arctic, only rain can put out the fires.
https://usatoday.com/story/news/weather/2019/07/23/arctic-fires-shown-satellite-concerning-scientists/1793530001
see also https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2019/07/satellite-images-show-vast-swaths-of-the-arctic-on-fireAlaska Chokes on Wildfires as Heat Waves Dry Out the Arctic
Global warming has been thawing tundra and drying vast stretches of the far-northern boreal forests, and it also has spurred more thunderstorms with lightning, which triggered many of the fires burning in Alaska this year, said Brian Brettschneider, a climate scientist with the International Arctic Research Center who closely tracks Alaskan and Arctic extreme weather ... Several studies, as well as ongoing satellite monitoring, show that fires are spreading farther north into the Arctic, burning more intensely and starting earlier in the year, in line with what climate models have long suggested would happen as sea ice dwindles and ocean and air temperatures rise.
https://climate-change-news.blogspot.com/2019/07/alaska-chokes-on-wildfires-as-heat.htmlResearch Highlight: Loss of Arctic's Reflective Sea Ice Will Advance Global Warming by 25 Years
Losing the remaining Arctic sea ice and its ability to reflect incoming solar energy back to space would be equivalent to adding one trillion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere, on top of the 2.4 trillion tons emitted since the Industrial Age ... At current rates, this roughly equates to 25 years of global CO2 emissions ... the Arctic is rapidly losing ice, and computer forecast models are actually underestimating the extent of this trend. “We analyzed 40 climate models from modeling centers around the world ... Not a single one of the models simulated as much Arctic sea ice retreat per degree of global warming as has been observed during recent decades. This motivated us to use an observationally focused approach to investigate the scenario in which all of the remaining Arctic sea ice disappears considerably faster than the models simulate.”
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/research-highlight-loss-arctics-reflective-sea-ice-will-advance-global-warming-25-years'People are dying': how the climate crisis has sparked an exodus to the US
[A]mid a deepening global climate crisis, drought, famine and the battle for dwindling natural resources are increasingly being recognized as major factors in the exodus ... The current run of hot, dry years follows a decade or so of unusually prolonged rains and flooding ... On the ground, the impact has been devastating. In 2018, drought-related crop failures directly affected one in 10 Guatemalans, and caused extreme food shortages ... As a result, entire families have been migrating in record numbers ... Forests mitigate climate change, but Guatemala has lost half its woodlands in the past 40 years – and deforestation rates are rising, in turn causing floods, landslides and erosion of farmland ... “We’re desperate,” said Ávalos, who looks and sounds exhausted. “There’s no money and no food.”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/jul/29/guatemala-climate-crisis-migration-drought-famineInside India's water crisis: Living with drought and dry taps
This year, large parts of India have seen the worst drought in decades. The monsoon, which usually provides some relief, was weeks late and when it finally arrived, it was once again deficient, with less rainfall than expected. Despite India's economic growth in recent years, it remains one of the most unequal societies in the world. And that inequality can be seen in people's access to life's most basic necessity: water. A government report found that 600 million Indians - nearly half the population - are facing acute water shortages.
https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/talktojazeera/inthefield/2019/07/india-water-crisis-struggling-drought-dry-taps-190726120934966.htmlEurope heat wave by the numbers: Record-breaking temperatures blasted France, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Britain
Europe's second heat wave of the summer spread record high temperatures across the continent ... The grueling heat, that lasted from July 21-26, wreaked havoc in places such as Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands ... “What these heat waves do is help propagate any ongoing drought conditions that started earlier this month, this summer or even earlier which in turn yields to a higher threat for wildfires” ... this is the second straight year in which drought conditions have become a problem across western Europe ... Climate scientists warned these types of heat waves could become the new normal, but they loom as a giant challenge for temperate Europe.
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/europe-heat-wave-by-the-numbers-record-breaking-temperatures-blasted-france-belgium-germany-netherlands-britain/70008926As temperatures soar, a ‘heat dome’ is coming to the Arctic
After Europe experienced record-breaking temperatures this month, climate scientists are now concerned that a heat wave will settle farther north. This week, a so-called “heat dome” is expected to strike over the Arctic, causing worries about potential ice melt and rising sea levels. "When talking to these scientists ... the sense of a system that is getting into sort of a runaway feedback really comes through."
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/as-temperatures-soar-a-heat-dome-is-coming-to-the-arcticStudy finds climate change may be responsible for rise of deadly drug-resistant fungus
Climate change may be causing a wide-spread, drug-resistant fungus, according to a study published Tuesday by the American Society for Microbiology. Researchers found that the new fungal disease could be the first to emerge as a result of climate change. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed 587 cases of the fungus, Candida auris, in March. The CDC had said it was resistant to antifungal drugs ... To examine the potential impact of climate change on its emergence, researchers compared the thermal susceptibility of Candida auris to its close relatives. The study found that the fungus was able to adapt as the climate warms.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/454266-study-finds-climate-change-may-be-responsible-for-rise-of-deadly
reporting on a study at https://mbio.asm.org/content/10/4/e01397-19/article-infoRecord heat in Alaska melts glaciers, hints at bigger problems that may be to come
July 2019 is on pace to be the hottest on record in Alaska after record-setting years in 2015, 2016 and 2018. Starting in the 1990s, Alaska began to set high-temperature records three times as frequently as record lows. By 2015, the rate of high-temperature records tripled to nine times as often ... [Szundy] calls the glacier he’s come to know as his “office” the “canary in the coal mine” for a warming planet.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/record-heat-alaska-melts-glaciers-hints-bigger-problems-may-be-n1034766Think Climate Change Is Normal? In 2,000 Years, Scientists Can't Find Anything Like It
Over the past two millennia, the world's climate has gone through its fair share of ups and downs, but what is happening right now stands out in stark contrast. Two new papers have demonstrated that peak warming and cooling events before the Industrial era - such as the so-called Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period - were vastly smaller in scope than today's global reach of human-induced warming ... "The warm and the cold in the past was just regional, whereas what we see now is global."
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-current-climate-crisis-is-totally-unmatched-by-anything-in-the-last-2-000-years
see also https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/modern-climate-change-only-worldwide-warming-event-past-2000-years-180972719/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1401-2Climate scientists drive stake through heart of skeptics' argument
[A] pair of studies published Wednesday provides stark evidence that the rise in global temperatures over the past 150 years has been far more rapid and widespread than any warming period in the past 2,000 years ... One of the studies, published in the journal Nature, shows that the Little Ice Age and other natural fluctuations affected only limited regions of the planet at a time, making modern warming the first and only planetwide warm period in the past two millennia. The other study, published in Nature Geoscience, shows that the rate of modern warming has far outpaced changes that occurred before the rise of the industrial era ... Prior to 1850, fluctuations were mainly linked to volcanic eruptions, which cooled the planet by spewing sun-blocking ash into the stratosphere; after 1850, greenhouse gas emissions took the wheel.
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/climate-scientists-drive-stake-through-heart-skeptics-argument-ncna1033646Heatwave: think it’s hot in Europe? The human body is already close to thermal limits elsewhere
Maximum temperatures of 35°C or more are hot by UK standards, but such conditions are familiar to around 80% of the world’s population ... In places like South Asia and the Persian Gulf, the human body, despite all its remarkable thermal efficiencies, is often operating close to its limits. And yes, there is a limit. When the air temperature exceeds 35°C, the body relies on the evaporation of water – mainly through sweating – to keep core temperature at a safe level. This system works until the “wetbulb” temperature reaches 35°C ... Once this wetbulb temperature threshold is crossed, the air is so full of water vapour that sweat no longer evaporates. Without the means to dissipate heat, our core temperature rises, irrespective of how much water we drink, how much shade we seek, or how much rest we take. Without respite, death follows.
https://theconversation.com/heatwave-think-its-hot-in-europe-the-human-body-is-already-close-to-thermal-limits-elsewhere-121003Hottest Day Ever in the Netherlands – AGAIN! Record Broken Second Day in a Row
Sweltering temperatures in the European heatwave have caused the Netherlands to break the hottest temperature on record two days in a row. The temperature maxed out at 39.1°C yesterday, but reached 39.5°C today. Who said that climate change wasn’t real?
https://dutchreview.com/news/weather/hottest-day-ever-in-the-netherlands-again-record-broken-second-day-in-a-row/It’s official – a heatwave and the hottest night on record
The Netherlands is now officially in the middle of a heatwave ... Thursday night was the warmest on record ... it is officially known as a ‘tropical night’, of which there have been just seven since records began in 1901 ... Friday too will be hot, with maximum temperatures of 38 degrees in the south and south east.
https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2019/07/its-official-a-heatwave-and-the-hottest-night-on-record/Alaskan glaciers melting 100 times faster than previously thought
In a new study published today in Science, a team of oceanographers and glaciologists unpeeled a new layer of understanding of tidewater glaciers ... “The melt that’s happening is fairly dramatically different from some of the assumptions we’ve had,” says Twila Moon, a glaciologist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/07/alaskan-glaciers-melting-faster-than-previously-thought
see also https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/glacial-melting-climate-breakdown-sea-level-rise-study-a9021266.htmlAmazon deforestation accelerating towards unrecoverable 'tipping point'
Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon [is] pushing the world’s biggest rainforest closer to a tipping point beyond which it cannot recover. The sharp rise – following year-on-year increases in May and June – confirms fears that president Jair Bolsonaro has given a green light to illegal land invasion, logging and burning. Clearance so far in July has hit 1,345 sq km, a third higher than the previous monthly record under the current monitoring system by the Deter B satellite system, which started in 2015 ... Scientists warn that the forest is in growing danger of degrading into a savannah, after which its capacity to absorb carbon will be severely diminished, with consequences for the rest of the planet.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/25/amazonian-rainforest-near-unrecoverable-tipping-pointRecord high temperatures far exceed record lows -- a trend of the climate crisis
Record-high temperatures occurring twice as frequently as record lows directly reflects our climate crisis, as you would expect ... Since our record-keeping began in 1895, the country's average temperature has climbed somewhere between 1.3 and 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit [0.7-1.1C] ... Current projections place that ratio as high as 20-to-1 by 2050 and 50-to-1 by the end of the century. If this ratio continues to grow over time, many temperatures we currently label as extreme may become nothing more than an ordinary oJuly 5 2019ccurrence.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/22/us/climate-change-record-highs-outpace-lows/index.htmlEurope's Most Important River Risks a Repeat of Historic Shutdown
The bustling boat traffic on Europe’s Rhine river ground to a halt for the first time in living memory last year, as shrinking alpine glaciers and severe drought made the key transport artery impassable. Those historic conditions could be repeated in a few weeks ... The Rhine is critical to commerce in the region. Europe’s most important waterway snakes 800 miles through industrial zones in Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands before emptying into the North Sea at the busy Rotterdam port. It’s a key conduit for raw materials and goods ... Reflecting a trend seen in the Himalayas, the Rockies and other mountainous regions of the world, alpine glaciers have shrunk steadily as global warming makes melting in summer outpace accumulation of snow in winter. That means there’s less water feeding rivers each year.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-23/the-rhine-river-risks-a-repeat-of-last-year-s-historic-shutdownClimate change: 12 years to save the planet? Make that 18 months
One of the understated headlines in last year's IPCC report was that global emissions of carbon dioxide must peak by 2020 to keep the planet below 1.5C. Current plans are nowhere near strong enough to keep temperatures below the so-called safe limit. Right now, we are heading towards 3C of heating by 2100 not 1.5. As countries usually scope out their plans over five and 10 year timeframes, if the 45% carbon cut target by 2030 is to be met, then the plans really need to be on the table by the end of 2020.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48964736California, Wary of More Wildfires, Is Paying for Them Already
Insurance rates have soared in some of the riskiest places, and some insurers are refusing to renew policies ... Pacific Gas & Electric, which already charges among the highest electricity rates in the country, is requesting that regulators approve an additional charge to customers of $2 billion over the next three years to help pay for wildfire safety improvements and other costs. This is separate from the compensation fund approved last week, which includes more than $10 billion in costs to be borne by customers in the form of a levy on electricity bills for the next decade and a half. And none of this will help pay the tens of billions of dollars in liabilities the company has for past fires where its equipment was involved [after which] PG&E filed for bankruptcy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/22/us/california-wildfires-costs.htmlMatterhorn starts to lose majesty as melting ice chips away at rock
Advertisers may have to choose a new symbol of permanence: like many of its neighbours, the majestic peak is splintering away
The Matterhorn, the snow-flecked Queen of the Alps used in advertising as a symbol of permanence, is cracking as the permafrost at its core starts to thaw and its ice covering retreats ... The plight of the Matterhorn, the range’s most photographed peak, shows the effect of climate change on the Alps.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/matterhorn-starts-to-lose-majesty-as-melting-ice-chips-away-at-rock-rg030c88t‘First Glacier Lost to Climate Change’ to be Memorialised
The former Okjökull glacier will be memorialised with a monument recognising its status as the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier ... “With this memorial, we want to underscore that it is up to us, the living, to collectively respond to the rapid loss of glaciers and the ongoing impacts of climate change. For Ok glacier it is already too late; it is now what scientists call ‘dead ice.'”
https://www.icelandreview.com/news/first-glacier-lost-to-climate-change-to-be-memorialisedWorld Hunger Rises with Climate Shocks, Conflict and Economic Slumps
The combined forces of climate change, conflict and economic stagnation are driving more people around the world into hunger, reversing earlier progress, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported ... The report underscores the complex interplay among climate change, conflict and economic stagnation and their combined impact on malnourishment. In drought-ravaged parts of Central America for example, a prolonged drought is stoking higher hunger rates and migration to the region's cities and northward to the United States. The report also emphasized the urgent need for addressing the role of climate change in threatening global food production, particularly as the global population soars.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15072019/world-hunger-rising-climate-shocks-and-conflicts-and-economic-slumps-slow-recoveryMajor U.S. cities are leaking methane at twice the rate previously believed
A new study has found that leaks of methane, the main ingredient in natural gas and itself a potent greenhouse gas, are twice as big as official tallies suggest in major cities along the U.S. eastern seaboard ... analyses suggest the five biggest urban areas studied—which together include about 12% of the nation’s population—emit about 890,000 tons of methane each year, the researchers report this week in Geophysical Research Letters. The vast majority of that, at least 750,000 tons, comes from methane leaks from homes, businesses, and gas distribution infrastructure, rather than natural sources and other human-driven sources such as landfills. For comparison, the team notes, that’s well over triple the amount emitted by gas production in the Bakken shale formation in the U.S. Midwest. It’s also much more than the amounts estimated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/07/major-us-cities-are-leaking-methane-twice-rate-previously-believedFinancial Times: It is probably too late to stop dangerous global warming
[T]o avoid a dangerous level of global warming, the world would need to commission an asset the size of New Jersey’s Ocean Wind [offshore wind farm] every day for the next 30 years ... The hard truth is that we are not on track for that. Nor are we close to an overnight technical solution to the many other challenges of the energy transition that must be solved before we can develop a 100 per cent clean energy system. Of course, these realities do not stop us from telling ourselves fairy tales. The first one is that energy efficiency will save the day. The facts show just the opposite: over 50 years since the oil price crises of the 1970s, we have seen rising energy efficiency in almost all walks of life, yet in the same time period energy demand and carbon emissions have tripled ... The second fairy tale is a type of deus ex machina, a divine intervention usually staged in the last act of a play. Variously we hear that carbon capture, or nuclear fusion, or geoengineering could play this role ... These concepts may one day have potential but few are viable today ... Humanity may, therefore, achieve in the space of a hundred years what used to take 10,000 or 20,000 years — an increase in average surface temperatures of 2, 3, 4 degrees Celsius or more.
https://www.ft.com/content/ef7b2fc8-a16f-11e9-a282-2df48f366f7dGermany's forests on the verge of collapse, experts report
Low rainfall last summer saw Germany's rivers reach extreme lows, with some waterways still struggling and forests prone to fire. "These are no longer single unusual weather events. That is climate change," said Dohle. Low river levels "remain unchanged" in many parts of Germany, the BFG said, with only the Rhine River currently carrying sufficient water for shipping. It's expected to fall in the coming weeks as dry, warmer weather returns. What Dohle of the forestry trade union termed "dramatic tree deaths" began with winter snow dumps in early 2018 which broke branches, weakening the trees' natural defenses and letting in fungal infections, "followed by drought and bark beetle infestation" that killed off European spruce trees. One million older trees have since died ... Foresters are unable to remember such a dire situation.
https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-forests-on-the-verge-of-collapse-experts-report/a-49659810[Australian] Drought now officially our worst on record
The ongoing drought through the Murray Darling Basin is now the worst on record according to the Bureau of Meteorology ... temperatures were as high as they have been during the human era, saying the nearest equivalent according to paleo-climatic data (analysing historical weather trends) was a hot period encountered 2-3 million years ago. "We are still below that threshold of a couple of million years ago but we are starting to approach it"
https://www.theland.com.au/story/6281386/drought-now-officially-our-worst-on-recordWhat happens when parts of South Asia become unlivable? The climate crisis is already displacing millions
The flooding comes as India was still reeling from a weeks-long water crisis amid heavy droughts and heatwaves across the country ... Experts said the country has five years to address severe water shortages, caused by steadily depleting groundwater supplies, or over 100 million people will left be without ready access to water. In Afghanistan, drought has devastated traditional farming areas, forcing millions of people to move or face starvation, while in Bangladesh, heavy monsoon flooding has marooned entire communities and cut-off vital roads ... This is the sharp edge of the climate crisis. What seems an urgent but still future problem for many developed countries is already killing people in parts of Asia, and a new refugee crisis, far worse than that which has hit Europe in recent years, is brewing ... People affected by climate change will not stay put as their children drown or die of heat stroke or thirst ... according to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, some 135 million people could be displaced as a result of land and soil degradation.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/17/asia/india-nepal-flooding-climate-refugees-intl-hnk/index.htmlRed Alert: record temperatures in world's northernmost settlement
Temperatures hit a record [21C] in Alert, the northernmost permanently inhabited spot on the planet less than 600 miles from the North Pole, the Canadian meteorology service said Tuesday. "It's quite phenomenal as a statistic, it's just one example among hundreds and hundreds of other records established by global warming," [said] Armel Castellan, a meteorologist at the Canadian environment ministry ... Such highs so far north are "completely staggering," he said, noting that "for a week and a half we have had much higher temperatures than usual." ... The average daily temperature in Alert in July is 38 F, with average maximum temperatures of 43 F.
https://www.afp.com/en/news/826/red-alert-record-temperatures-worlds-northernmost-settlement-doc-1iu4f51Days of 100-Degree Heat Will Become Weeks as Climate Warms, U.S. Study Warns
Nearly every part of the United States will face a significant increase in extremely hot days by mid-century, even if some action is taken to reduce greenhouse emissions, a new study says. If nothing is done to rein in climate change, it warns, the impact will be worse ... The study used 18 climate models to predict changes in the heat index across the contiguous U.S. as global temperatures rise over the coming decades.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16072019/heat-wave-climate-change-study-humidity-index-days-rising-health-risk
reporting on a study at https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2515-7620/ab27cfMonsoon rains 20% below average in past week, raising crop worries
Overall, India has received 16% below average rain since the monsoon season began on June 1. Monsoon rains are crucial for farm output and economic growth in India, where about 55% of all arable land is reliant on rainfall ... In the week to July 17, soybean and cotton areas in the central parts of the country received 68% less than average rainfall, while rubber and tea areas in southern India got 71% lower rains, data from the India Meteorological Department (IMD) showed.
https://www.livemint.com/news/india/monsoon-rains-20-below-average-in-past-week-raising-crop-worries-1563434346575.htmlMekong River drops to lowest level in a century around Thai, Lao, Myanmar border
The Mekong’s current water levels, at a historic low, are significant particularly because it’s the middle of the wet season, when there should have been plenty of water and flooding in some areas ... Several of Thailand’s northeastern provinces are experiencing water shortages, despite the onset of the rainy season, with their sources of tap water rapidly drying up.
https://thethaiger.com/hot-news/environment/mekong-river-drops-to-lowest-level-in-a-century-around-thai-lao-myanmar-border'Breaking' the heat index: US heat waves to skyrocket as globe warms, study suggests
As the globe warms in the years ahead, days with extreme heat are forecast to skyrocket across hundreds of U.S. cities, a new study suggests, perhaps even breaking the "heat index." “Our analysis shows a hotter future that’s hard to imagine today,” study co-author Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement. “Nearly everywhere, people will experience more days of dangerous heat in the next few decades."
https://usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/07/16/heat-waves-worsen-because-global-warming-study-says/1734127001/We have 18 months to save world, Prince Charles warns Commonwealth leaders
The Prince of Wales has warned global leaders they have 18 critical months to solve climate change and restore the balance of nature, ensuring the survival of the human race ... the Prince said: “Ladies and gentlemen, I am firmly of the view that the next 18 months will decide our ability to keep climate change to survivable levels" ... The Prince has long spoken about his deep concern for the future of the planet, urging leaders to focus on the threat presented by climate change.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2019/07/11/18-months-save-world-prince-charles-urges-commonwealth-leaders/Add krill and mussels to the list of unusual marine deaths in Alaska
Residents from two Northwest Alaska villages say they found large numbers of dead mussels and krill washed up along shores in June ... discoveries come amid profound changes in the ocean environment in Alaska linked to climate change, including a dramatic early ice melt, warmer water temperatures and record high air temperatures. There has been a string of unusual mortality events this season including deaths of seabirds and seals ... two million dead mussels lining a channel near the ocean on the Seward Peninsula [and] mounds of dead krill along beaches.
https://www.ktoo.org/2019/07/09/add-krill-and-mussels-to-the-list-of-unusual-marine-deaths-in-alaska/Arctic wildfires emitted as much CO2 in June as Sweden does in a year
“Since the start of June we’ve seen unprecedented wildfires in the Arctic region,” a WMO spokeswoman, Clare Nullis, told a regular UN briefing in Geneva. “In June alone these wildfires emitted 50 megatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, this is the equivalent of Sweden’s annual total CO2 emissions. This is more than was released by Arctic fires in the same month between 2010 and 2018 combined.” ... Most have been in the US state of Alaska and the Russian region of Siberia, but one fire in Alberta was estimated to be bigger than 300,000 football pitches, or about the size of Luxembourg.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/12/arctic-wildfires-c02-carbon-emissions-same-swedenArctic ice loss is worrying, but the giant stirring in the South could be even worse
The water frozen in the Greenland ice sheet is equivalent to around 7 metres of potential sea level rise [but] in the Antarctic ice sheet there are around 58 metres of sea-level rise currently locked away. Like Greenland, the Antarctic ice sheet is losing ice and contributing to unabated global sea level rise. But there are worrying signs Antarctica is changing faster than expected and in places previously thought to be protected from rapid change. On the Antarctic Peninsula—the most northerly part of the Antarctic continent—air temperatures over the past century have risen faster than any other place in the Southern Hemisphere ... number of melt days will rise by at least 50 percent when global warming hits the soon-to-be-reached 1.5℃ limit set out in the Paris Agreement ... latest estimates indicate that 25 percent of the West Antarctic ice sheet is now unstable, and that Antarctic ice loss has increased five-fold over the past 25 years. These are remarkable numbers, bearing in mind that more than 4 metres of global sea-level rise are locked up in the West Antarctic alone.
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-arctic-ice-loss-giant-south.htmlCan planting trees save our climate? [No]
The researchers estimated 200 billion tons of carbon could be stored in this way – provided we plant over a trillion trees. Unfortunately, it’s too good to be true. Mankind is currently blowing 11 billion tonnes of carbon (gigatonnes C, abbreviated GtC) into the air every year in the form of CO2 – and the trend is rising ... the authors of the new study say that it would take fifty to one hundred years for the thousand billion trees to store 200 GtC – an average of 2 to 4 GtC per year, compared to our current emissions of 11 GtC per year. That’s about one-fifth to one-third – and this proportion will decrease if emissions continue to grow. This sounds quite different from the prospect of solving two-thirds of the climate problem with trees. And there are other question marks.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2019/07/can-planting-trees-save-our-climate/Exaggerating how much carbon dioxide can be absorbed by tree planting risks deterring crucial climate action
Planting almost a billion hectares of trees worldwide ... has been criticized as an exaggeration. It could actually be dangerous ... because promises of cheap and easy CO2 removal in future make it less likely that time and money will be invested in reducing emissions now ... The promises of cheap and powerful tech fixes help to sideline thorny issues of politics, economics and culture. This has been seen before in the expectations around carbon capture and storage [CCS]. Despite promises of its future potential in the early 2000s, commercial development of the technology has scarcely progressed in the last decade ... Trusting in trees to remove carbon in future is particularly dangerous because trees are slow to grow ... also less likely to be able to do this as the climate warms [since] growth rates are predicted to fall as the climate warms and devastating wildfires become more frequent.
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-exaggerating-carbon-dioxide-absorbed-tree.html'Hell Is Coming': What Lies Ahead for Europe's Climate
Accuweather is predicting a series of especially long heat waves for Europe in July and August ... A severe drought like last year is also in the cards [with] abnormally high danger of forest fires ... In the past 22 years, we have now seen the 20 warmest years on record. This accumulation alone is enough to show that climate change is already here. The climate that today's 40-year-olds experienced in their childhoods, a climate that had been quite stable for 11,000 years, is a thing of the past. The era of hot temperatures has begun ... [limiting global warming to 1.5C] would require global CO2 emissions to reach a turning point in 2020. And they would need to drop by an enormous 55 percent by 2030. By 2050, it would have to be zero. Those who do continue producing CO2 at that point would also have to find a way to pull it back out of the atmosphere at another spot. The authors of the report wrote that none of these goals will be achieved through the current policies being pursued by the international community.
https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/hell-is-coming-europe-engulfed-by-massive-heatwave-a-1275268.htmlDepression, anxiety, PTSD: Climate change is taking a toll on our mental health, experts say
Climate change is the subject of a conversation that’s happening in every sphere of society ... experts say they’re seeing an increase in related mental-health issues. “It can be anything from depression to increasing anxiety disorders,” said the psychologist at the Vancouver Anxiety Centre, who’s also a professor at the University of British Columbia. “It can be post-traumatic stress disorder." ... Around the world, mental-health researchers have been documenting what people feel when the world they’ve known changes gradually — or suddenly — from climate change. There are several names for it, such as environmental grief, eco grief or even climate anxiety ... “Anytime you have any kind of change, it can lead to grief. Trying to accept a new reality with the changing climate could lead people to feel sad in ways they hadn’t felt before,” Korol said. “What we are seeing is scary, and what we imagine might be coming is even scarier.”
https://www.thestar.com/vancouver/2019/07/08/depression-anxiety-ptsd-climate-change-is-taking-a-toll-on-our-mental-health-experts-say.htmlAncient Earth reveals terrifying consequences of future global warming
Mid-Pliocene Warm Period [is] a pretty good analogue of the future Earth ... “The global annual mean temperature was between 2°C and 3°C warmer than pre-industrial, with warming more pronounced in higher latitudes,” says [Alan Haywood, an earth scientist at the University of Leeds in the UK.]. “There was a significant reduction in sea ice in both hemispheres. The Arctic may have been completely free of ice in the summer. The Greenland ice sheet may have retreated to a small ice mass and we believe that the West Antarctic ice sheet was not there. Sea level is somewhere between 15 to 25 metres above modern levels.” ... Pliocene also provides some much-needed clarity about what will happen to ice sheets and sea levels as the effects of warming play out on longer timescales. In a nutshell, they melt fast and rise a lot ... under current emissions trajectories “we very quickly arrive at a Pliocene scenario”, he says. How quickly? “Within the next 20 to 30 years ... [possibly] as early as 2030." ... However, the Pliocene may not be our final destination. If we don’t substantially curb emissions, says Haywood, we soon leave that epoch behind and strike out for the Eocene, an extreme hothouse episode when average temperatures were 14°C above pre-industrial and sea levels were more than 70 metres higher.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24332370-600-ancient-earth-reveals-terrifying-consequences-of-future-global-warming/Great Barrier Reef hard coral cover close to record lows
Australian Institute of Marine Science says hard coral cover in the northern region above Cooktown is at 14% ... close to the lowest since monitoring began in 1985 ... series of “disturbances” – coral bleaching linked to rising water temperatures, crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks and tropical cyclones – have caused hard coral cover to decline ... If we have more coral bleaching events all bets are off." ... Australian Marine Conservation Society said the latest government data showed coral decline was happening on an unparalleled scale, mainly due to the climate crisis.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/11/great-barrier-reef-hard-coral-cover-close-to-record-lowsNew research shows that Paris Agreement goals might not save the Arctic
Global warming limits laid out by the landmark Paris climate agreement do not rule out an Arctic devoid of summer sea ice, according to new research out this week. The findings, published July 9, are a grim indicator that even a best-case scenario for limiting climate impacts could still have unprecedented implications for the planet. They also underscore the potential for even more dire situations, which are growing more likely as countries, including the United States, fail to reach their individual climate goals under the Paris Agreement ... the new research appears in this week’s issue of Nature Communications and offers an ominous forecast for climate advocates.
https://thinkprogress.org/even-meeting-the-goals-of-the-paris-agreement-might-not-save-the-arctic-60984e7d9cbb/Global heating: London to have climate similar to Barcelona by 2050
London will have a similar climate in three decades’ time to that of Barcelonatoday, according to research ... accompanied by severe drought. Madrid will feel like present-day Marrakech by 2050, and Stockholm like Budapest, according to a report on the likely impacts of the climate crisis ... Moscow will resemble Sofia, Seattle will feel like San Francisco and New York will be comparable to Virginia Beach ... about a fifth of cities globally – including Jakarta, Singapore, Yangon and Kuala Lumpur – will experience conditions currently not seen in any major cities in the world.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/10/global-heating-london-similar-climate-barcelona-2050France failing to tackle climate emergency, report says
Carbon dioxide emission reduction has not been happening fast enough in France ... first official objective, the 2015-18 carbon budget, was not met. During this period, annual emissions decreased by only 1.1%, much less than planned. The rate of decrease needs to triple by 2025 to catch up on the objectives ... key culprit in this “gap between ambition and reality” was transport: emissions have not seen a real decrease in the last 10 years, including from cars and lorries.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/25/france-failing-on-climate-emergency-report'A floodier future': Scientists say records will be broken
A report released Wednesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts that sunny day flooding, also known as tidal flooding, will continue to increase. "The future is already here, a floodier future," said William Sweet, a NOAA oceanographer and lead author of the study. The report predicted that annual flood records will be broken again next year and for years and decades to come from sea-level rise.
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-scientists-seas.htmlArctic waters are actually warmer than Great Lakes right now
In a flip-flop scenario, a monitoring buoy near Prudhoe Bay, north of Alaska, is recording temperatures better suited to Lake Superior, while the lake shivers in temperatures more suited to the Arctic Circle. Alaska temperatures have been smashing records this summer ... It's not just the summer heatwave at work here, though. The path was paved for this unusual warm water back in the winter of 2018/19 when the region smashed another ocean record -- this one for lack of sea ice. The decline of sea ice volume and thickness on the Arctic Ocean has been well-documented since the late 1970s, and this year has marked an all-time low for ice extent in the Arctic basin. That lack of ice plays a big role in the warmer water.
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/news/article/beaufort-sea-water-north-of-alaska-hotter-than-some-of-the-great-lakesSuper-heatwaves of 55°C to emerge if global warming continues
A recently published study by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) – the European Commission's science and knowledge service – analyses the interaction between humidity and heat ... looks not only at temperature but also at relative humidity in estimating the magnitude and impact of heatwaves. It finds that the combinations of the two, and the resulting heatwaves, leave more people exposed to significant health risks, especially in East Asia and America's East Coast. Warm air combined with high humidity can be very dangerous, as it prevents the human body from cooling down through sweating, leading to hyperthermia ... If global temperatures increase by up to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, the combined effect of heat and humidity (known as apparent temperature or Heat Index) will likely exceed 40°C every year in many parts of Asia, Australia, Northern Africa, and South and North America ... The paper is published in Scientific Reports.
https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/news/super-heatwaves-55-c-emerge-if-global-warming-continuesClimate change is affecting crop yields and reducing global food supplies
[A] team of researchers led by the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment spent four years collecting information on crop productivity from around the world. We focused on the top 10 global crops that provide the bulk of consumable food calories: Maize (corn), rice, wheat, soybeans, oil palm, sugarcane, barley, rapeseed (canola), cassava and sorghum. Roughly 83 percent of consumable food calories come from just these 10 sources. Other than cassava and oil palm, all are important U.S. crops. We found that climate change has affected yields in many places ... overall climate change is reducing global production of staples such as rice and wheat. And when we translated crop yields into consumable calories—the actual food on people's plates—we found that climate change is already shrinking food supplies, particularly in food-insecure developing countries.
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-climate-affecting-crop-yields-global.htmlA GLOF threatens Bhutan right now
Sustained heat waves, a delayed monsoon and a spike in temperature has recently melted huge volumes of ice and snow in Bhutan’s largest glacial lake, the Thorthormi Tsho (lake), causing the water level to rise by almost two meters. This has prompted the government to issue a nationwide flood advisory ... Any major disturbance on Thorthormi Lake could result in a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF), potentially with huge cost to life, property and infrastructure ... currently the moraine dam has sufficient mass to withstand the hydrostatic (water) pressure from Thorthormi Lake. But if the melting continues due to a rise in temperature the moraine will not be able to hold ... could also have serious implication across the border in downstream India [because] unlike Bhutan, the bordering areas of India were plains. There the floodwater would inundate surrounding land for weeks.
https://www.thethirdpole.net/en/2019/07/10/a-glof-threatens-bhutan-right-now/Deforestation’s impact on climate change deemed worse than expected
Deforestation in the tropics causes greater CO2 emissions than previously thought due to centuries-old carbon also released by the soil, according to an international study, published on Monday ... When a forest is cut down, it can no longer extract carbon dioxide from the air. At the same time, carbon dating back, on average, 1,500 years ago is then freed by the soil.
https://www.brusselstimes.com/all-news/belgium-all-news/science/60278/deforestations-impact-on-climate-change-deemed-worse-than-expected/Drought warning: Could eastern Germany run out of water?
[I]n the second dry summer in a row - and following record-breaking temperatures in June - regions like Lusatia in the eastern German state Brandenburg face a problem: If it continues to rain so little, water supplies could become scarce ... the Elbe and Oder rivers running through eastern Germany carried so little water, even before the start of summer, that sandbanks and rocks were left exposed ... In the middle of Magdeburg, ships could no longer moor at the beginning of July; in Dresden, freight traffic on the water was no longer possible as the Elbe River lost 50 centimetres of water in three days.
https://www.thelocal.de/20190709/could-water-supplies-run-out-in-eastern-germanyRainforest On Fire
300,000 square miles has been cut and burned in Brazil, whose borders contain almost two-thirds of the Amazon basin. This is an area larger than Texas ... has set loose so much stored carbon that it has negated the forest’s benefit as a carbon sink, the world’s largest after the oceans. Scientists warn that losing another fifth of Brazil’s rainforest will trigger the feedback loop known as dieback, in which the forest begins to dry out and burn in a cascading system collapse, beyond the reach of any subsequent human intervention or regret. This would release a doomsday bomb of stored carbon, disappear the cloud vapor that consumes the sun’s radiation before it can be absorbed as heat, and shrivel the rivers in the basin and in the sky.
https://theintercept.com/2019/07/06/brazil-amazon-rainforest-indigenous-conservation-agribusiness-ranching/Breaching a “carbon threshold” could lead to mass extinction
[W]hen the rate at which carbon dioxide enters the oceans pushes past a certain threshold — whether as the result of a sudden burst or a slow, steady influx — the Earth may respond with a runaway cascade of chemical feedbacks, leading to extreme ocean acidification that dramatically amplifies the effects of the original trigger ... over the last 540 million years, the ocean’s store of carbon changed abruptly, then recovered, dozens of times ... once they were set in motion, the rate at which carbon increased was essentially the same. Their characteristic rate is likely a property of the carbon cycle itself — not the triggers, because different triggers would operate at different rates ... today we are “at the precipice of excitation,” and if it occurs, the resulting spike — as evidenced through ocean acidification, species die-offs, and more — is likely to be similar to past global catastrophes. “Once we’re over the threshold, how we got there may not matter,” says Rothman, who is publishing his results this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
http://news.mit.edu/2019/carbon-threshold-mass-extinction-0708'Completely Terrifying': Study Warns Carbon-Saturated Oceans Headed Toward Tipping Point That Could Unleash Mass Extinction Event
"Once we're over the threshold...you're dealing with how the Earth works, and it goes on its own ride."
[C]arbon levels today could be fast approaching a tipping point threshold that could trigger extreme ocean acidification similar to the kind that contributed to the Permian–Triassic mass extinction that occurred about 250 million years ago ... today's oceans are absorbing carbon far more quickly than they did before the Permian–Triassic extinction, in which 90 percent of life on Earth died out. The planet may now be "at the precipice of excitation," Rothman told MIT News ... The study, which was completed with support from NASA and the National Science Foundation ... will be published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/07/09/completely-terrifying-study-warns-carbon-saturated-oceans-headed-toward-tippingIt’s the End of the World as They Know It
[C]limate scientists often resemble Sarah Connor of the Terminator franchise, who knows of a looming catastrophe but must struggle to function in a world that does not comprehend what is coming and, worse, largely ignores the warnings of those who do ... climate scientists face a distinct dilemma: “They have to deal with the surrealism of knowing what we know and living within a society choosing not to know or willing itself not to know” ... At a recent panel discussion [a climate scientist] blurted out, “I have no child and I have one dog, and thank god he’ll be dead in 10 years.” Afterward, people asked if she truly believed that. “The truth is, I do,” she says. “And it’s only going to get more intense.”
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/07/weight-of-the-world-climate-change-scientist-grief/The California coast is disappearing under the rising sea. Our choices are grim
While other regions grappled with destructive waves and rising seas, the West Coast for decades was spared by a rare confluence of favorable winds and cooler water ... Blinded from the consequences of a warming planet, Californians kept building right to the water’s edge ... Wildfire and drought dominate the climate change debates in the state. Yet this less-talked-about reality has California cornered. The coastline is eroding with every tide and storm, but everything built before we knew better — Pacific Coast Highway, multimillion-dollar homes in Malibu, the rail line to San Diego — is fixed in place with nowhere to go. But the world is getting hotter, the great ice sheets still melting, the rising ocean a slow-moving disaster that has already swept past California’s front door.
https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-sea-level-rise-california-coast/The Antarctic Peninsula Under a 1.5°C Global Warming Scenario
Under a global 1.5°C scenario, warming in the Antarctic Peninsula is likely to increase the number of days above 0°C, with up to 130 of such days each year in the northern Peninsula. Ocean turbulence will increase, making the circumpolar deep water (CDW) both warmer and shallower, delivering heat to the sea surface and to coastal margins. Thinning and recession of marine margins of glaciers and ice caps is expected to accelerate to terrestrial limits ... Exposed (ice free) terrestrial areas will expand.
https://frontiersin.figshare.com/collections/The_Antarctic_Peninsula_Under_a_1_5_C_Global_Warming_Scenario/4559036'Unprecedented' Wildfires Burned Across the Arctic Circle In June
More than 100 wildfires in the Arctic Circle released 50 megatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in June. They're still burning. "These are some of the biggest fires on the planet, with a few appearing to be larger than 100,000 hectares ... The amount of CO2 emitted from Arctic Circle fires in June 2019 is larger than all of the CO2 released from Arctic Circle fires in the same month from 2010 through to 2018 put together.”
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qv79b5/unprecedented-wildfires-are-burning-across-the-arctic-circleAlaskan permafrost warming experiment produces surprising results
New measurement method showed 5% of permafrost carbon is released each year ... upshot of this study is simply how rapidly carbon was being lost ... projecting a plausible diminishing rate of loss into the future would mean that something like 70% of the soil carbon would be lost by 2100. Contrast that with prevailing estimates of 5% to 15% by 2100 and it's clear that the new results are raising eyebrows.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/07/permafrost-experiment-shows-surprising-amount-of-co%E2%82%82-release/Scientists find carbon from thawing permafrost is released into the atmosphere at higher rates than previously thought
New research from Northern Arizona University shows even more carbon is being released from thawed permafrost than climate scientists previously thought ... paper published this month in Nature Geoscience that introduces a new way to track soil carbon in permafrost, which changes their understanding of how environmental change influences ecosystem carbon storage ... "suggests that not only is carbon being lost through greenhouse gases directly to the atmosphere but also dissolved in waters that flow through the soil ... critical because carbon lost from these ecosystems ends up in the atmosphere and can accelerate climate change."
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-scientists-carbon-permafrost-atmosphere-higher.htmlAlaska: temperatures rival Miami amid 'unprecedented' heatwave
On Thursday afternoon, Anchorage’s official weather station recorded a temperature of 90F, breaking the previous record high of 85F, and rivaling temperatures in Miami ... The whole state is enduring a heatwave. This June was the warmest on record, with an average temperature of 60.5F – 5.3 degrees above average, according to the National Weather Service Anchorage – and the 16th consecutive month in which average temperatures have ranged above normal. “All 30 days in June had above-average temperatures,” the service noted. June was also the driest on record, with 0.06in of rain, making the state’s forestry vulnerable to wildfires.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/05/alaska-heatwave-record-temperaturesAnalysis finds US ecosystems shifting hundreds of miles north
Whole ecosystems are shifting dramatically north in the Great Plains, a phenomenon likely linked to human influences such as climate change, says new University of Nebraska-Lincoln research that analyzed nearly 50 years' worth of data on bird distributions. The northernmost ecosystem boundary shifted more than 365 miles north, with the southernmost boundary moving about 160 miles from the 1970 baseline.
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-analysis-ecosystems-shifting-hundreds-miles.htmlMulti-year drought caused massive forest die-off in Sierra Nevada
A study published today in Nature Geoscience details ... the progress of the devastation caused by years of dry conditions combined with abnormally warm temperatures. The researchers warn that matters are expected to get worse as global mean temperatures increase ... California's 2012-2015 dry-spell "exceeded this safety margin," the researchers said. When forest stands exhausted the subsurface moisture, they became vulnerable to attack by pests, leading to widespread tree death ... many tree stands suffered complete loss of mature conifers.
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-multi-year-drought-massive-forest-die-off.htmlIndia staring at a water apocalypse
[G]laciers feeding the Indian subcontinent’s rivers will recede rapidly, while rapid ground water depletion poses an existential challenge to agriculture. The southwest monsoons remain the biggest source of water in the subcontinent. The monsoons lead to a combination of water sources supporting human habitats that includes glaciers, surface irrigation and ground water. But redundancy and surplus have gone missing from this once abundant system. Taking their place are galloping shortages.
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/07/article/india-staring-at-a-water-apocalypse/Amazonian tree species threatened by deforestation and climate change
Here, we show that climate and deforestation combined could cause a decline of up to 58% in Amazon tree species richness ... Species may lose an average of 65% of their original environmentally suitable area, and a total of 53% may be threatened ... worst-case combined scenario—assuming no substantial climate or deforestation policy progress—suggests that by 2050 the Amazonian lowland rainforest may be cut into two blocks: one continuous block with 53% of the original area and another severely fragmented block.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0500-2June [2019] was hottest [June] ever recorded on Earth, European satellite agency announces
Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts on behalf of the EU, showed that the global average temperature for June 2019 was the highest on record for the month ... climate change made last week’s record-breaking European heatwave at least five times as likely to happen.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/june-hottest-month-ever-earth-2019-weather-heatwave-hot-a8984691.htmlVery heavy rain bouts are on the way
Canadian scientists have examined an exhaustive collection of rain records for the past 50 years to confirm the fears of climate scientists: bouts of very heavy rain are on the increase ... found that from 1964 to 2013, the frequency of catastrophic downpours increased with each decade ... A warmer atmosphere can absorb more moisture ... The world has warmed by at least 1°C in the last century, thanks to ever-increasing use of fossil fuels, and hydrologists, engineers and planners have been warning for years that human settlements and low-lying terrains have a rainfall problem.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/very-heavy-rain-bouts-are-on-the-way/'Precipitous' fall in Antarctic sea ice since 2014 revealed
The plunge in the average annual extent means Antarctica lost as much sea ice in four years as the Arctic lost in 34 years ... researchers said it showed ice could disappear much more rapidly than previously thought ... “There has been a huge decrease,” said Claire Parkinson, at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in the US. In her study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, she called the decline precipitous and a dramatic reversal.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/01/precipitous-fall-in-antarctic-sea-ice-revealedWe have too many fossil-fuel power plants to meet climate goals
Davis and colleagues looked at all the emissions from electricity, energy, transport, residential, and commercial infrastructure as of 2018. They then estimated the total “carbon commitment”—the future CO2 emissions from those structures and devices ... estimated a total carbon commitment of about 658 billion metric tons of CO2. That’s 78 billion tons above the maximum [IPCC] says can be emitted to have a better than 50 percent chance of stabilizing temperatures at 1.5°C of warming ... Because the study does not include all sources of CO2 emissions, its projections might be considered conservative rather than alarmist.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/07/we-have-too-many-fossil-fuel-power-plants-to-meet-climate-goals
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1364-3No End in Sight for Record Midwest Flood Crisis
While communities north of St. Louis are beginning the expensive path to recovery after record-breaking winter and spring precipitation and runoff, people below the Missouri River are shoveling mud from their houses and praying for a dry spell. The Lower Mississippi Valley remains in a flood crisis as high water continues to swamp streets, homes, businesses, sewage and water treatment plants, and farm fields, including across some of the poorest counties in the United States ... 2019 flood has a rare distinction as a "total system flood," meaning every sub-basin of the Mississippi River has been subject to high water, exacerbating conditions in Southern states like Mississippi and Louisiana.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-end-in-sight-for-record-midwest-flood-crisis/In Greenland’s Melting Ice, A Warning on Hard Climate Choices
The ice sheet holds enough water to raise sea levels by about 24 feet ... In the last two decades, melting rates of the ice are 33 percent higher than 20th century averages; the melting, moreover, is not only increasing but accelerating ... Greenland is no longer changing in geological time. It is changing in human time ... the warming curve for Greenland in the coming years, and especially into the next century, “gets steeper, and steeper, and steeper.”
https://e360.yale.edu/features/in-greenlands-melting-ice-a-warning-on-hard-climate-choicesMont Blanc is melting and is a warning of our future as climate change sees the world's temperature rise
It's been permanently covered in snow and ice for tens, if not hundreds of thousands of years. Year-round, temperatures at 4,800m - the mountain's height - are well below zero. Yet this week, as a heatwave grips western Europe, they hover around 0C. Mont Blanc is starting to melt.
https://www.itv.com/news/2019-06-27/mont-blanc-is-melting-and-is-a-warning-of-our-future-as-climate-change-sees-the-worlds-temperature-rise/It turns out planes are even worse for the climate than we thought
The contrails left by aeroplanes last only hours. But they are now so widespread that their warming effect is greater than that of all the carbon dioxide emitted by aeroplanes that has accumulated in the atmosphere since the first flight of the Wright brothers. Worse still, this non-CO2 warming effect is set to triple by 2050, according to a study by Ulrike Burkhardt and Lisa Bock at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Germany.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2207886-it-turns-out-planes-are-even-worse-for-the-climate-than-we-thought/Heat waves and climate change: Is there a connection?
European Heat Wave of 2003 is estimated to have caused an astounding 70,000 deaths. Researchers found that human influence at least doubled the risk of a heat wave of that magnitude. In 2010, another 56,000 people died in a heat wave in Russia. A 2011 study concluded that there is an 80% probability the heat wave would not have occurred without global warming ... Scientists have also studied a 2018 summer event that spread oppressive heat from Japan to Canada, concluding that the size of the event was unprecedented and not possible without climate change ... In a 2019 study, researchers at Princeton University found that as global temperatures increase, heat waves will become more frequent and the time between them will become shorter.
https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/06/heat-waves-and-climate-change-is-there-a-connection/Analysis: Major update to ocean-heat record could shrink 1.5C carbon budget
The revisions to the Hadley [sea surface temperature] record would reduce the global “carbon budget” remaining to limit warming to 1.5C by between 24% and 33%, depending on how the budget is calculated. A smaller budget would mean humanity has fewer carbon emissions it can still emit before committing the world to 1.5C of global warming. At the current rate of emissions, this would mean the 1.5C budget would be used up in 6-10 years rather than 9-13.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-major-update-to-ocean-heat-record-could-shrink-1-5c-carbon-budgetIndia has just five years to solve its water crisis
Groundwater, which has been steadily depleting for years, makes up 40% of the country's water supply. But other sources are also running dry -- almost two-thirds of India's reservoirs are running below normal water levels ... The four reservoirs that supply Chennai, India's sixth-largest city, are nearly dry ... Demand for water will reach twice the available supply by 2030 ... Taps have long run dry in cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad, meaning millions of people must rely on emergency government tanks for water.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/27/india/india-water-crisis-intl-hnk/index.htmlClimate change: What 10 presidents have known
US presidents have been warned about the effects of fossil fuels for more than 50 years
There's a White House memorandum that addresses "the carbon dioxide problem" in straightforward terms. The process, it reads, is simple. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has the effect of a pane of glass in a greenhouse. With all the fossil fuels man is now burning, more carbon dioxide is entering the atmosphere and raising temperatures, which in turn will raise sea levels. "Goodbye New York," it reads. "Goodbye Washington, for that matter." The memo isn't remarkable for its dire warning. It's noteworthy because it is dated almost 50 years ago: September 17, 1969 ... The records stretch back more than 50 years, beginning with President Lyndon Johnson ... "Our government, at the highest levels, knew and was briefed on it regularly by the national security community, by the scientific community ... have known for a very long time that it was a big threat."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-what-10-presidents-have-known-60-minutes-2019-06-23/84% of [India]'s subdivisions record deficient rainfall; 80% reservoirs have below normal storage
According to the Central Water Commission data, 59 out of the 91 major reservoirs in the country have storage below normal. Of these, 11 have zero per cent storage, making the water crisis acute.
https://economictimes.com/news/economy/indicators/84-of-imds-subdivisions-record-deficient-rainfall-80-reservoirs-have-below-normal-storage/articleshow/69913737.cmsBrutally Simple Illustration Shows Climate Change's True Scale Everywhere on Earth
Last year, climate scientist Ed Hawkins unveiled a powerful schematic for visualising global temperature changes: coloured 'warming stripes' communicating how the world has been getting hotter since records began. Now, he's updated the project with a new interactive website based on regional temperature data for almost every country on Earth and every US state.
https://www.sciencealert.com/flawless-visualisation-distils-the-true-colour-of-climate-change-everywhere-on-earth
warming stripes website at https://showyourstripes.info/Researchers find cooling effect of aerosols in cumulus and MSC clouds twice as high as thought
An international team of researchers has found evidence that suggests the cooling effect of aerosols in cumulus and MSC clouds is twice as high as thought ... three-quarters of the amount of heat reflected was due to aerosols ... shows that the heating effect of greenhouse gases is higher than has been thought because it has been mitigated by the impact of aerosols in clouds.
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-cooling-effect-aerosols-cumulus-msc.htmlSea-Level Rise in Miami-Dade Could Cost $3.2 Billion by 2040
Miami-Dade ... county would need to spend a whopping $3.2 billion for 267 miles of coastal barriers ... "We no longer have the luxury of waiting ten years," says Paul Chinowsky, director of the environmental design program at the University of Colorado Boulder and a lead scientist in the study ... The limestone on which Miami is built makes the city particularly vulnerable to sea-level rise because salt water can seep up through the porous bedrock ... More than 50,000 miles would be needed in 22 states by 2040. The resulting chain of coastal barriers would be longer than today's interstate highway system and would cost an estimated $400 billion nationwide.
https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/climate-change-study-says-sea-level-rise-could-cost-miami-dade-32-billion-for-seawall-construction-11201008
reporting on a study at http://www.climatecosts2040.org/files/ClimateCosts2040_Report-v4.pdfScientists Are Stunned by How Rapidly Ice Is Melting in the Arctic
June has set a record low of Arctic sea ice, while the extent of melting across the Greenland Ice Sheet this early in the summer has never been seen before. Recently, temperatures in parts of Greenland soared to 40 degrees above normal, while open water (not covered by sea ice) is already being observed in places north of Alaska where it has seldom, if ever, been observed ... Scientists have long been warning that what happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic ... resulted in lower-than-normal temperatures across much of the central and eastern United States in early June, while the Arctic was baking under abnormally high temperatures that have facilitated the unprecedented melting of ice ... “We are not even trying to slow down the production of CO2 ... We are going to see the consequences, and they will be significant.”
https://truthout.org/articles/scientists-are-stunned-by-how-rapidly-ice-is-melting-in-the-arctic/Global Warming Pushes Microbes into Damaging Climate Feedback Loops
[G]lobal warming is supercharging some microbial cycles on a scale big enough to trigger damaging climate feedback loops ... feasting on more organic material and produce extra carbon dioxide as the planet warms. In the Arctic, a spreading carpet of algae is soaking up more of the sun's summer rays, speeding melting of the ice. Deadly pathogenic microbes are also spreading poleward and upward in elevation, killing people, cattle and crops. So many documented changes, along with other alarming microbial red flags, have drawn a warning from a group of 30 microbiologists, published Tuesday as a "consensus statement" in the journal Nature Reviews Microbiology.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18062019/climate-change-tipping-points-microbes-health-soil-oceans-viruses-bacteriaUtqiagvik, Alaska, America's Northernmost Town, Smashes June Record High
Formerly known as Barrow, Utqiagvik's high soared to 73 degrees Thursday, topping the town's previous June record ... only the fourth time temperatures had risen into the 70s in June, and only the 35th day of 70-degree warmth there in records dating to 1901.
https://weather.com/news/climate/news/2019-06-21-utqiagvik-alaska-june-record-high-sea-ice-lowMost of the World to Face Record-High Temperatures Every Year Without Serious Climate Action
Australian meteorologists analyzed the predictions in 22 separate climate reports to calculate one range of überpredictions about our planet's hot, hot future. The scientists found that, under current levels of greenhouse gas emissions, high monthly temperature records will be set in approximately 58% of the world (including 67% of the poorest nations) every single year until 2100 ... many nations near the equator can expect to see 24 monthly heat records surpassed every decade that emissions remain unchecked — in other words, roughly two months of every year will be hotter than in any year before it.
https://www.livescience.com/65721-climate-change-neverending-heat-wave.htmlNew Study Flags Substantial Declines In Large Fish And Marine Species If Climate Change Goes Unmitigated
The paper by a team of 35 international scientists and published Tuesday (11 June 2019) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences presents a stark view of what will happen to the global biomass — the total weight of marine animals, such as fish, invertebrates and mammals — if measures aren’t taken to reduce emissions ... "This study adds another disconcerting chapter to the global warming story, by confirming that human-made climate change endangers food resources in the oceans too,” says co-author Jacob Schewe of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Potsdam, Germany.
https://www.dal.ca/news/2019/06/11/new-study-flags-substantial-declines-in-large-fish-and-marine-sp.htmlThe Dangerous Methane Mystery
The East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) ... hosts massive quantities of methane (CH4) in frozen subsea permafrost in extremely shallow waters, enough CH4 to transform the “global warming” cycle into a “life-ending” cycle ... warning signals are clearly noticeable; ESAS is rumbling, increasingly emitting more and more CH4 ... it is possible that atmospheric [carbon dioxide equivalent] would zoom up to as high as 1256 ppm ... at [this level] global heating cranks up by 8°C, or 14.4°F, within a decade.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/06/20/the-dangerous-methane-mystery/Rising methane may thwart efforts to avoid catastrophic climate change
If the world were on track to meet the Paris Agreement goal of less than 2 degrees Celsius of global warming, methane levels in the atmosphere would theoretically be dropping. Instead, they have been rising since 2007, and shooting up even faster since 2014 ... According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a molecule of methane will cause 28-36 times more warming than a molecule of carbon dioxide over a 100-year period ... The only emissions scenario that achieves Paris Agreement goals in climate models assumes that methane levels have been declining since 2010, when in fact they have been rising since 2007.
https://phys.org/news/2019-06-methane-thwart-efforts-catastrophic-climate.html
reporting on a study at https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6444/932
see also https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018GB006009Scientists amazed as Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years early
Permafrost at outposts in the Canadian Arctic is thawing 70 years earlier than predicted ... a succession of unusually hot summers had destabilized the upper layers ... rapid thawing could release vast quantities of heat-trapping gases, unleashing a feedback loop that would in turn fuel even faster temperature rises ... the world is still far from averting the risk that these kinds of feedback loops will trigger runaway warming.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-permafrost/scientists-amazed-as-canadian-permafrost-thaws-70-years-early-idUSKCN1TJ1XNSoot, sulfate, dust and the climate — three ways through the fog
How much have aerosol particles slowed warming?
Sulfur dioxide emitted by burning fossil fuels or by volcanoes forms a haze of sulfuric acid particles that reflects incoming sunlight, lowering global temperatures. Sulfate particles act as nuclei around which water condenses, seeding clouds and increasing their reflectivity ... [Aerosols] linger for just days or weeks in the atmosphere, compared with the hundreds of years that carbon dioxide survives ... The reflectivity, and thus cooling, of clouds depends on their thickness, cover and water content. Aerosols seed clouds, but the degree to which they boost the water content varies with meteorological conditions ... Adding dust, soot or glassy organic particles to air that is already polluted with them can increase the numbers of ice crystals, and thereby cooling.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01791-6Arctic could face another scorching annus horribilis
Since early June, 37 billion tonnes of ice have melted, Xavier Fettweis, a climatologist at the University of Liege, wrote ... "It becomes more and more likely that a record of mass loss will be broken for the month of June in 2019". Also worrying is how early in the year the ice is melting ... the ice melting season had begun at the start of May, almost a month earlier than usual.
https://phys.org/news/2019-06-arctic-annus-horribilis.htmlAcceleration of ice loss across the Himalayas over the past 40 years
Himalayan glaciers supply meltwater to densely populated catchments in South Asia ... we quantify changes in ice thickness during the intervals 1975–2000 and 2000–2016 across the Himalayas, using a set of digital elevation models derived from cold war–era spy satellite film and modern stereo satellite imagery. We observe consistent ice loss along the entire 2000-km transect for both intervals and find a doubling of the average loss rate during 2000–2016 compared to 1975–2000.
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/6/eaav7266Climate Change Is Choking The Atlantic Ocean To Death: 'it's Losing The Oxygen That Is Vital To Life'
A scientist leading a health check of the Earth's second largest ocean has warned the Atlantic could run out of breath ... will investigate how climate change as well as industries such as fishing, mining, and oil and gas extraction affect the expanse of water ... The ocean is losing oxygen which wildlife need to survive.
https://www.newsweek.com/climate-change-choking-atlantic-ocean-death-1444521England's HSBC Bank Issues Stark Warning: Earth Is Running Out Of Resources To Sustain Life
England's largest bank, HSBC, issued a warning that governments and businesses are not prepared for climate impacts as Earth continues to run out of resources to sustain human life ... HSBC analysts believe it's essential to include climate risks in future financial models. According to NASA, extreme weather events and natural disasters are tied to climate change and will become more severe and regular as Earth continues to warm ... HSBC is not alone among major financial institutions in planning and mitigating for climate risks. Over 315 organizations around the world support the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. Companies that support TCFD are among the world's largest financial institutions.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/08/13/englands-hsbc-issues-stark-warning-earth-is-running-out-of-resources-to-sustain-life/#51bf795b8ebe
see also https://www.businessinsider.nl/hsbc-warns-earth-is-running-out-of-resources-for-life-2018-8/Arctic melt goes into overdrive
Earlier this year, we saw the unprecedented disappearance of sea ice from the Bering Sea during a time of year when it should be gaining ice. This trend toward plummeting sea ice in the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic continues ... across the entire Arctic, sea ice extent is at a record low for this point in the year, and depending on weather conditions during the summer, it's possible that 2019 could set a new record low ice extent.
https://www.axios.com/arctic-melt-climate-change-canada-e83ec6a3-6061-402f-92c5-4c887aa603fb.htmlMidwest flooding is drowning corn and soy crops. Is climate change to blame?
[C]limate scientists say the devasting rains falling over the Midwest are exactly in line with what they’ve been predicting ... “When you warm up the atmosphere, the atmosphere can hold more moisture,” says David Easterling, the chief of the scientific services division at NOAA. As that atmosphere warms, it’s capable of holding more moisture, which it will ultimately dump somewhere ... In the most recently published National Climate Assessment, in 2018, for which Easterling served as the director for the technical support unit, researchers concluded that the U.S. would face more catastrophic flooding that would affect infrastructure and crops.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/06/midwest-rain-climate-change-wrecking-corn-soy-crops/Human Civilization Isn't Prepared to Survive Climate Change
"The IPCC report tends to talk about the middle outcomes ... we thought it was important to ask, 'What are the high-end impacts?' Because in risk management, the cost of the damage associated with high-end impacts are so great that you have to avoid them." And the costs are high indeed. The research Spratt and Dunlop have compiled makes the case that in its most extreme, climate change is "a path to the end of human civilization and modern society as we know it ... UN Secretary General António Guterres said, basically, we're running out of time and in policy there's always a huge trend to keep the status quo ... then he said, 'The problem is that the status quo is a suicide.' And quite right, the status quo is a suicide. That's the UN Secretary General."
https://www.gq.com/story/climate-change-david-sprattChennai water crisis: City's reservoirs run dry
The southern Indian city of Chennai (formerly Madras) is in crisis after its four main water reservoirs ran completely dry ... "Only rain can save Chennai from this situation," an official told BBC Tamil ... "The destruction has just begun ... If the rain fails us this year too, we are totally destroyed."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-48672330India confronts unprecedented water crisis
A water crisis of epic proportions looms as taps run dry across urban and rural India ... even as most parts of India reel under an unprecedented water shortage, the Indian government has dismissed the concern as the result of “media hype” ... The Narmada River, largest west-flowing river of the country, also known as “lifeline of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh,” has gone so dry that pilgrims going to Vadodra district parked their cars in the river-bed ... a governmental think tank’s 2018 report stated that 21 Indian cities – including the national capital New Delhi, Bengaluru and Chennai – are expected to run out of groundwater by as soon as 2020.
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/06/article/india-confronts-unprecedented-water-crisis/The Scariest Thing About Climate Change: What Happens To Our Food Supply
But global warming poses another peril harder to visualize, more insidious and, ultimately, more threatening to the stability of human societies. The impact of climate change on the ecosystems that support our ability to grow food should concern us most ... The warming climate of the 21st century puts new stresses on ecosystems that were already feeling the effects of overfishing, pesticides, intensive agriculture, industrial pollution and a growing human population ... species will fail, biodiversity will continue to plummet and the delicate interactions and feedback loops that keep ecosystems functioning will break down.
https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2019/06/05/climate-change-food-frederick-hewettHopes for climate progress falter with coal still king across Asia
[F]ossil fuels are by no means in terminal decline, according to a recent review of the global energy industry ... caused by a growing appetite for energy, that was being met by fossil fuels. And the biggest offender in climate terms is coal ... fast-developing countries in Asia, for example, where the appetite for electricity is growing rapidly, and renewable energy is not increasing anything like fast enough to keep coal at bay. Asia’s appetite for coal-fired electricity is keeping coal production alive.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jun/15/climate-crisis-coal-asia-power-generation-fossil-fuelsGlobal heating to inflict more droughts on Africa as well as floods
New research says the continent will experience many extreme outbreaks of intense rainfall over the next 80 years. These could trigger devastating floods, storms and disruption of farming. In addition, these events are likely to be interspersed with more crippling droughts during the growing season and these could also damage crop and food production. “Essentially we have found that both ends of Africa’s weather extremes will get more severe,” said Elizabeth Kendon of the Met Office ... The new research, which is published in the scientific journal Nature Communications, is based on forecasts of rainfall in Africa that were achieved by analysing weather patterns in great detail.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jun/14/africa-global-heating-more-droughts-and-flooding-threatWhy India's Insects Are Disappearing
There are approximately 5.5 million insect species buzzing, creeping and crawling across planet earth. However, a scientific review of records recently published in the journal Biological Conservation reveals that up to 40% of insect species worldwide are likely to become extinct in the coming years.
https://thewire.in/environment/why-indias-insects-are-disappearingClimate change profoundly alters plankton populations
New research using sediment cores suggests human-driven climate change is having a significant impact on the composition of the world’s marine plankton. A German study, published in the journal Nature, reveals that modern communities of foraminifera, a type of hard-shelled plankton, differ markedly from those from the pre-industrial era, which began just 170 years ago ... the amount of differentiation correlates with the degree of temperature change. The direction of change is consistent with the global pattern of sea-surface temperature warming seen in historical times.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/climate-change-profoundly-alters-plankton-populationsPlanet is entering ‘new climate regime’ with ‘extraordinary’ heat waves intensified by global warming, study says
Simultaneous heat waves scorched land areas all over the Northern Hemisphere last summer ... study published this week in the journal Earth’s Future concludes that this heat wave epidemic “would not have occurred without human-induced climate change.” ... record-setting heat waves are beginning anew this summer — signaling, perhaps, that these exceptional and widespread heat spells are now the norm.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/06/11/climate-change-intensified-last-summers-northern-hemisphere-heat-wave-it-may-be-starting-all-over-again/Best Carbon Capture Facility In World Emits 25 Times More CO2 Than Sequestered
[T]hey are producing 36 million cubic meters of natural gas per day. They’ve been producing that daily since 1996, so that’s about 300 billion cubic meters of gas. That turns into about 581 million tons of CO2 emitted by the natural gas, compared to the 23 million tons of CO2 that’s been sequestered ... Every other carbon capture facility in the world is more expensive, sequesters less CO2, and has a much worse ratio than 25:1 for emitted vs captured. The fossil fuel industry and consumers of fossil fuels are producing vastly more CO2 emissions than the very best sequestration case study can manage.
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/06/12/best-carbon-capture-facility-in-world-emits-25-times-more-co2-than-sequestered/There's some really intense melting in the Arctic right now
The Arctic summer has a long way to go, but already sea ice levels over great swathes of the sprawling Arctic ocean are at historic lows ... exceptional, but right in line with accelerating melting trends occurring as the Arctic warms. "Every year we smash a record that we’re shocked at," said Jeremy Mathis, a longtime Arctic researcher and a current board director at the National Academies of Sciences ... "The extraordinary change is a given," he said. "The Arctic is superseding any projection we had for how quickly sea ice was going to go away."
https://mashable.com/article/arctic-melting-records/
see also Greenland Surface Melt Extent Interactive Chart at https://nsidc.org/greenland-today/greenland-surface-melt-extent-interactive-chart/Indian villages lie empty as drought forces thousands to flee
Hundreds of Indian villages have been evacuated as a historic drought forces families to abandon their homes in search of water ... up to 90% of the area’s population has fled, leaving the sick and elderly to fend for themselves in the face of a water crisis that shows no sign of abating.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/12/indian-villages-lie-empty-as-drought-forces-thousands-to-fleeClimate Change Poses Major Risks to Financial Markets, Regulator Warns
Rostin Behnam, who sits on the federal government’s five-member Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a powerful agency overseeing major financial markets including grain futures, oil trading and complex derivatives, said in an interview on Monday that the financial risks from climate change were comparable to those posed by the mortgage meltdown that triggered the 2008 financial crisis. “If climate change causes more volatile frequent and extreme weather events, you’re going to have a scenario where these large providers of financial products — mortgages, home insurance, pensions — cannot shift risk away from their portfolios,” he said. “It’s abundantly clear that climate change poses financial risk to the stability of the financial system.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/climate/climate-financial-market-risk.htmlGlobal Emissions Rose the Most in 7 Years, BP Review Shows
The report, one of the most closely watched surveys of global energy trends, found that primary demand rose at the fastest pace this decade in 2018 even though economic growth weakened. China, India and the U.S. were responsible for two thirds of the 2.9% increase in consumption ... Even the dirtiest fossil fuel for power generation is increasing ... Renewable energy consumption jumped 15% in 2018, near the record advance from a year earlier [but] “Renewables can’t grow quickly enough,” Dale said.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-11/global-emissions-rose-the-most-in-7-years-bp-review-showsHot summers causing arctic sinkholes as permafrost thaws rapidly
Arctic sinkholes are appearing across the Canadian High Arctic as permafrost thaws and collapses due to climate change, according to research published Monday. Researchers found maximum thaw depths had already exceeded what they had expected to occur by 2090, according to the report published in Geophysical Research Letters journal ... Scientists blamed a series of warm summers for damaging the "very cold permafrost," noting that there was little soil or vegetation to buffer the permafrost from the temperature changes.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/11/americas/thermokarst-arctic-climate-change-intl-hnk/index.htmlUnderstanding the Permafrost–Hydrate System and Associated Methane Releases in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS)
Natalia Shakhova, Igor Semiletov, and Evgeny Chuvilin
The Arctic is warming dramatically, with potentially catastrophic impacts on climate ... amount of pre-formed gas preserved in the ESAS suggests a potential for possible massive/abrupt release of CH4, whether from destabilizing hydrates or from free gas accumulations beneath permafrost; such a release requires only a trigger ... ESAS is a tectonically and seismically active area ... During seismic events, a large amount of over-pressurized gas can be delivered to the water column, not only via existing gas migration pathways, but also through permafrost breaks ... Releases could potentially increase by 3–5 orders of magnitude, considering the sheer amount of CH4 preserved within the shallow ESAS seabed deposits and the documented thawing rates of subsea permafrost.
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3263/9/6/251/htmNOAA forecasts very large ‘dead zone’ for Gulf of Mexico
NOAA scientists are forecasting this summer’s Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone or ‘dead zone’ – an area of low to no oxygen that can kill fish and other marine life – to be approximately 7,829 square miles, or roughly the size of Massachusetts ... major factor contributing to the large dead zone this year is the abnormally high amount of spring rainfall in many parts of the Mississippi River watershed, which led to record high river flows and much larger nutrient loading to the Gulf of Mexico.
https://www.noaa.gov/media-release/noaa-forecasts-very-large-dead-zone-for-gulf-of-mexicoLarge summer 'dead zone' forecast for Chesapeake Bay after wet winter and spring
"The forecast this year reflects the high levels of precipitation that have been observed across the Bay's watershed," said report co-author Jeremy Testa of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science ... The bay's hypoxic (low oxygen) and anoxic (no oxygen) zones are caused by excess nutrient pollution, primarily from agriculture and wastewater.
https://phys.org/news/2019-06-large-summer-dead-zone-chesapeake.htmlRecord-Breaking Heat in Alaska Wreaks Havoc on Communities and Ecosystems
Across Alaska, March temperatures averaged 11 degrees Celsius above normal. The deviation was most extreme in the Arctic where, on March 30, thermometers rose almost 22 degrees Celsius above normal ... The steady decline of sea ice is old news, but 2019 brought exceptional conditions. In January, a series of warm storms began breaking apart the ice, which had formed late and was thinner than usual. By late March, the Bering Sea was largely open, at a time when the ice usually reaches its maximum for the year ... In April, U.S. federal scientists reported coverage was even lower than the unprecedented low extent of 2018. By mid-May, ice that should have persisted into June was almost entirely gone.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/record-breaking-heat-alaska-wreaks-havoc-communities-and-ecosystems-180972317/Mosquito-borne Diseases on the Uptick—Thanks to Global Warming
According to Maria Diuk-Wasser at the Yale School of Public Health, the onset of human-induced global warming is likely to increase the infection rates of mosquito-borne diseases like malaria, dengue fever and West Nile virus by creating more mosquito-friendly habitats.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mosquito-borne-diseases-on-the-uptick-thanks-to-global-warming‘Frightening’ number of plant extinctions found in global survey
Human destruction of the living world is causing a “frightening” number of plant extinctions, according to scientists who have completed the first global analysis of the issue ... researchers said the plant extinction rate was 500 times greater now than before the industrial revolution, and this was also likely to be an underestimate.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/10/frightening-number-of-plant-extinctions-found-in-global-survey
see also https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48584515Loss of Arctic sea ice stokes summer heat waves in southern U.S.
Over the last 40 years, Arctic sea ice thickness, extent and volume have declined dramatically. Now, a new study finds a link between declining sea ice coverage in parts of the Canadian Arctic and an increasing incidence of summer heat waves across the southern United States. The new study in AGU's Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres explores how seasonal fluctuations of sea ice coverage trigger changes in atmospheric circulation patterns during the boreal summer.
https://phys.org/news/2019-06-loss-arctic-sea-ice-stokes.htmlScientists name a new reason for methane release in the Arctic
Russian scientists [describe] a new mechanism, explaining influence from salt migration emerging from decomposition of methane hydrates reserves on the Arctic shelf ... "Experts from Skoltech, the Tomsk Polytechnic University and the Academy of Sciences’ Pacific Oceanology Institute saw that one of the reasons for big methane emissions from bottom sediments on the East-Siberian shelf is destabilizing of gas hydrates, which are located on submarine permafrost, when they react with salt solutions (sea water), which migrate into the thawing underwater permafrost."
http://tass.com/science/1059944Bubbling under the Arctic Seabed
Permafrost under the Arctic seabed is more widespread than previously thought, and is mostly warming, a new study finds. Scientists have now, for the first time ever, modelled the distribution of submarine permafrost underneath the entire Arctic seabed. Published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans in the latest issue (April 2019), their findings reveal that submarine permafrost is more widely distributed than previously thought, and is almost all getting thinner. These findings are significant, because knowing how much submarine permafrost exists is a crucial first step in predicting how much methane and carbon dioxide might be released into the atmosphere from underneath the Arctic seabed.
https://www.awi.de/en/about-us/service/press/press-release/bubbling-under-the-arctic-seabed.htmlWhy there’s more greenhouse gas in the atmosphere than you may have realised
CO2 levels at the Mauna Loa atmospheric observatory in Hawaii have risen steeply for the seventh year in a row, reaching a May 2019 average of 414.7 parts per million (ppm) [but] if we factor in the presence of other greenhouse gases besides carbon dioxide, we find that the world has already ticked past yet another milestone: 500ppm of what we call “CO2-equivalent”, or CO2-e ... best estimate of long-term global warming expected from 500ppm CO2-e is about 2.5C.
https://theconversation.com/why-theres-more-greenhouse-gas-in-the-atmosphere-than-you-may-have-realised-118336 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/carbon-dioxide-levels-reach-highest-point-human-history-180972181/
see also (2019) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/carbon-dioxide-levels-reach-highest-point-human-history-180972181/
see also (2014) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-now-highest-point-its-been-entirety-human-existence-180950493/Harvard chemist: Permafrost N2O levels 12 times higher than expected
[A] paper published this month in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics shows that nitrous oxide emissions from thawing Alaskan permafrost are about 12 times higher than previously assumed. Since N2O traps heat nearly 300 times more efficiently than carbon dioxide does, this revelation could mean that the Arctic — and the global climate — are in more danger than we thought ... [And as if that's not bad enough] sunlight and oxygen team up to convert the gas into reactive nitrogen oxides that eat away at the ozone layer, which absorbs most of the sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation ... and the molecules can stay in the atmosphere for up to 114 years.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/06/harvard-chemist-permafrost-n2o-levels-12-times-higher-than-expectedThe Greening of The West Leaves Other Countries a Devastated, Toxic Mess
While the West receives shiny new products with the promise of saving the planet, places like Mongolia and Chile are suffering greatly.
Baotou [China] is one of the world’s largest suppliers of “rare earth” minerals. These are elements that are used in the manufacturing of tech gadgets (smart phones) and also our “green alternative energy”: magnets for wind turbines and parts for electric car motors. China produced 95% of the entire world’s supply of rare earth elements ... “The intriguing thing about both neodymium and cerium is that while they’re called rare earth minerals, they’re actually fairly common. Neodymium is no rarer than copper or nickel and quite evenly distributed throughout the world’s crust. While China produces 90% of the global market’s neodymium, only 30% of the world’s deposits are located there. Arguably, what makes it, and cerium, scarce enough to be profitable are the hugely hazardous and toxic process needed to extract them from ore and to refine them into usable products ... China’s dominance of the rare earth market is less about geology and far more about the country’s willingness to take an environmental hit that other nations shy away from.“ In a place that was once filled with farms as far as the eye could see, now lies a lake (which are called “tailing ponds), visible from Google Earth, filled with radioactive toxic sludge. The water is so contaminated that not even algae will grow.
http://achnews.org/2019/06/27/the-greening-of-the-west-leaves-other-countries-a-devastated-toxic-messArctic death spiral speeds up sixfold, driving coastal permafrost collapse
Drone surveys have revealed erosion of coastal permafrost in the Arctic — up to 3 feet a day ... six times higher than the historical rate. Meanwhile, the Arctic just saw the hottest May on record, with temperatures in northwest Russia hitting a remarkable 84F (29C). Global warming is driving Arctic sea ice to near-record lows, which in turn is driving ever-worsening summer heat waves in the southern United States, according to another new study.
https://thinkprogress.org/arctic-death-spiral-coastal-permafrost-collapse-23d650acea99/The end of the Arctic as we know it
The demise of an entire ocean is almost too enormous to grasp, but as the expedition sails deeper into the Arctic, the colossal processes of breakdown are increasingly evident ... where ice floes come to die, and the cemetery is filling faster each year, according to the leader of this scientific expedition, Till Wagner, of the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) ... the summer Arctic has lost 40% of its extent and up to 70% of its volume, says Wagner. Other scientists calculate the rate of decline at 10,000 tonnes a second. Much of the multiyear ice is now gone ... The pace of change is mindblowing, Wagner says ... If the Arctic were a patient, doctors would be alarmed by its vital signs ... “The Arctic as we know it is about to become history.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/07/oceans-demise-the-end-of-the-arctic-as-we-know-itHalf of all land must be kept in a natural state to protect Earth
Countries should double their protected zones to 30 percent of the Earth’s land area, and add 20 percent more as climate stabilization areas, for a total of 50 percent of all land kept in a natural state, scientists conclude. All of this needs to be done by 2030 to have a real hope of keeping climate change under the “danger zone” target of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) and to prevent the world’s ecosystems from unravelling ... the first science-based plan with clear milestones on why it’s vital to achieve these goals ... Only when 50 percent of the Earth’s terrestrial areas are protected, along with substantial cuts in fossil-fuel use and major increases in renewable energy, will we have a good chance of meeting the Paris climate target ... if warming goes beyond 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius), we lose some of those natural systems and the services they provide humanity ... “Every morsel of food, every sip of water, the air we breathe is the result of work done by other species ... Without them, there is no us.”
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/04/science-study-outlines-30-percent-conservation-2030Industrial methane emissions are 100 times higher than reported, researchers say
Emissions of methane from the industrial sector have been vastly underestimated ... researchers discovered that methane emissions from ammonia fertilizer plants were 100 times higher than the fertilizer industry’s self-reported estimate. They also were substantially higher than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimate for all industrial processes in the United States.
http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2019/06/industrial-methane-emissions-are-100-times-higher-reported-researchers-sayClimate crisis seriously damaging human health, report finds
A report by experts from 27 national science academies has set out the widespread damage global heating is already causing to people’s health and the increasingly serious impacts expected in future ... World Health Organization director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned in November that climate breakdown was already a health crisis. “We cannot delay action on climate change,” he said. “We cannot sleepwalk through this health emergency any longer.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/03/climate-crisis-seriously-damaging-human-health-report-findsWorld's biggest firms foresee $1 trillion climate cost hit
More than 200 of the world’s largest listed companies forecast that climate change could cost them a combined total of almost $1 trillion, with much of the pain due in the next five years, according to a report published on Tuesday. Even so, the findings by charity CDP suggested many companies still underestimated the dangers as scientists warn that earth’s climate system is on course to hit catastrophic tipping points without rapid cuts in carbon emissions.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-companies-disclosure/worlds-biggest-firms-foresee-1-trillion-climate-cost-hit-idUSKCN1T50CFCO2 just hit an all-time record. But that’s not the worst of it.
"It's extremely alarming to see atmospheric CO2 continuing to increase relentlessly year after year when all scenarios that lead to a stable climate require that it go down," said Sarah Green, an environmental chemist at Michigan Technological University. "The further we go into the uncharted climate territory of unprecedented CO2 levels, the more likely we are to encounter surprises," added Green, referencing the extreme weather and climate disruptions wrought by such warming. "We are heading toward the part of the climate map labeled 'here there be dragons' and rather than turning around, or even slowing down, we are running faster."
https://mashable.com/article/climate-change-co2-record
see also https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/06/midwest-rain-climate-change-wrecking-corn-soy-crops/Latest data shows steep rises in CO2 for seventh year
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by the second highest annual rise in the past six decades, according to new data. Atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gas were 414.8 parts per million in May, which was 3.5ppm higher than the same time last year, according to readings from the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, where carbon dioxide has been monitored continuously since 1958.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/04/latest-data-shows-steep-rises-in-co2-for-seventh-yearNew Report Suggests ‘High Likelihood of Human Civilization Coming to an End’ in 2050
A harrowing scenario analysis of how human civilization might collapse in coming decades due to climate change has been endorsed by a former Australian defense chief and senior royal navy commander. The analysis, published by the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration, a think-tank in Melbourne Australia, describes climate change as “a near- to mid-term existential threat to human civilization” ... argues that the potentially “extremely serious outcomes” of climate-related security threats are often far more probable than conventionally assumed, but almost impossible to quantify because they “fall outside the human experience of the last thousand years.”
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/597kpd/new-report-suggests-high-likelihood-of-human-civilization-coming-to-an-end-in-2050Deforestation of Brazilian Amazon surges to record high
Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon surged last month to the highest May level since the current monitoring method began ... world’s greatest rainforest – which is a vital provider of oxygen and carbon sequestration – lost 739 sq km during the 31 days, equivalent to two football pitches every minute ... Although a single month is too short to confirm long-term trends, May is considered an important guide because it marks the start of the dry season, which is when most burning and other forms of forest clearance are carried out.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/04/deforestation-of-brazilian-amazon-surges-to-record-high-bolsonaroLake Ontario height record broken, floods Sackets road
According to the International Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Board, which monitors water levels, the lake level reached 248.98 feet on Friday, breaking the existing record of 248.95 feet established in 2017. The International Joint Commission, however, announced Monday that it has climbed to 249.02 feet since the record was broken, caused primarily by additional rain across the Great Lakes basin. The agency expects the lake level to “continue rising gradually” for several days until peaking in one to three weeks, according to a news release.
https://www.watertowndailytimes.com/news03/lake-ontario-height-record-broken-floods-sackets-road-20190604This Hedge Fund Superstar Thinks Climate Change Will Impact All Your Investments—And Soon
“Climate change is something we have to include in every single analysis, every investment” ... founder of Autonomy Capital ($5.5 billion in assets) thinks that climate change is happening suddenly and soon ... Gibbins has an impressive track record making big calls ... believes climate change will be a major stress on economic stability.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2019/05/29/robert-gibbins-autonomy-capital/There are diseases hidden in the ice, and they are waking up
[W]hat would happen if we were suddenly exposed to deadly bacteria and viruses that have been absent for thousands of years, or that we have never met before? We may be about to find out. Climate change is melting permafrost soils that have been frozen for thousands of years, and as the soils melt they are releasing ancient viruses and bacteria that, having lain dormant, are springing back to life ... permafrost soil is the perfect place for bacteria to remain alive for very long periods of time, perhaps as long as a million years. That means melting ice could potentially open a Pandora's box of diseases. The temperature in the Arctic Circle is rising quickly, about three times faster than in the rest of the world. As the ice and permafrost melt, other infectious agents may be released.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170504-there-are-diseases-hidden-in-ice-and-they-are-waking-up
see also https://now.northropgrumman.com/thawing-permafrost-may-reawaken-old-diseases/These Worms Unfrozen After More Than 30,000 Years Are Now The Oldest Living Animals On Earth
Researchers found 30-40,000 year old roundworms frozen in Siberian permafrost. When thawed in a lab, some of them woke up. Probably some interesting diseases and bacteria also frozen there.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/worms-frozen-resurrected
reporting on a study at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30009350Ice Shelves Buckle Under Weight of Meltwater Lakes
For the first time, a research team co-led by CIRES-based scientists, has directly observed an Antarctic ice shelf bending under the weight of ponding meltwater on top, a phenomenon that may have triggered the 2002 collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf ... Meltwater lakes can contain water weighing fifty thousand to two million tons each, and that pushes downward on the ice, creating an indent. If the lake drains, this indent pops back up. If the resultant stress is large enough, the ice surrounding the lake basin weakens, and may start to break.
https://cires.colorado.edu/news/ice-shelves-buckle-under-weight-meltwater-lakesNo end in sight as record flooding in Midwest, Southeast persists
Historic flooding continues to saturate large stretches of land across the Midwest and Southeast United States. And with swollen rivers and reservoirs, more rain in the forecast, and an administration working to undo environmental protections, the impacts to communities, crops, infrastructure, and the economy are expected to be severe ... Over the next week to 10 days, major or record flooding will hit every large community along the Arkansas River, the National Weather Service warned earlier this week. This flooding comes from past weeks of heavy rain which is testing the limits of aging levee infrastructure and putting crops at risk.
https://thinkprogress.org/flood-arkansas-mississippi-oklahoma-climate-ef9fb99e9ef6/India’s water crisis is already here. Climate change will compound it.
Severe droughts have drained rivers, reservoirs, and aquifers across vast parts of India in recent years, pushing the nation’s leaky, polluted water systems to the brink. More than 600 million Indians face “acute water shortages,” according to a report last summer by NITI Aayog, a prominent government think tank. Seventy percent of the nation’s water supply is contaminated, causing an estimated 200,000 deaths a year. Some 21 cities could run out of groundwater as early as next year, including Bangalore and New Delhi, the report found. Forty percent of the population, or more than 500 million people, will have “no access to drinking water” by 2030.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613344/indias-water-crisis-is-already-here-climate-change-will-compound-it/Why Hundreds of Puffins Washed Up Dead on an Alaskan Beach
[Researchers] estimated that between 3,150 and 8,800 tufted puffins perished in the final months of 2016 ... The birds were extremely thin ... “They literally didn’t have enough to eat and became weak to the point of death,” says Julia Parrish of the University of Washington, who led the study ... “they’re starving to death, and they’re washing in.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/05/hundreds-puffins-washed-dead-alaskan-beach/590356/State of the climate: Heat across Earth's surface and oceans mark early 2019
Ocean heat content (OHC) set a new record in early 2019, with more warmth in the oceans than at any time since OHC records began in 1940 ... methane concentrations have increased at an accelerating rate, reaching record highs in recent months ... Arctic sea ice is currently at a record low for this time of year ... Antarctic sea ice set new record lows in January, and is currently at the low end of the historical range.
https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/05/state-of-the-climate-heat-across-earths-surface-and-oceans-mark-early-2019/Climate Change Jumps To Biggest Risk For Insurers
According to a new report, climate change is now the number one concern for North American insurers. Max Rudolph, fellow of the Society of Actuaries and author of the report, said this is the 12th year the group published an analysis ... Rudolph added that it's becoming harder for risk managers to avoid thinking about climate change ... "My personal opinion is that this is a case of the risk managers catching up to the actual risk that is out there," he explained.
https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/post/climate-change-jumps-biggest-risk-insurers#stream/0Extreme heat, freak rainfall breaks summer records
Days of extreme heat and rainfall skyrocketed last summer by several times the 30-year average, delivering the hottest summer on record in another clear signal of the risks posed by climate change, a report by the Actuaries Institutes has found.
https://www.afr.com/business/banking-and-finance/extreme-heat-freak-rainfall-breaks-summer-records-20190529-p51sbhOklahoma Prepares for Worst Case Scenario
Communities along the swollen Arkansas River in Oklahoma and Arkansas are preparing for further flooding, with the mayor of Tulsa urging thousands of residents behind the city’s aging levees to be ready to evacuate in the event of a ‘worst-case scenario’ ... The severe weather that spawned tornadoes in Kansas and Missouri Tuesday also brought heavy rains that helped set a new record for the wettest May in Kansas City, according to the National Weather Service ... More heavy rain is in the forecast for today, and over 10 million remain under flood warnings from Oklahoma into Kansas, Missouri and Illinois.
https://climateandeconomy.com/2019/05/30/climate-30th-may-2019-oklahoma-prepares-for-worst-case-scenario/Latest on Lake Ontario flooding: Deluge nears record-breaking levels; sewer overflows reported
At least five discharges of stormwater and partly treated sewage into Lake Ontario and connected ponds were reported ... The town blamed flooding caused by high water and sizable waves on Tuesday for inundating parts of its sewer system and forcing the discharges ... Lake Ontario rose to 248.92 feet above sea level on Tuesday, leaving it less than a half-inch below the all-time mark set in May 2017 ... waters of Lake Ontario surged across local roadways, flooded basements and drove some shore dwellers from their homes ... Waves of 2 to 3 feet, rolling in from the northeast and east, pushed foaming water over the top of many shoreline protective structures beginning Tuesday morning. Some structures were battered to pieces.
https://democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2019/05/28/lake-ontario-flooding-2019-rochester-ny/1260404001/Humans and volcanoes caused nearly all of global heating in past 140 years
Emissions from fossil fuels and volcanoes can explain nearly all of the changes in Earth’s surface temperatures over the past 140 years, a new study has found. The research refutes the popular climate denial myth that recent global warming is merely a result of natural cycles.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/30/humans-and-volcanoes-caused-nearly-all-of-global-heating-in-past-140-yearsMore than 200,000 hectares of Amazon forest have been destroyed in just nine months
[S]atellite imagery show the region lost 2169 square kilometres (216,900 hectares) of forest in the most recent August-through-April period. That's a 20 per cent jump from the 1807 square kilometres lost over the same nine-month period the previous year. Analysts blame uncontrolled logging and land invasion for much of the loss, some of which occurred in protected areas and Indigenous reserves.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/south-america/more-than-200-000-hectares-of-amazon-forest-have-been-destroyed-in-just-nine-months-20190528-p51rwa.htmlRight whale population decline linked to ocean warming, research says
The endangered North Atlantic right whale faces increased odds because its main food supply has shifted due to ocean warming, according to new research ... A paper by 17 authors from the US, Canada and Norway, published this month in the journal Oceanography, links an influx of warm water in 2010 to a reduction in the whales’ key food supply, Calanus finmarchicus, a small crustacean, in the Gulf of Maine, the area off the US coast in which the whales spend their summers.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/27/right-whale-population-decline-tied-to-ocean-warming-research-saysGlobal warming has increased global economic inequality
We find that global warming has very likely exacerbated global economic inequality, including ∼25% increase in population-weighted between-country inequality over the past half century ... the global warming caused by fossil fuel use has likely exacerbated the economic inequality associated with historical disparities in energy consumption.
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/20/9808High extinction risk for wild coffee species and implications for coffee sector sustainability
Wild coffee species are critical for coffee crop development and, thus, for sustainability of global coffee production ... We found that at least 60% of all coffee species are threatened with extinction, 45% are not held in any germplasm collection, and 28% are not known to occur in any protected area. Existing conservation measures, including those for key coffee CWRs, are inadequate. We propose that wild coffee species are extinction sensitive, especially in an era of accelerated climatic change.
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaav3473Widespread permafrost degradation seen in high Arctic terrain
[D]ue to the extremely cold climate in high Arctic polar deserts ... and the fact that the permafrost is over 500 metres thick, it had been assumed this landscape was stable. But the McGill-led research team found that this has not been the case. "Our study suggests that the warming climate in the high Arctic, and more specifically the increases in summer air temperatures that we have seen in recent years, are initiating widespread changes in the landscape," says Melissa Ward Jones, the study's lead author and a Ph.D. candidate in McGill's Department of Geography.
https://phys.org/news/2019-05-widespread-permafrost-degradation-high-arctic.htmlApril saw big decline in Arctic sea ice cover
April 2019 marked the 18th consecutive April during which Arctic sea ice extent was below average ... smallest Arctic sea ice extent for April in the 41-year record ... nearly all of the oldest ice, four years old or more, which once made up about 30 per cent of the sea ice within the Arctic Ocean, is gone.
https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/april-saw-big-decline-in-arctic-sea-ice-cover/Climate Change and Its Staggering Refugee Crisis
Current estimates for climate refugees are wide-ranging, and go as high as 1 billion people displaced by 2050 ... The American Association for the Advancement of Science foresees 50 million mobilizing to escape their environment by 2020.
https://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/mental-health/climate-change-and-its-staggering-refugee-crisis-20181017More Than Half Of U.S. Corn Still Unplanted
Massive delays in most of the corn belt have pushed progress 31-percentage-points behind the five-year average of 80% planted for the week of May 19 ... slowest corn planting in recorded history ... time is running thin and the weather forecast doesn’t look promising ... forecast calls for rain, rain, and more rain ... "on a scale of one to 10, the probability of it [this forecast] being wrong is probably just a two or three,” said Michael Clark, BAMWX meteorologist to AgriTalk Host Chip Flory Thursday. “There’s so much support amongst all the ensemble members and in all the operational runs and the only thing they’ve done in the last two days is trended wetter.”
https://www.agprofessional.com/article/more-half-us-corn-still-unplantedHow the International Monetary Fund Is Waking Up to the Financial Risks of the Climate Crisis
“Climate change is the great existential challenge of our times” ... One of the new papers is a comprehensive update of global fossil fuel subsidies and negative externalities like air pollution. The paper found that the world is wasting a whopping 6.5% of global GDP—$ 5.2 trillion per year—subsidizing dirty energy ... Coal remains the largest recipient of subsidies, despite being the most polluting ... the ever-pragmatic financial sector has also been waking up to climate risks. Signs of this shift were captured in the New Climate Economy’s September 2018 report.
https://www.wri.org/blog/2019/05/how-international-monetary-fund-waking-financial-risks-climate-crisis‘Earthworm Dilemma’ Has Climate Scientists Racing to Keep Up
Native earthworms disappeared from most of northern North America 10,000 years ago, during the ice age. Now invasive earthworm species from southern Europe — survivors of that frozen epoch, and introduced to this continent by European settlers centuries ago — are making their way through northern forests, their spread hastened by roads, timber and petroleum activity, tire treads, boats, anglers and even gardeners. As the worms feed, they release into the atmosphere much of the carbon stored in the forest floor. Climate scientists are worried.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/science/earthworms-soil-climate.htmlClimate change is destroying a barrier that protects the U.S. East Coast from hurricanes
There are two main factors that contribute to hurricane development and intensity: sea surface temperature and vertical wind shear. Vertical wind shear is the difference in wind speed or direction between the upper and lower troposphere. Warmer sea surface temperatures and low wind shear (meaning the wind speeds and directions are similar throughout the column of air) both raise the potential intensity of a hurricane. Scientists knew that ocean temperatures are heating up, but until now it has not been clear how climate change would impact wind shear. A new paper, published today in Scientific Reports, finds that climate change could alter wind shear in a way that could deliver more powerful hurricanes to the East Coast.
https://phys.org/news/2019-05-climate-barrier-east-coast-hurricanes.htmlFarmer suicides soar in India as deadly heatwave hits 51 degrees Celsius
India has set a new record for its highest-ever recorded temperature – a searing 51 degrees Celsius or 123.8F – amid a devastating heatwave that has ravaged much of the country for weeks. Hundreds of people have died as crops have withered in the fields in more than 13 states, forcing tens of thousands of small farmers to abandon their land ... Rivers, lakes and dams have dried up ... "a rising temperature trend every year ... main reason is the excessive use of energy and emission of carbon dioxide" ... Government minister Harsh Vardhan said; "Let us not fool ourselves that there is no connection between the unusual number of deaths from the ongoing heat wave and the certainty of another failed monsoon. It's not just an unusually hot summer, it is climate change.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/india-heatwave-farmers-suicide-killing-themselves-51-record-temperature-climate-change-global-a7039841.htmlHumans causing shrinking of nature as larger animals die off
Humans have wiped out most large creatures from all inhabited continents apart from Africa over the last 125,000 years. This annihilation will accelerate rapidly in the coming years, according to the research ... Animal populations have fallen by 60% since 1970, suggesting a sixth mass extinction of life on Earth is under way caused by the razing of wild areas, hunting and intensive farming. Scientists said this month that human society was in danger from the decline of the Earth’s natural life-support systems, with half of natural ecosystems now destroyed and a total of a million species at risk of extinction ... The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, analysed five traits of 15,500 species of mammals and birds.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/23/humans-causing-shrinking-of-nature-as-larger-animals-die-offWorst drought in 116 years hits Australian wheat production
The worst drought in more than a century is affecting parts of Australia, causing severe grain shortage in what is usually an outstanding surplus producing country. The condition resulted in a significant shipment of wheat from Canada ... The analyst from Australian Crop Forecaster James Maxwell estimated that the total weight of the shipment would be around 50 000 and 60 000 tones. "The reason this announcement has garnered so much attention is that it just doesn't happen," Maxwell said.
https://watchers.news/2019/05/19/worst-drought-in-116-years-hits-australian-wheat-production/Global sea level rise could be bigger than expected
Scientists believe that global sea levels could rise far more than predicted, due to accelerating melting in Greenland and Antarctica ... IPCC, when it published its fifth assessment report in 2013 ... said the continued warming of the planet, without major reductions in emissions, would see global waters rising by between 52cm and 98cm by 2100. Many experts believe this was a very conservative estimate ... "To put this into perspective, the Syrian refugee crisis resulted in about a million refugees coming into Europe," said Prof Bamber. "That is about 200 times smaller than the number of people who would be displaced in a 2m sea-level rise." The study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48337629Springtime in the New Normal of Climate Disruption
“The past year, in fact, was the wettest one on record nationwide ... The persistent rain is not a fluke, but instead a human-caused catastrophe related to climate change.” ... “Over the past decade,” reports the Union of Concerned Scientists, “researchers have found strong evidence showing that climate change increases the frequency and intensity of events like extreme heat and extreme rainfall from hurricanes.” Put another way, climate disruption does not make weather events from scratch, at least for the present. It causes pre-existing weather events to happen more often and with greater strength.
https://truthout.org/articles/springtime-in-the-new-normal-of-climate-disruption/Bill Nye on climate change: ‘It’s not 50 to 75 years away — it’s 10 or 15’
The Trump administration has continued to deny climate change findings and make scientific reports inaccessible to the public. Nye counters EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s claim that the threat of climate change is “50 to 75 years out.” “It’s not 50 to 75 years away — it’s 10 or 15 ... There is enough carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere already to make the world get warmer for many decades to come,” Nye said.
http://www.msnbc.com/velshi-ruhle/bill-nye-climate-change-its-not-50-75-years-away-its-10-or-15Air pollution is causing unprecedented weakening of Asian Monsoon
The Asian Monsoon, which brings rains that sustain billions of people in India, China, Pakistan, Thailand and other countries, is seeing a weakening trend that's unprecedented in at least the past 448 years, according to a new study ... The culprit, the study finds, is aerosol pollution from coal-fired power plants ... the natural irrigation system for much of Asia, from southern India to northwest China ... could imperil food security in a rapidly growing part of the world ... the study shows that increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in the air should be strengthening the monsoon, not weakening it. Therefore, the study finds that aerosol pollution, which has been worsening in Asia as coal use there continues to increase, likely has so far overwhelmed the influence of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.
https://www.axios.com/air-pollution-weakening-asian-monsoon-105098c7-8dd6-4b9e-a487-9c052e738434.htmlLa diminution de la pollution va augmenter les vagues de chaleur [Decrease in pollution will increase heat waves]
[Translated] Aerosols, resulting from automobile and industrial pollution, paradoxically contribute to cooling the atmosphere. Their decrease could lead to a dramatic acceleration in the number, duration and intensity of heat waves ... aerosols interact with solar radiation by sending [part] of it backward ... The solar radiation received at the surface is therefore lower in the presence of such aerosols ... The results (published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters) indicate that taking into account the reduction of sulphate aerosols leads to a greater increase in the solar radiation received at the surface.
https://www.futura-sciences.com/planete/actualites/rechauffement-climatique-diminution-pollution-va-augmenter-vagues-chaleur-55484/Koalas are now ‘functionally’ extinct
The Australian Koala Foundation ... declared the marsupial ‘functionally extinct’ ... Koalas have too few breeding adults left to support the species ... Koalas are dying out due to effects caused by climate change. Rising temperatures are causing heatwaves that kill thousands of koalas through dehydration. The species has also suffered hugely from deforestation.
https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/16/koalas-now-functionally-extinct-9565982/Single-use plastics a serious climate change hazard, study warns
The proliferation of single-use plastic around the world is accelerating climate change and should be urgently halted, a report warns. Plastic production is expanding worldwide, fuelled in part by the fracking boom in the US. The report says plastic contributes to greenhouse gas emissions at every stage of its lifecycle, from its production to its refining and the way it is managed as a waste product.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/15/single-use-plastics-a-serious-climate-change-hazard-study-warnsWhy the Indian Ocean is spawning strong and deadly tropical cyclones
These high intensity storms have been tied to the very warm sea surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean. Temperatures of 30°C are occurring more often and over longer periods of time. This is a result of gradual warming on a global scale, which has resulted in a net increase in ocean temperatures. Warmer ocean temperatures allow stronger storms to form. These conditions are exacerbated by global forcing mechanisms including El Niño and the Indian Ocean Dipole, which concentrates warm ocean waters in smaller geographic areas.
https://phys.org/news/2019-05-indian-ocean-spawning-strong-deadly.htmlArctic soils may produce huge methane leak
Arctic soils thought to be thawing faster than anyone had predicted. This threatens to release vast quantities of frozen methane into the atmosphere and transform the northern landscape. “We are watching this sleeping giant wake up right in front of our eyes,” said Merritt Turetsky, an ecologist at the University of Guelph in Canada ... among 14 researchers who argue in the journal Nature that the thaw is happening far faster than anyone had predicted ... has the potential to double what climate scientists call “feedback” – the release of hitherto stored greenhouse gases to fuel yet faster warming.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/arctic-soils-may-produce-huge-methane-leak/Los Angeles Fire Season Is Beginning Again. And It Will Never End.
“There’s no number of helicopters or trucks that we can buy, no number of firefighters that we can have, no amount of brush that we can clear that will stop this,” Eric Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles, told me. “The only thing that will stop this is when the Earth, probably long after we’re gone, relaxes into a more predictable weather state.”
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/los-angeles-fire-season-will-never-end.htmlGlobal Warming: How Hot, Exactly, Is it Going to Get?
The latest climate models are giving disturbing answers
Climate models, like all models, are imperfect representations of the real world. They tell us something useful about the planet we’re changing, but not how much, exactly, we’ll change it. The only way to be sure is to actually double atmospheric carbon dioxide and wait until the planet approaches a new equilibrium, measuring the changes along the way. This is an uncontrolled experiment I hope we will never do. But I’m afraid we’re well on our way to finding out.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/hot-planet/global-warming-how-hot-exactly-is-it-going-to-get/India’s Local Water Conflicts Are a Looming Threat
Transboundary water issues get all the attention, but India’s internal water crises are also a national security concern.
India is on the brink of an acute water crisis. Water scarcity in India will intensify further as its 1 billion-plus population grows and urbanizes, increasing water demand. A study by the NITI Aayog shows that around 600 million people in India face a severe water shortage, and it’s “only going to get worse” as 21 cities are likely to run out of groundwater by 2020 ... droughts and floods, contamination and scarcity, overexploitation and inaccessibility, and stakeholder conflicts ... India’s economic and geopolitical stakes in transboundary river basins are recognized as an important component of national security, but domestic issues — even within the same transboundary river basins — are regularly categorized as environmental, economic, social, technological, governance, political, or simply “water” issues – anything but an issue of national security.
https://thediplomat.com/2019/05/indias-local-water-conflicts-are-a-looming-threatParis records record May rainfall - and there's more to come
Torrential rain on Friday and Saturday saw almost the entire monthly average of rainfall for May in just 24 hours. According to French weather channel La Chaine Météo, between 8am on Friday and 8am on Saturday 43.8 mm of rain fell in Paris. The average rainfall for the whole of the month of May in the region is 57mm. In total, since the beginning of the month, nearly 80mm of rain has fallen in Paris.
https://www.thelocal.fr/20190513/record-may-rainfalls-reported-in-parisAntarctic instability 'is spreading'
Almost a quarter of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet can now be considered unstable, according to a new assessment of 25 years of satellite data. By unstable, scientists mean more ice is being lost from the region than is being replenished through snowfall ... Losses from the two largest ice streams - Pine Island and Thwaites - have risen fivefold over the period of the spacecraft observations. And the changes have seen a marked acceleration in just the past decade. The driver is thought to be warm ocean water which is attacking the edges of the continent where its drainage glaciers enter the sea. The British-led study has been presented here in Milan at the Living Planet Symposium, Europe's largest Earth observation conference. It has also been published concurrently in the journal Geophysical Research Letters ... Between 1992 and 1997, the loss rates were 2 billion tonnes per year and 12 billion tonnes per year, respectively. During the latter period of the survey (2012 to 2016), the rate rises to 55 billion tonnes and 76 billion tonnes per annum.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48249287Violent Storms Multiplying in Germany Lift Costs for Insurers
Rising temperatures attributed to a broader warming of the planet are making convective storms like this one more common across southern Germany. That’s increasing costs for insurers, which shouldered a record $160 billion in climate-related damages last year worldwide and are noticing similar trends in other places, especially the U.S. Midwest. The trend marks a shift for Germany ... essentially more powerful thunderstorms, bringing with them the increased probability of hail, tornadoes and flash flooding that comes with torrential rains. “You can have hundreds of strong thunderstorms develop over one to three days,” Ernst Rauch, chief climatologist at reinsurer Munich Re, said in an interview. “The most severe storms are becoming more frequent.” ... Increasingly turbulent weather in Germany’s south is just another sign of Europe’s largest economy getting ruffled by climate change. A string of summer droughts wrought havoc on crops last summer. A protracted dry spell also depressed water levels in the Rhine River, making it impassable at times to barges carrying materials to industrial plants throughout the region. That contributed to a slowing of German growth in the final quarter of 2018.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-16/violent-storms-multiplying-in-germany-lift-costs-for-insurersOne Oil Company Expertly Predicted This Week's CO2 Milestone Almost 40 Years Ago
The news this week was shocking: Earth's atmosphere hit a catastrophic new peak of carbon pollution. But [about] 40 years ago, Exxon's scientific team predicted exactly where we were headed if we kept burning fossil fuels, and their estimates line up almost perfectly with actual contemporary readings of carbon dioxide (CO2) pollutants heating up the planet right now.
https://www.sciencealert.com/exxon-expertly-predicted-this-week-s-nightmare-co2-milestone-almost-40-years-agoGreat Lakes Water Levels at 'Precipice of a Disaster' With Flooding Occurring or Imminent in New York, Ohio and Michigan
[A]lso lakeshore flooding concerns north of the border in Ontario, Canada, where the Toronto Region Conservation Authority has issued a shoreline hazard warning ... Flooding is already occurring in northwestern Ohio and southeastern Michigan, as western Lake Erie is in "uncharted territory with near-record-high levels," according to the National Weather Service ... Climate change is also increasing the intensity of the most extreme rainfall events, which could, in turn, boost the levels of prolonged Great Lakes high-water events. "These events are quite consistent with what scientists have been expecting with long-term climate change patterns," Drew Gronewold of the University of Michigan's School for Environment and Sustainability told the AP.
https://weather.com/news/news/2019-05-09-great-lakes-high-water-levels-flooding-new-york-ohio-michiganFani the longest-lived cyclone in Bay of Bengal: IMD chief
India Meteorological Department’s Director General KJ Ramesh writes about how they prepared for the storm
Cyclone Fani was the longest-lived cyclone in the Bay of Bengal ever observed. The elongated time period of the storm went on for 11 days in the sea and land put together. What made it even more surprising was the fact that it had formed in the pre-monsoon season.
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/natural-disasters/fani-the-longest-lived-cyclone-in-bay-of-bengal-imd-chief-64443Emergency in Paraguay after flooding from torrential rains
About 40,000 Paraguayans have been forced to evacuate their homes in recent weeks due to rising waters. Officials say that more than 11,000 of the evacuees live in the capital Asuncion ... Other evacuees are spread throughout the landlocked country along the rain-swollen Paraguay River, which originates in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul. Its normal level is 4 metres, but it has reached 6.75 metres in the capital due to unusually heavy rains since March.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/emergency-paraguay-flooding-torrential-rains-190509080534523.htmlA ‘Staggering’ Amount of Meltwater in Greenland
Researcher Santiago de la Peña of Ohio State University’s Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center posted video on Twitter of raging streams of meltwater carving through the surface of Greenland’s Russell Glacier. “Early May and melt season is already in full swing in western Greenland,” he wrote. “The amount of meltwater at Russell glacier for this time of year is staggering.” ... A study published last month in the journal Nature found that glacier melt is occurring more rapidly than previously thought and accounts for 25-30 percent of observed sea level rise since 1961.
http://glacierhub.org/2019/05/08/russell-glacier-meltwater-greenland/Arctic heat wave unsettles scientists
On May 29 temperatures in the southern Greenland town of Narsarsuaq hit 24.8 C — the hottest temperature ever recorded in Greenland in May and close to breaking the highest temperature ever recorded in Greenland ... scientists say recording stations in the Arctic and Mongolia have registered levels of carbon dioxide, a gas that warms the atmosphere, which haven’t been as high for 800,000 years.
https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/65674photo_arctic_heat_wave_unsettles_scientists/There is more CO2 in the atmosphere today than any point since the evolution of humans
According to data from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is over 415 parts per million (ppm), far higher than at any point in the last 800,000 years, since before the evolution of homo sapiens ... some 3 million years ago, when global temperatures were estimated 2-3 degrees Celsius warmer than today, CO2 levels are believed to have topped out somewhere between 310 to 400 ppm. At that time, the Arctic was covered in trees, not ice, and summer temperatures in the far north are believed to have reached around 15C (60F).
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/13/health/carbon-dioxide-world-intl/Wildfires ravage Siberia and Far East of Russia
Walls of fire are burning on both sides of federal R-255 highway from Irkutsk to Angarsk ... videos and pictures show the carnage being wrought ... Residents are warned that due to dry and windy weather rescuers predict high and extremely high probability of more wildfires.
https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/raging-wildfires-ravage-siberia-and-far-east-of-russia/Climate change has contributed to droughts since 1900—and may get worse
Using studies of tree rings going back centuries, scientists have unearthed clear evidence that the rise of human-generated greenhouse gases was having an effect on global drought conditions as early as 1900 ... largely confirms what climate models have shown. In the absence of strong historic data on precipitation ... dovetailing of the tree-ring studies, which correlate to soil moisture, with climate models gives scientists the assurance that the computer models are, in fact, correct.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/05/climate-change-linked-drought-past-century-via-tree-rings/Climate change predicted to wipe $571 billion off property values
[Australia] property market is predicted to have $571 billion wiped from it by 2030 as a result of climate change and extreme weather events
Damage related loss of value would rise to $611 billion by 2050 and $770 billion by 2100 ... report titled Compound Costs: How Climate Change is Damaging Australia's Economy ... said climate change and extreme weather events would send damage costs and insurance premiums up for properties in risk-prone areas, which would cause banks to lend less to these properties as the annual costs of the borrower had risen ... the report analysed 15 million industrial, commercial and residential addresses around the nation.
https://www.coastalnewstoday.com/post/climate-change-predicted-to-wipe-571-billion-off-property-valuesThe Bank of England lays bare the “very real” trillion-dollar risks of climate change
"Climate change poses significant risks to the economy and to the financial system, and while these risks may seem abstract and far away, they are in fact very real, fast approaching, and in need of action today." That’s how Sarah Breeden began her speech titled “Avoiding the storm: Climate change and the financial system” yesterday. Breeden is the Bank of England’s executive director of International Banks Supervision and she was speaking at the Official Monetary & Financial Institutions Forum in London.
https://qz.com/1596486/climate-change-could-cause-20-trillion-in-losses-says-bank-of-england/Climate policy implications of nonlinear decline of Arctic land permafrost and other cryosphere elements
The permafrost feedback is increasingly positive in warmer climates, while the albedo feedback weakens as the ice and snow melt. Combined, these two factors lead to significant increases in the mean discounted economic effect of climate change: +4.0% ($24.8 trillion) under the 1.5 °C scenario, +5.5% ($33.8 trillion) under the 2 °C scenario, and +4.8% ($66.9 trillion) under mitigation levels consistent with the current national pledges.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-09863-xRising Sea Levels Are Hurting Home Values in These 40 Cities
As sea levels rise and hurricanes get more and more costly, the effects of climate change are disproportionately felt in some areas of the country ... study analyzes the loss in home values since 2005 ... to identify the U.S. cities most affected by rising sea levels.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/rising-sea-levels-hurting-home-090000627.html
based on reporting at https://www.gobankingrates.com/making-money/economy/how-much-climate-change-will-cost-each-state/
reporting on a study at https://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6345/1362Sea level rise will cause $7b worth of damage to Wellington unless emissions are drastically cut
The capital hopes to play its part in preventing a 1.4-metre sea level rise that computer models show could decimate Wellington's central city, an area that drives 77 per cent of the city's economy. Although that the sea is not predicted to rise that high until 2140, the most recent Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change report has given the world 11 years to get serious about sorting emission before it is too late to act.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/111968974/sea-level-rise-will-cause-7b-worth-of-damage-to-wellington-unless-emissions-are-drastically-cut‘Water always wins’: The most expensive parts of Long Beach are most vulnerable to rising seas
In the 90803 ZIP code—which includes Naples, Belmont Shore and the Peninsula—the median home costs nearly $900,000. But large swaths of the area will soon be underwater ... cause of the inundation, Dahl stresses, will not be seasonal storms, but, rather, normal high tides rising higher and reaching farther inland ... The Los Angeles Region Report of California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment, which relies on a scenario characterized by increasing greenhouse gas emissions over time, projects a 1- to 2-feet of sea level rise by 2050, and more extreme projections lead to 8 to 10 feet of sea level rise by the end of the century ... 300,000 homes along the nation’s coastlines could be lost by 2045, with a collective market value of $117.5 billion.
https://lbpost.com/category-climate-change/sea-level-rise-naples-peninsula-belmont-shore/Failing septic tanks are damaging Florida’s environment and will cost billions of dollars to replace
[B]ecause the water table is rising in parts of the state, many septic tanks aren’t working properly ... failure of septic tanks and old sewage collection systems fed toxic blue-green algae blooms that fouled the air ... “Sea-level rise is increasingly putting us between hell and high water,” Lapointe said ... Miami-Dade County issued a report saying that the county has tens of thousands of septic tanks and that most of them are malfunctioning. The report said it could cost as much as $3 billion.
https://www.theinvadingsea.com/2019/04/19/failing-septic-tanks-are-damaging-floridas-environment-and-will-cost-billions-of-dollars-to-replace/Is global warming out of our control for the next 30-50 years and, are we REALLY facing mass extinction within our lifetimes?
"You cannot be called an alarmist if there really is something to be alarmed about." 13 reasons we may miss our last chance "window of opportunity" to have any meaningful remaining control of the global warming emergency to prevent mass extinction
1: We are not making anything even close to the required radical cuts in our fossil fuel use
2: It is highly improbable we will ever make the critically needed cuts to our fossil fuel use in time to save ourselves
3: The projected new length of time it will take to move away from global fossil fuel energy generation to green energy generation to replace it
4: Promised new technologies will not save us in time
5: There is still no international consensus or agreement for the critical fossil fuel reduction levels actually needed
6: The citizens of the world rising up as a single powerful voice to demand their politicians act immediately won't happen in time to save us either
7: A seemingly unstoppable continuing increase in average global warming temperature
8: The steady deadly rise of methane in the atmosphere
9: The gross miscalculations of current global warming consequence timetables for many of the 20 worst global warming consequences
10: The near insolvable problem of global warming justice definitions and global warming restitution and aid processes
11: The recent and the projected future crossings of many other global warming tipping points, positive feedback loops and points of no return within the climate system
12: The unconscionable and accelerating effects of the soon to be crossed near-final and final extinction level global warming tipping points
13: The absolutely horrible side effects if we do cut fossil fuel radically
Because of all of the above reasons, based upon its ultimate consequences upon humanity, global warming is, in fact, already out of our meaningful control ... will cause massive biological, economic, political and social collapses and will end the lives of as much as 70 to 90% of humanity in as little as the next 30 to 50 years.
https://www.joboneforhumanity.org/irreversible_global_warming_is_here_nowCanada’s forests haven’t absorbed more carbon than they’ve released since 2001
For years, some Canadians have hid behind the myth that the country isn’t a net emitter of greenhouse gas emissions because of the presence of such vast forests working as our personal atmosphere vacuums. And up until the last two decades, it is true that those forests had the power to sequester in excess of a hundred megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent each year. But that is no longer the case. Natural Resources Canada tracks the estimations of carbon released and captured by the managed forest each year — with managed forests accounting for about 65 per cent of the country’s trees. The results: Canada’s forests have not captured more carbon than they’ve emitted since 2001.
https://thenarwhal.ca/canadas-forests-havent-absorbed-more-carbon-than-theyve-released-since-2001/Yukon warmest it has been in 13,600 years
A study published in Nature Communications confirms that recent climate warming in the central Yukon region has surpassed the warmest temperatures experienced in the previous 13,600 years, a finding that could have important implications in the context of current global warming trends ... confirms information provided by previous midge studies ... concludes that industrial-era warming has led to current summer temperatures that are unprecedented in the Holocene context, and exceeds all previous maximum temperatures by nearly 2°C.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190410120606.htmUnexpected Source Fuels Rapid Melt at World’s Biggest Ice Shelf
Part of Antarctica’s Ross ice shelf—the largest ice shelf in the world—appears to be melting 10 times faster than the ice around it. And researchers say a new process, one that was only rarely considered by scientists in the past, is the likely culprit. The findings, published yesterday in the journal Nature Geoscience, point to warm ocean water, heated up by the sun at the surface of the sea, as the driver behind the melting.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/unexpected-source-fuels-rapid-melt-at-worlds-biggest-ice-shelf/Climate crisis: flooding threat ‘may force UK towns to be abandoned’
Entire communities might need to be moved away from coasts and rivers as the UK takes urgent action to prepare for an average global temperature rise of 4C, the Environment Agency warned ... some areas of the UK and some homes and businesses cannot be protected. “Despite our collective best efforts, we will not always be able to prevent flooding and coastal change happening.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/09/climate-crisis-flooding-threat-may-force-uk-towns-to-be-abandonedPhytoplankton decline coincides with warming temperatures over the last 150 years
[S]cientists at MIT, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and elsewhere have found evidence that phytoplankton's productivity is declining steadily in the North Atlantic, one of the world's most productive marine basins.
https://phys.org/news/2019-05-phytoplankton-decline-coincides-temperatures-years.htmlWarning: The following truth is not for the faint-hearted
Each of the four videos describes our world after a global warming of 2°C, 3°C, 4°C and more. It also explains why we can barely stop further warming once we have reached a temperature increase of 2°C. Because that is the moment when mutually reinforcing effects will spiral climate change out of control ... Only radical and immediate reduction of greenhouse gases and ultimately the complete and worldwide abandonment of fossil fuels by 2050 at the latest will give us a 50% to 60% chance to keep the earth's temperature below 2°C.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/warning-following-truth-faint-hearted-michael-flammerHuman society under urgent threat from loss of Earth's natural life
Human society is in jeopardy from the accelerating decline of the Earth’s natural life support systems, the world’s leading scientists have warned as they announced the results of the most thorough planetary health check ever undertaken ... The biomass of wild mammals has fallen by 82%, natural ecosystems have lost about half their area and a million species are at risk of extinction – all largely as a result of human actions, said the study, compiled over three years by a team of more than 450 scientists and diplomats ... The warning was unusually stark for a UN report that has to be agreed by consensus across all nations.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/06/human-society-under-urgent-threat-loss-earth-natural-life-un-reportAustralia's capital cities face water restrictions as dams near 50%
Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane have seen water levels hit near-decade lows after a hot summer and dry autumn Dry conditions and lower-than-average rainfall are expected to persist through the autumn and into winter, with the Bureau of Meteorology’s climate outlook predicting a “drier than average” May for eastern Australia. It follows a record-breaking summer and the hottest March on record.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/06/australias-capital-cities-face-water-restrictions-as-dams-near-50The Last of the Arctic's Old Sea Ice Is on the Verge of Vanishing
National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) ... monthly sea ice update ... just 1.2 percent of ice in the Arctic Ocean is older than four years. Just 35 years ago, ice that was four years old or older made up nearly a third of all Arctic sea ice. Old sea ice is vital to holding Arctic icepack as a whole together ... But as ocean and air temperatures have risen in the Arctic, its extent has shrunk dramatically. As the new report reminds us, old sea ice is now on life support.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-last-of-the-arctics-old-sea-ice-is-on-the-verge-of-1834510753Greenland melt season officially starts almost a month early
DMI scientists announced the start of the Greenland melt season, the second earliest in a record that stretches back to 1980 ... “On average, the melt season starts around the 26th May, so we are almost a full month earlier this year” ... The warm air mass moving over the Greenland ice sheet has been key to the extensive melting observed this week but substantial melting started already in early April.
http://polarportal.dk/en/news/news/greenland-melt-season-officially-starts-almost-a-month-early/After the drought is before the drought
"[W]e're starting to get worried that this year will be like the last" ... According to the German Farmer's Association, the 2018 drought destroyed harvests worth between 2 and 3 billion euros ($2.2 to 3.3 billion) ... the soil will take years to recover ... Parched soils are not only a problem for farmers in Germany ... eastern and northern Europe were particularly badly affected by last year's drought, and according to Sergiy Moroz, expert for water and biodiversity at the European Environmental Bureau, they could experience more of the same in the future. "The frequency and intensity of droughts will increase due to climate change," Moroz told DW.
https://www.dw.com/en/after-the-drought-is-before-the-drought/a-48550857Biodiversity crisis is about to put humanity at risk, UN scientists to warn
The world’s leading scientists will warn the planet’s life-support systems are approaching a danger zone for humanity ... Up to 1 million species are at risk of annihilation ... report is a compilation of reams of academic studies, in this case on subjects ranging from ocean plankton and subterranean bacteria to honey bees and Amazonian botany ... the overview of the state of the world’s nature is expected to provide evidence that the world is facing a sixth wave of extinction. Unlike the past five, this one is human-driven.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/03/climate-crisis-is-about-to-put-humanity-at-risk-un-scientists-warn
see also https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/one-million-species-risk-extinction-threatening-human-communities-around-world-un-report-warns-180972114/Permafrost is thawing in the Arctic so fast scientists are losing their equipment
Instead of a few centimetres of thaw a year, several metres of soil can destabilize within days
"The ground thaws and swallows it," said Merritt Turetsky, a University of Guelph biologist whose new research warns the rapid thaw could dramatically increase the amounts of greenhouse gases released from ancient plants and animals frozen within the tundra. "We've put cameras in the ground, we've put temperature equipment in the ground, and it gets flooded. It often happens so fast we can't get out there and rescue it." Turetsky's research, published this week in the journal Nature, looks at the rate of permafrost thaw across the Arctic and what its impact could be on attempts to limit greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/permafrost-melting-1.5119767Great Lakes Ice Cover Has Been Decreasing Since the 1970s, Study Says
The trend for peak ice cover on all of the lakes has gone from about 70 percent in 1973 to roughly 40 percent by 2018, according to data by the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) ... According to a separate study by NOAA-funded GLISA, a partnership between the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, ice coverage declined by 71 percent on all five Great Lakes and Lake St. Clair between 1973 and 2010 ... study noted that waters have warmed significantly from 1973 to 2010.
https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2019-04-24-great-lakes-ice-coverage-declining
reporting on a study at https://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/great-lakes-ice-cover-decreasing-over-last-40-yearsThe Last Time There Was This Much CO2, Trees Grew at the South Pole
A recently published study showed that Earth’s glaciers are now melting five times more rapidly than they were in the 1960s ... the World Meteorological Organization announced that extreme weather events impacted 62 million people across the world last year ... Canada is warming at twice the global rate ... if business as usual continues, emissions will only accelerate ... yet another report came out highlighting how oil and gas giants are spending millions of dollars in their ongoing effort to lobby their paid politicians to block policies aimed at addressing climate disruption.
https://truthout.org/articles/the-last-time-there-was-this-much-co2-trees-grew-at-the-south-pole/Signs of faster melting in world's largest ice shelf
[S]cientists have spent several years building up a record of how the north-west sector of the Ross Ice Shelf interacts with the ocean beneath it. They found that the Sun heats ocean surface water which then flows into a cavity under the shelf causing melt rates to rise ... the Ross Ice Shelf stabilises the West Antarctic Ice Sheet by blocking the ice which flows into it from some of the world's largest glaciers. This in turn has implications for sea-level rise in future.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48107497Welcome to the Planetary Hospice
The ‘great dying’ cannot be practiced in isolation. Never before have human beings required loving community to the extent that they do now ... we must live life as if every act, every task, and every kindness expressed to one’s self and others might be the last. Live and act with gratitude, generosity, compassion, service and an open heart that is willing to be broken over and over again. It’s time to ask admission to the planetary hospice, and to become hospice workers for the Earth community.
https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/welcome-to-the-planetary-hospiceForest fires accelerating snowmelt across western US, study finds
Forest fires are causing snow to melt earlier in the season, a trend occurring across the western U.S. that may affect water supplies and trigger even more fires ... a cycle that will only be exacerbated as the frequency, duration, and severity of forest fires increase with a warmer and drier climate. The study, published May 2 in the journal Nature Communications, provides new insight into the magnitude and persistence of forest fire disturbance on critical snow-water resources.
https://phys.org/news/2019-05-forest-snowmelt-western.htmlIt’s Not Coming, It’s Here: Bill McKibben on Our New Climate Reality [excerpt from his book Falter]
The extra heat that we trap near the planet because of the carbon dioxide we’ve spewed is equivalent to the heat from 400,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs every day ... the extra carbon released to date, if it could be amassed in one place, would form a solid graphite column 25 meters in diameter that would stretch from here to the moon. There are perhaps four other episodes in Earth’s 4.5-billion-year history where carbon dioxide has poured into the atmosphere in greater volumes, but never at greater speeds — right now we push about 40 billion tons into the atmosphere annually ... This is humanity’s largest accomplishment, and indeed the largest thing any one species has ever done on our planet, at least since the days two billion years ago when cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) flooded the atmosphere with oxygen, killing off much of the rest of the archaic life on the planet. “Faster than expected” is the watchword of climate scientists ... “I’ve never been at a climate conference where people say ‘that happened slower than I thought it would,’” one polar expert observed.
https://lithub.com/its-not-coming-its-here-bill-mckibben-on-our-new-climate-realityArctic warming will accelerate climate change and impact global economy
Carbon released into the atmosphere by the increasing loss of Arctic permafrost, combined with higher solar absorption by Earth's surface due to the melting of sea ice and land snow, will accelerate climate change ... A new paper in Nature Communications reveals a combination of these factors has the potential to increase the long-term economic impact of climate change by just under $70 trillion, under mitigation levels consistent with current national pledges to cut carbon emissions ... High emissions scenarios, such as the current business as usual trajectory (BaU) -- expected to lead to around 4°C of warming by 2100 and cause by far the highest impacts on ecosystems and societies -- are also included.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190423114027.htmScientists: Earth Endangered by New Strain of Fact-Resistant Humans
Scientists have discovered a powerful new strain of fact-resistant humans who are threatening the ability of Earth to sustain life, a sobering new study reports. The research, conducted by the University of Minnesota, identifies a virulent strain of humans who are virtually immune to any form of verifiable knowledge, leaving scientists at a loss as to how to combat them ... While scientists have no clear understanding of the mechanisms that prevent the fact-resistant humans from absorbing data, they theorize that the strain may have developed the ability to intercept and discard information en route from the auditory nerve to the brain.
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/scientists-earth-endangered-by-new-strain-of-fact-resistant-humansEnough rainforest to fill 30 football pitches destroyed every minute last year
The world lost 12 million hectares of tropical rainforest last year – an area the size of North Korea and the equivalent of 30 football pitches every minute, according to a new report. “It’s death by a thousand cuts,” said Frances Seymour, senior fellow at the US-based World Resources Institute (WRI), which led the research based on an analysis of satellite imagery. “The health of the planet is at stake and band aid responses are not enough. The world’s forests are now in the emergency room.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/tropical-rainforest-lost-destroyed-football-pitches-every-minute-a8886911.htmlThe Dirty Secret Of The World’s Plan To Avert Climate Disaster
“The most important of the IPCC’s projections is that we’re screwed unless we can figure out how to take CO2 out of the atmosphere” ... [But] even if negative emissions of any kind turns out to be feasible technically and economically, it’s hard to see how we can achieve it on a global scale in a scant 13 or even three years, as some scenarios require.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-dirty-secret-of-the-worlds-plan-to-avert-climate-disaster/Intensifying weather events are driving higher losses for insurers
Across the country, loss costs increased 19% over the previous year.
Extreme weather events continue to intensify, leading home insurers to develop new services and rating plans to keep their books of business more accurately priced for risk. The latest research shows an increase in both the number of losses and the percentage of losses that resulted from extreme weather events.
https://www.propertycasualty360.com/2019/04/25/intensifying-weather-events-are-driving-higher-losses-for-insurers/Inundaciones en Chaco [Floods in Chaco Argentina]
[translated to English] In the southwest of Chaco, according to a report by INTA Las Breñas, 1070.6 mm were recorded in this region so far this year. In just four months the annual average was exceeded, which is 944 mm there. Meanwhile, if you consider the last six months, when the excessive rains began, the total is already around 1623.7 mm ... "So far this year, 75% of Chaco received rainfall amounts ranging from 900 to 1100, surpassing the records of the last 30 years" ... according to the Argentine Agrarian Federation (FAA), according to various reports there are 1.5 million hectares flooded.
https://www.lanacion.com.ar/economia/campo/inundaciones-chaco-de-soja-solo-pudieron-salvarse-nid2241273Study: Sea level rise causes Texas coastal homeowners to lose millions in potential property value
First Street Foundation analyzed 18 coastal states from Maine to Texas, calculating a total $15.9 billion loss due to tidal flooding driven by sea level rise ... “Sea level rise is not creeping up at the same rate, it’s accelerating,” said Jeremy Porter, a Columbia University professor and First Street Foundation statistical consultant. “This is an early indicator of what’s to come and the loss is already in the billions of dollars.”
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/Study-Sea-level-rise-causes-Texas-coastal-13786803.php‘Death by a thousand cuts’: vast expanse of rainforest lost in 2018
Clearcutting of primary forest by loggers and cattle ranchers in Brazil dominated the destruction, including invasions into indigenous lands where uncontacted tribes live. Losses were also high in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Indonesia ... Ghana and Ivory Coast recorded the biggest percentage rises in rainforest destruction, driven by gold mining and cocoa farming ... “We are nowhere near winning this battle,” said Frances Seymour from the World Resources Institute, part of the Global Forest Watch (GFW) network, which produced the analysis ... “The world’s forests are now in the emergency room – it is death by a thousand cuts,” she said.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/25/death-by-a-thousand-cuts-vast-expanse-rainforest-lost-in-2018First signs of drought in Austria heighten fears over bleak harvest
In Austria, the first signs of drought have already appeared in the east and north, raising fears of another bleak harvest. Rainfall is already down to just a quarter of the 10-year average in recent weeks ... A lack of rain has turned some forests into potential tinderboxes.
https://www.thelocal.at/20190425/first-signs-of-drought-in-austria-heighten-fears-over-bleak-harvestRecord Warm and Dry April in Norway: Drought Warning and Ban on Grill?
The record warm and dry April worries authorities in Norway. There is great forest fire hazard (orange level) in Møre og Romsdal and Trøndelag, Western Norway, Oslo, Østfold, Vestfold, Buskerud and Telemark, Akershus, Oppland and Hedmark.
https://www.tnp.no/norway/panorama/record-warm-and-dry-april-in-norway-drought-warning-and-ban-on-grillNew studies highlight challenge of meeting Paris Agreement climate goals
Two new studies published in the AGU journals Geophysical Research Letters and Earth's Future now show some of the goals set forth in the agreement might be difficult to reach ... The first study, published in AGU's Geophysical Research Letters, found none of the world's major carbon emitters, including the U.S., China and the European Union, have made commitments calculated to align with limiting climate warning to a 2-degree Celsius increase above pre-industrial levels ... a second study, published in Earth's Future [found] even if U.S., China, the European Union and India increased their contributions to limit emissions, the rest of the world would need to drop to virtually zero emissions by 2030 in order for the planet to reach its goal of limiting the increase in temperature from pre-industrial times to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
https://phys.org/news/2019-04-highlight-paris-agreement-climate-goals.htmlRising global temperatures are creating bubbling, methane lakes you can light on fire
Thousands of flammable lakes are popping up all over Alaska and Siberia. That's because rising global temperatures are creating these thermokarst lakes as well as the perfect storm for our changing climate ... During the summer the gas bubbles to the surface and enters the atmosphere. But in the winter the bubbles get trapped under the ice. So when you stab the frozen surface, it releases pockets of the gas that you can then light up. It may look like a fun party trick but there's more to this effect than meets the eye. Methane isn't just highly flammable, it's also a potent greenhouse gas. 25 times more efficient at trapping heat than carbon dioxide ... Overall, thermokarst lakes are estimated to emit 3.8 teragrams of methane each year. Increasing annual methane emissions by up to 63%.
https://www.businessinsider.com/frozen-lakes-light-fire-thermokarst-global-warming-climate-change-2019-4The UK has already [23 April] had more wildfires in 2019 than any year on record
The hot spell in February and the recent Easter heatwave have contributed to a total of 96 major wildfires of 25 hectares or larger, eclipsing the previous high of 79 across the whole of 2018.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2200502-the-uk-has-already-had-more-wildfires-in-2019-than-any-year-on-record/Europe wildfires: Norway police evacuate hundreds in Sokndal
Police say the fires are still out of control and warn that heavy winds could help them to spread. April is very early for forest fires in Norway, and experts have warned of a dramatic increase across the continent. This month alone, wildfires have broken out in Sweden, Germany and the UK. Fires in Europe "are way above the average" for this time of year. "The season is drastically worse than those of the last decade."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48035682Alabama Has Already Seen More Tornadoes This Year Than Its Annual Average
According to the National Weather Service in Birmingham, Alabama, there have been 53 tornadoes in Alabama this year through April 22. This is more than the 47 tornadoes that the state experiences on average and the 46 tornadoes that tore through Alabama in 2018.
https://weather.com/storms/tornado/news/2019-04-23-alabama-tornadoes-2019-above-average-for-the-year-recordsMajor wildfire in Moray 'will take days' to put out
Scottish Fire and Rescue Area manager Bruce Farquharson said "This is one of the largest fires we have had in the last couple of years - the area and the intensity of the fire ... extremely dry after the winter and the sun we have enjoyed over the Easter weekend has created the perfect environment for fires to take hold and spread very quickly" ... The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has been on wildfire alert for number of days because of what they described as "tinder dry" conditions.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-48030091$5-tn fuel exploration plans 'incompatible' with climate goals
Plans by oil and gas majors to spend $4.9 trillion on fuel exploration are "poles apart" from the goal of the Paris climate deal ... IPCC issued a landmark report saying that a 1.5 Celsius target laid out in the Paris accord could only be hit with near-immediate and drastic cuts in production and consumption of oil, gas and coal. Yet oil and gas giants plan to invest trillions of dollars in exploring and developing new fields in the coming decades.
https://phys.org/news/2019-04-tn-fuel-exploration-incompatible-climate.htmlOne million species risk extinction due to humans: draft UN report
Up to one million species face extinction due to human influence, according to a draft UN report ... humanity has undermined the natural resources upon which its very survival depends ... A quarter of catalogued animal and plant species are already being crowded, eaten or poisoned out of existence. The drop in sheer numbers is even more dramatic, with wild mammal biomass -- their collective weight -- down by 82 percent. Humans and livestock account for more than 95 percent of mammal biomass.
https://www.afp.com/en/news/15/one-million-species-risk-extinction-due-humans-draft-un-report-doc-1fu6ad1A permafrost meltdown in Alaska is happening now and rapid changes are coming with it
“Alaska’s permafrost is no longer permanent. It is starting to thaw.” ... permafrost meltdown comes at a time when, for the first time in history, the Bering Sea has no ice from Dillingham in Bristol Bay to the Chukchi Sea ... From viewing the map of Alaska with red areas indicating loss of land due to a permafrost meltdown, almost half of the state could be marshy wetlands or under water.
https://www.anchoragepress.com/columnists/a-permafrost-meltdown-in-alaska-is-happening-now-and-rapid/article_b92e23d8-609e-11e9-b087-8f73ad5e0852.htmlThe media are complacent while the world burns
[A]t a time when civilization is accelerating toward disaster, climate silence continues to reign across the bulk of the US news media. Especially on television, where most Americans still get their news, the brutal demands of ratings and money work against adequate coverage of the biggest story of our time. Many newspapers, too, are failing the climate test ... This journalistic failure has given rise to a calamitous public ignorance, which in turn has enabled politicians and corporations to avoid action.
https://www.cjr.org/special_report/climate-change-media.phpGreenland Is Falling Apart
The research, published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, covers nearly 20 years previously not included in our detailed understanding of the troubled Greenland Ice Sheet. It finds that climate change has already bled trillions of tons of ice from the island reservoir, with more loss than expected coming from its unstable northern half ... one of the profound geological shifts of our time ... Greenland lost about half of that ice—roughly 2,200 gigatons—in the years between 2010 and 2018. The ice sheet has also failed to gain mass in any year since 1998 ... demise seems to be accelerating.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/04/how-much-ice-has-greenland-lost-climate-change/587431/Satellite data confirms globe is warming rapidly
NASA's global temperature data set, which has found that the past 5 years have been the warmest on record, has received new and independent validation of its readings, per a new study ... “These findings should help put to rest any lingering concerns that modern warming is somehow due to the location of sensors in urban heat islands or other measurement errors at the surface,” Zeke Hausfather, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley who was not involved in the new study, told the Washington Post.
https://www.axios.com/satellite-data-confirms-globe-warming-rapidly-43fefd37-5b38-455d-985c-c97c2701c677.htmlNew climate models predict a warming surge
[A] host of global climate models developed for the United Nations’s next major assessment of global warming ... running hotter than they have in the past ... in at least eight of the next-generation models, produced by leading centers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and France, that “equilibrium climate sensitivity” has come in at 5°C or warmer. Modelers are struggling to identify which of their refinements explain this heightened sensitivity before the next assessment from the United Nations’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But the trend “is definitely real. There’s no question,” says Reto Knutti, a climate scientist at ETH Zurich in Switzerland.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/new-climate-models-predict-warming-surgeU.S. Nuclear Power Plants Weren’t Built for Climate Change
In 2011 ... NRC directed the operators of the 60 or so working U.S. nuclear power plants to evaluate their current flood risk ... Ninety percent of plants had at least one risk exceeding their design ... the commission’s new leadership, appointed by President Donald Trump, hasn’t done enough to require owners of nuclear power plants to take preventative measures ... the risks are increasing as climate change worsens.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-nuclear-power-plants-climate-change/'Decades of denial': major report finds New Zealand's environment is in serious trouble
Environment Aotearoa is the first major environmental report in four years ... a sobering summary of a country that is starkly different from the pristine landscape promoted in the “Pure New Zealand” marketing campaign ... New Zealand is now considered one of the most invaded countries in the world, with 75 animal and plant species having gone extinct since human settlement. The once-vibrant bird life has fared particularly badly, with 90% of seabirds and 80% of shorebirds threatened with or at risk of extinction. Almost two-thirds of New Zealand’s rare ecosystems are under threat of collapse.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/18/decades-of-denial-major-report-finds-new-zealands-environment-is-in-serious-troubleMelting Permafrost Releasing High Levels of Nitrous Oxide, A Potent Greenhouse Gas
Thawing permafrost in the Arctic may be releasing 12 times as much nitrous oxide as previously thought, according to a new study published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. Nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide, can remain in the atmosphere for up to 114 years, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ... The findings back up similar results from other recent studies.
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/melting-permafrost-releasing-high-levels-of-nitrous-oxide-a-potent-greenhouse-gasClimate change targets are slipping out of reach
For all the commentary around a transition to a clean energy system, the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is still continuing to rise rapidly and shows no sign of slowing down ... Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have estimated the limits imply an atmospheric CO2 concentration of no more than 450 parts per million (for 2 degrees) or 430 ppm (for 1.5 degrees). On current trends, these limits will be reached sometime between the late 2020s and the late 2030s [but] it is becoming increasingly hard to envisage a scenario in which atmospheric CO2 can be held below 430-450 ppm in the next two decades.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-energy-climatechange-kemp/column-climate-change-targets-are-slipping-out-of-reach-idUKKCN1RT0P0Mark Carney tells global banks they cannot ignore climate change dangers
The global financial system faces an existential threat from climate change and must take urgent steps to reform, the governors of the Bank of England and France’s central bank have warned ...financial regulators, banks and insurers around the world had to “raise the bar” to avoid catastrophe ... a “massive reallocation of capital” was necessary to prevent global warming above the 2°C maximum target set by the Paris climate agreement, with the banking system required to play a pivotal role.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/17/mark-carney-tells-global-banks-they-cannot-ignore-climate-change-dangers33-year study shows increasing ocean winds and wave heights
Extreme ocean winds and wave heights are increasing around the globe, with the largest rise occurring in the Southern Ocean, University of Melbourne research shows ... researchers found that extreme winds in the Southern Ocean have increased by 1.5 metres per second, or 8 per cent, over the past 30 years. Extreme waves have increased by 30 centimetres, or 5 per cent, over the same period ... "Although increases of 5 and 8 per cent might not seem like much, if sustained into the future such changes to our climate will have major impacts."
https://phys.org/news/2019-04-year-ocean-heights.htmlCO2 levels at highest for 3 million years -- when seas were 20 meters higher
The last time carbon dioxide levels were this high, Greenland was mostly green, sea levels were up to 20 meters higher and trees grew on Antarctica, according to scientists who warned this week that there is more CO2 in our atmosphere today than in the past three million years ... Scientists at a Royal Meteorological Society meeting on the climate of the Pliocene in London on Wednesday discussed how sedimentary records and plant fossils from near Antarctica show that during the Pliocene epoch Arctic summer temperatures were 14°C higher than today.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/04/health/co2-levels-global-warming-climate-intl/index.htmlUK temperature hits 70-year high for Easter bank holiday
The temperature is expected to rise even further on Monday to 27C, making the sunniest spots in the UK warmer than most of Europe, Algeria and Morocco.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/apr/20/britons-bask-on-hottest-day-of-year-as-mercury-hits-a-70-year-highClimate change hits supply chains: Allianz
A worldwide increase in natural catastrophes is already hitting global supply chains and causing a spike in business interruption insurance claims, a senior executive with Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty has warned. AGCS chief regions and markets officer Sinead Browne said this trend, which she directly linked to climate change, was pushing premiums up around the world ... "The insurance industry needs to protect its balance sheet, and if the insurance industry is to sustain its ability to cover natural catastrophe disasters, it has to increase premiums in order to ensure that the premium pool is there to pay for these claims when they do arrive," she said.
https://www.afr.com/business/banking-and-finance/climate-change-hits-supply-chains-allianz-20190414-p51dzlThe Bering Sea Should Be Frozen Right Now. It Isn't.
Humans are living through a dramatic transformation of the planet's surface due to climate change ... now imaging has revealed perhaps a new chapter in that decline: The Bering Sea, which under normal circumstances should remain frozen-over until May, is almost entirely free of sea ice in early April. Part of what makes this event so stunning, as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) pointed out in a statement, is that the Arctic sea ice should be reaching its annual maximum right now.
https://www.livescience.com/65166-bering-sea-ice-melt.html“Hair Dryer” Winds Could Strain Vulnerable Antarctic Ice Shelf
Warm, dry winds sweeping across Antarctica can temporarily cause extraordinary melting events ... some researchers say continued climate change could alter some of the atmospheric circulation patterns driving the winds ... A new study this week in Geophysical Research Letters is the latest to highlight the issue. Led by Tri Datta of the University of Maryland's Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, the researchers found that foehn events at Larsen C cause a substantial increase in surface melting, even after the regular summer melt season has ended.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ldquo-hair-dryer-rdquo-winds-could-strain-vulnerable-antarctic-ice-shelf/New Satellite Photos Show Climate Change Is Sweeping Europe
Climate change is picking up pace in Europe ... Last year was the third hottest on record and underlines “the clear warming trend” experienced in the last four decades, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, which operates a network of satellites for the European Union that collects weather, soil, air and water data ... images were made available to coincide with a gathering of 15,000 scientists in Vienna at an annual meeting of the European Geosciences Union, which assesses the issue each year.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-04-09/new-satellite-photos-show-europe-s-changing-climateExtreme weather cost Europe nearly half a trillion euros so far
Floods, droughts, heatwaves and other climate-related extremes caused economic losses of €453 billion between 1980 and 2017 .... According to German reinsurance group Munich Re, 2017 was globally the second-costliest year on record for natural disasters, after 2011, with losses from weather-related disasters breaking previous records.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/climate-environment/news/extreme-weather-cost-europe-nearly-half-a-trillion-euros-so-far/After a $14-Billion Upgrade, New Orleans' Levees Are Sinking
11 months after the Army Corps of Engineers completed one of the largest public works projects in world history, the agency says the system will stop providing adequate protection in as little as four years ... The agency’s projection that the system will “no longer provide [required] risk reduction as early as 2023” illustrates the rapidly changing conditions being experienced both globally as sea levels rise faster than expected and locally as erosion wipes out protective barrier islands and marshlands in southeastern Louisiana.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/after-a-14-billion-upgrade-new-orleans-levees-are-sinking/Pace of Bering Sea changes startles scientists
In February, southwest winds brought warm air and turned thin sea ice into “snow cone ice” that melted or blew off. When a storm pounded Norton Sound, water on Feb. 12 surged up the Yukon River and into Kotlik, flooding low-lying homes. Lifelong resident Philomena Keyes, 37, awoke to knee-deep water outside her house. “This is the first I experienced in my life, a flood that happened in the winter, in February,” Keyes said in a phone interview ... The Bering Sea last winter saw record-low sea ice. Climate models predicted less ice, but not this soon, said Seth Danielson, a physical oceanographer at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “The projections were saying we would’ve hit situations similar to what we saw last year, but not for another 40 or 50 years,” Danielson said.
https://apnews.com/0c9a94b339974e9ca9d860fa180d45eaGlobal Floods Cause $8B in Economic Losses During March: Aon Catastrophe Report
Damage from flooding in March 2019 is estimated at US$8 billion from events across the globe, according to Aon’s 'Global Catastrophe Recap – March 2019.' “The major catastrophe events of March highlighted the continued vulnerabilities which exist in both developed and emerging markets,” commented Michal Lörinc, senior catastrophe analyst at Aon’s Impact Forecasting. “The multi-billion-dollar impacts from flooding in the United States, Iran, and Cyclone Idai in Southern Africa were each enhanced by infrastructure unable to handle the large scale of water inundation,” he said.
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2019/04/10/523309.htmResearch reveals evidence of climate change in the Yukon permafrost
In a study published in the April issue of Nature Communications, paleoclimatologist and lead author Trevor Porter studies climate indicators such as water isotopes, tree rings and plant waxes for signs of climate patterns in the Holocene ... to reconstruct summer temperatures over the last 13,600 years ... concludes that industrial-era warming has led to current summer temperatures that are unprecedented in the Holocene context, and exceeds all previous maximum temperatures by nearly 2 degrees Celsius.
https://phys.org/news/2019-04-reveals-evidence-climate-yukon-permafrost.htmlSo many animals are going extinct that it could take Earth 10 million years to recover
Human-driven changes to the planet are hitting global species on multiple fronts, as hotter oceans, deforestation, and climate change drive floral and faunal populations to extinction in unprecedented numbers. As much as half of the total number of animal individuals that once shared the Earth with humans are already gone, a clear sign that we’re on the brink, if not in the midst of, a sixth mass extinction. A new study published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution reveals that it took the planet around 10 million years to recover from the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs. Scientists have long argued that the 10-million-year time frame for global biodiversity to properly rebound is a feature of all five of Earth’s mass extinctions, but for the first time, there’s now fossil evidence of that delay.
https://www.businessinsider.nl/mass-extinction-earth-take-10-million-years-recover-2019-4/This Is How Human Extinction Could Play Out
Food-system collapse, sea-level rise, disease. In his new book “Falter,” Bill McKibben asks, “Is it Too Late?”
In the human game, the single most important question is probably “What’s for dinner?” And when the answer is “Not much,” things deteriorate fast ... even if you can grow plenty of food, the transportation system that distributes it runs through just fourteen major choke-points, and those are vulnerable to — you guessed it — massive disruption from climate change ... As Jeff Goodell (who in 2017 wrote the most comprehensive book to date on sea level rise) put it, such a rise would “create generations of climate refugees that will make today’s Syrian war refugee crisis look like a high school drama production.” ... the median estimate, from the International Organization for Migration, is that we may see two hundred million climate refugees by 2050 ... “Security will start to crumble pretty quickly,” said Adm. Samuel Locklear, former chief of U.S. Pacific Command, explaining why climate change was his single greatest worry.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/bill-mckibben-falter-climate-change-817310/Global Warming Is Shrinking Glaciers Much Faster Than Scientists Thought, Study Finds
The most comprehensive measurement of glaciers worldwide found that thousands of inland masses of snow compressed into ice are shrinking 18 percent faster than an international panel of scientists calculated in 2013. The world’s glaciers are shrinking five times faster now than they were in the 1960s. Their melt is accelerating due to global warming, and adding more water to already rising seas, the study found. “Over 30 years suddenly almost all regions started losing mass at the same time,” said lead author Michael Zemp, director of the World Glacier Monitoring Service at the University of Zurich.
http://time.com/5566385/global-warming-study-glaciers-shrinking/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1071-0Key indicators of Arctic climate change: 1971–2017
Downward trends continue in sea ice thickness (and extent) and spring snow cover extent and duration, while near-surface permafrost continues to warm. Several of the climate indicators exhibit a significant statistical correlation with air temperature or precipitation, reinforcing the notion that increasing air temperatures and precipitation are drivers of major changes in various components of the Arctic system ... we find a correspondence between air temperature and biophysical indicators such as tundra biomass and identify numerous biophysical disruptions with cascading effects throughout the trophic levels ... Arctic biophysical system is now clearly trending away from its 20th Century state and into an unprecedented state, with implications not only within but beyond the Arctic.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aafc1b/metaGlobal Warming Is Pushing Arctic Toward ‘Unprecedented State,’ Research Shows
Arctic forests are turning into bogs as permafrost melts beneath their roots. The icy surface that reflects the sun's radiation back into space is darkening and sea ice cover is declining. Warmth and moisture trapped by greenhouse gases are pumping up the water cycle, swelling rivers that carry more sediment and nutrients to the sea, which can change ocean chemistry and affect the coastal marine food chain. And those are just a few ... the changes documented in the study suggest the effects on the region are more profound than previously understood.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08042019/arctic-climate-change-temperature-permafrost-sea-ice-wildilfe-ecology-studyRecord warm temperatures bring an early wildland fire season to Southcentral [Alaska]
The National Significant Wildland Fire Potential Outlook, issued by the National Interagency Fire Center’s Predictive Services for the month of April, shows "above normal" wildland fire potential extending from the southern tip of the Kenai Peninsula all the way north to Fairbanks. Division of Forestry Assistant Fire Management Officer for the Mat-Su Phil Blydenburgh said early snowmelt, warming trends, and frequent high winds have already caused ten fires in Southcentral in 2019. “This season, we are seeing the snowmelt two to three weeks earlier than typical,” Blydenburgh said. “Typically, the trend has been we’re starting to have earlier fire seasons, especially in Southcentral Alaska.”
https://www.ktuu.com/content/news/Were-starting-to-have-earlier-fire-seasons-especially-in-Southcentral-Alaska---DOV-508225281.html'Dead corals don't make babies': Great Barrier Reef losing its ability to recover from bleaching
The new study, released Wednesday in the journal Nature, examined the number of adult corals which survived ... The answer was as bleak as it was stark: "Dead corals don't make babies," the study's lead author, Terry Hughes, said ... "The number of new corals settling on the Great Barrier Reef declined by 89% following the unprecedented loss of adult corals from global warming in 2016 and 2017," said Hughes ... Between a quarter and a third of all marine species across the ocean have some part of their life cycle in coral reefs, John Veron, a renowned reef expert widely known as the "Godfather of Coral" told CNN in 2018. "Now that is ecological chaos, it is ecological collapse ... It's more than an alarm bell. It's an air raid siren."
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/04/australia/great-barrier-reef-coral-bleaching-intl/index.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1081-yEffects of fossil fuel and total anthropogenic emission removal on public health and climate
We used a global model to estimate the climate and public health outcomes attributable to fossil fuel use ... an excess mortality rate up to 5.55 (4.52–6.52) million per year ... removing the anthropogenic emissions in the model increases rainfall by 10–70% over densely populated regions in India and 10–30% over northern China, and by 10–40% over Central America, West Africa, and the drought-prone Sahel ... aerosols mask the anthropogenic rise in global temperature, removing fossil-fuel-generated particles liberates 0.51(±0.03) °C and all pollution particles 0.73(±0.03) °C warming, reaching around 2 °C over North America and Northeast Asia ... rapid phaseout of fossil-fuel-related emissions and major reductions of other anthropogenic sources are needed to save millions of lives, restore aerosol-perturbed rainfall patterns, and limit global warming to 2 °C.
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/03/19/1819989116Assessing ExxonMobil’s climate change communications: A timeline of climate denial 1954-2019
A study of primary source materials and internal documents. “Even though we were writing all these papers [with Exxon scientists] which were basically supporting the idea that climate change from CO2 emissions was going to change the climate of the earth according to our best scientific understanding, the front office...of the company was also supporting people that we call climate change deniers…they were giving millions of dollars to other entities to support the idea that the CO2 greenhouse was a hoax.” Dr. Martin Hoffert, Professor, New York University, Research collaborator with Exxon scientists in the 1980s.
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/162144/Presentation%20Geoffrey%20Supran.pdfHumans Have Caused the Most Dramatic Climate Change in 3 Million Years
The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today is likely higher than it has been anytime in the past 3 million years. This rise in the level of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, could bring temperatures not seen over that entire timespan, according to new research.
https://www.livescience.com/65148-human-climate-change-worse-3-million-years.htmlWorld Economic Forum: Why the diversity of insects is crucial for maintaining crop yields
The new study underlines the already alarming downward trend in insect numbers seen in several other studies conducted in the UK, Germany and Central America ... Massive losses of insects are so serious because insects are essential components in almost every ecosystem ... If insects are in trouble, then so is everything else in that ecosystem.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/insects-species-that-prefer-crops-prosper-while-majority-decline/BC prepares for intense season as big wildfires flare up
Crews and officials across B.C. are in preparation mode ahead of the summer, following the two most destructive wildfire seasons recorded in B.C.'s history ... This year has already seen one of the driest Marches on record for many areas of the province ... fire ecologist Robert Gray says it's not enough for individuals to take precautions. Entire forests have to be thinned out and carbon emissions significantly curbed to try to reverse the wildfires ... "Five years ago, we're looking at the climate models, we were thinking we had time," Gray said.
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/news/article/british-columbia-canada-prepares-for-intense-season-as-big-wildfires-flare-upAn open letter to David Wallace-Wells
[W]e have been impressed by your new book The Uninhabitable Earth ... your straight look at oncoming disaster offers a vital stimulus to realistic understanding and action. [However we] are unconvinced by your claim that because we engineered this mess, so we must be able to engineer an escape from it ... intentionally engineering global change would require us, as you also sardonically note, to rebuild the world’s infrastructure entirely in less time than it took New York City to build three new stops on a subway line ... It is not that acknowledging the hard truths which you present so starkly might still enable us to avoid climate disaster. For that it is, as in practice you so clearly demonstrate, now too late. Rather, it is the hope that through accepting the inevitability of such disaster for our present civilisation ... the more chance we have to avoid ours becoming a true horror story.
https://theecologist.org/2019/apr/04/open-letter-david-wallace-wellsExtremes of summer climate trigger thousands of thermokarst landslides in a High Arctic environment
Retrogressive thaw slumps (RTS) – landslides caused by the melt of ground ice in permafrost – have become more common in the Arctic ... Here we annually resolve RTS formation and longevity for Banks Island, Canada ... 60-fold increase in numbers between 1984 and 2015 as more than 4000 RTS were initiated, primarily following four particularly warm summers ... additional evidence that ice-rich continuous permafrost terrain can be highly vulnerable to changing summer climate.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-09314-7Canada warming at twice the global rate, leaked report finds
Canada is, on average, experiencing warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world, with Northern Canada heating up at almost three times the global average, according to a new government report ... since 1948, Canada's annual average temperature over land has warmed 1.7 C, with higher rates seen in the North, the Prairies and northern British Columbia. In Northern Canada, the annual average temperature has increased by 2.3 C.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/canada-warming-at-twice-the-global-rate-leaked-report-finds-1.5079765Delhi heat becomes unbearable with mercury touching 40 degrees, heatwave to begin soon
Safdarjung Observatory recorded the highest maximum of the season at 39.2℃, while observatory at Palam recorded the highest day temperature at 39.5℃ on March 30. The temperatures were significantly above normal by 7℃.
https://www.skymetweather.com/content/weather-news-and-analysis/delhi-heat-to-become-unbearable-heatwave-condition-to-commence-soon/Germany records hottest year in a century
"It was the warmest year in the 138-year temperature records of the national weather service," the service said.
https://phys.org/news/2019-03-germany-hottest-year-century.htmlAustralia sees record temperatures for fourth month in a row
Australia continued a string of "hottest ever" months in March, the government said Monday ... national mean temperature was 2.13 degrees centigrade (3.83 degrees Fahrenheit) above the long-term average for the month of March. It was the fourth month in a row of record heat in the country, and January was Australia's hottest month ever, with mean temperatures across the continent exceeding 30 degrees Celsius for the first time.
https://phys.org/news/2019-04-australia-temperatures-fourth-month-row.htmlClimate Change: Heatwave destroying marine life; major threat to humanity
Due to increase in heatwave, forests, seagrass meadows and coral reefs are on the verge of extinction ... unless we take an important action, our oceans will see lesser fish, least number of whales and high dramatic disorder in ecology, with an alarming concern for humans who majorly depend on the ocean.
https://www.skymetweather.com/content/weather-news-and-analysis/climate-change-heatwave-destroying-marine-life-major-threat-to-humanityAlarming Study Concludes Frogs Are Undergoing a ‘Catastrophic’ Global Die Off
The paper, published in Science, chronicles a “catastrophic and ongoing loss” of amphibians around the world. In the paper’s self-described “conservative” estimate, 501 frog and other amphibian species have been ravaged by chytridiomycosis, a disease caused by a fungus that has traveled the world on the back of globalization and wildlife trade. Nearly 20 percent of those species are presumed extinct in the wild, and more species could be wiped out as humans speed along the sixth mass extinction.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/alarming-study-concludes-frogs-are-undergoing-a-catast-1833642045Alaska temperatures expected to soar 40 degrees above normal this weekend
"Startling" is a word you don't often hear from an Alaskan meteorologist with over three decades of experience ... The climate expert at NOAA's Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy used the word when stating that the month of March — for Alaska as a whole — will be the 29th month since January 2013 to be ranked in the warmest ten percent since 1925 ... villages along the northern coast of Alaska, right on the Arctic Ocean, are expected to spike to 40 degrees Fahrenheit above normal ... The warmth is all part of a rapid, long-term trend in Alaska ... According to the 2018 National Climate Assessment Alaska "is among the fastest warming regions on Earth." It is warming two to three times faster than the rest of the lower 48 states and faces a myriad of issues associated with a changing climate.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alaska-temperatures-expected-to-soar-40-degrees-above-normal-this-weekend/
see also https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Western-Arctic-Warm-Wave-Smashing-Early-Spring-RecordsPolar Warning: Even Antarctica’s Coldest Region Is Starting to Melt
No place on Earth is colder than East Antarctica ... the vast ice sheets of East Antarctica are nearly three miles thick in places. The temperature commonly hovers around -67 degrees Fahrenheit (-55 degrees Celsius); in 2010, some spots on East Antarctica’s polar plateau plunged to a record-breaking -144 degrees F. Now, however, parts of the East Antarctic are melting ... For decades, researchers considered this portion of the continent to be stable ... that picture is starting to change. Scientists are seeing worrying signs of ice loss in the East Antarctic. Glaciers are starting to move more quickly, dumping their ice into the Southern Ocean.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/polar-warning-even-antarctica-coldest-region-is-starting-to-meltAir Carbon Capture’s Scale Problem
To get a ton of CO2, we’d need to filter it out of about 1.3 million cubic meters of air ... There are about 3,200 billion tons of excess CO2 in the air ... If we wanted to get just 10% of that out, we’d need to filter the air from 352 billion Houston Astrodomes or 2.5 billion Grand Canyons ... About 40 billion tons of CO2 a year are added to the atmosphere. If we wanted to just deal with 10% of our annual increase in CO2, we’d need to filter the air out of 44 billion Houston Astrodomes or 32 million Grand Canyons ... All of those billions of tons of CO2 are absurdly beyond all of our possible uses of CO2 or the carbon in it for a million years. The global infrastructure to deal with it would be orders of magnitude larger than the entire global oil and gas infrastructure that’s been built over the past 100 years. If we turned it into solids, we’d be burying mountain ranges of carbon, or creating new mountain ranges. Not that we have anywhere on Earth where people wouldn’t likely object to having everywhere they live covered in new mountains.
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/03/14/air-carbon-captures-scale-problem-1-1-astrodomes-for-a-ton-of-co2/Shrinking Arctic sea ice linked to less rain further south
Research has uncovered powerful evidence linking shrinking sea ice in the Arctic to snow and rain in central North America. A study published Wednesday in the journal Nature suggests that a long dry period about 8,000 years ago through the centre of the continent was influenced by disappearing sea ice — the same mechanism that many climatologists believe is behind today's increasingly extreme weather ... The only model that explained the mid-latitude drought was one that factored in the shrinking temperature difference between the Arctic and equator.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/sea-ice-drought-1.5074786Insect decline will cause serious ecological harm
Insects massively outrank all other animals in diversity, numbers and biomass. Since insects underpin most non-marine food networks, serious declines would threaten the stability of wild nature, leading to reductions in numbers of insectivorous animals and those that eat them. The loss of pollinators would also adversely affect agriculture, since many crops depend on insects to set seed.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/28/insect-decline-will-cause-serious-ecological-harmScientists warn climate change is leading to deaths on massive scale in India
The MIT study uses computer simulations to model the effect of heatwaves in northern India, which already faces severe summers ... study focuses on a concept known as “wet-bulb temperature”, which represents a combination of humidity and heat. Human beings are unable to cool themselves through perspiration once wet-bulb temperatures reach 35°C. Exposure to such temperatures “for even a few hours will result in death even for the fittest of humans under shaded, well-ventilated conditions”, the MIT paper reported.
https://www.thenational.ae/world/asia/scientists-warn-climate-change-is-leading-to-deaths-on-massive-scale-in-india-1.618504U.S. military knew the flood risks at Nebraska's Offutt Air Force Base, but didn't act in time
For several years, the United States military and federal and local officials knew that Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska lay exposed to the threat of catastrophic flooding. But a key federal agency moved too slowly to approve plans to protect the base ... flooding submerged part of the airstrip and inundated dozens of buildings at one of the nation’s most important air bases. The calamity likely will cost many times more to repair than it would have cost to prevent ... damage has crippled the capabilities at an Air Force base that is home to the U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees the Pentagon's nuclear deterrence and global strike capabilities.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-military-knew-flood-risks-nebraska-s-offutt-air-n985926Alaska is baking in an exceptionally toasty March as steep, long-term warming presses on
Parts of the state are on pace to finish March more than 20 degrees above average ... interior parts of Alaska stayed above freezing for multiple nights in a row for the first time so early in the year on record. Readings this weekend are projected to end up 30 degrees to even 50 degrees above normal across northern parts of the state ... the latest round in a longer-term episode of acute and persistent warmth across the state and the Arctic region [is] right on the heels of a heat wave that set a number of all-time March warmth records in the region just over a week ago [and] has resulted in multiple episodes of open water over areas that very rarely see it in winter ... These signals are all consistent with expectations in a warming world.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/03/28/alaska-is-baking-an-exceptionally-toasty-march-steep-long-term-warming-pressesFed official: Climate change is an ‘international market failure’
A Federal Reserve researcher warned in a report on Monday that “climate-based risk could threaten the stability of the financial system as a whole” ... Glenn Rudebusch, the San Francisco Fed’s executive vice president for research, ranks climate change as one of the three “key forces transforming the economy” ... Climate change could soon hit the banking system “by storms, droughts, wildfires, and other extreme events” making it harder for businesses to repay loans. Rudebusch warns that crops and inundated cities have already started to hurt the economy.
https://grist.org/article/federal-reserve-climate-change-economy-green-bonds/Drought wipes popular Chilean lake from the map
So sudden was it that as recently as 2011 the 4.6 square-mile (12 square-kilometer) lagoon was a thriving weekend getaway for people from the Chilean capital an hour away ... Locals and experts point to a drastic decrease in rainfall ... “My grandparents remember when torrential rains fell for a minimum of a week, and today, if it’s raining for two days, we’re lucky” ... Average annual rainfall in central Chile during the 1980s was nearly 14 inches (350 millimeters). By 2018, that had fallen by half. Scientists predict it will continue to fall because of global warming.
https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2019/03/drought-wipes-popular-chilean-lake-from-the-map/2018 spike in energy demand spells climate trouble: IEA
A 2.3% jump in global energy demand last year outstripped the expansion of renewables and helped drive record-high greenhouse gas emissions, according to the International Energy Agency ... Energy-related global CO2 emissions rose 1.7% to a record 33 billion tonnes last year compared to 2017, which likewise saw unprecedented levels of carbon pollution.
https://www.rte.ie/news/2019/0326/1038588-iea_co2_geco/Widespread losses of pollinating insects revealed across Britain
[I]nsects have been lost from a quarter of the places they were found in 1980. A third of the species now occupy smaller ranges, with just one in 10 expanding their extent ... The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, is based on more than 700,000 sightings made by volunteers across Britain from 1980 to 2013.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/26/widespread-losses-of-pollinating-insects-revealed-across-britainJourney to Antarctica: Is This What a Climate Catastrophe Looks Like in Real Time?
It’s not just that Thwaites is big, although it is (imagine a glacier the size of Florida). But because of how the glacier terminates in deep water, as well as the reverse slope of the ground beneath it, Thwaites is vulnerable to particularly rapid collapse. Even more troubling, Thwaites is like the cork in the wine bottle for the rest of the West Antarctica ice sheet. If Thwaites were to fall apart, scientists fear the entire ice sheet could begin to collapse ... the Thwaites blowout is not the same thing as what scientists typically call a “calving event” ... What we witnessed was the sudden disintegration of an ice shelf, which is a very different thing.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/journey-to-antarctica-is-this-what-a-climate-catastrophe-looks-like-in-real-time-810392/Methane in the atmosphere is surging, and that’s got scientists worried
Scientists haven’t figured out the cause, but they say one thing is clear: This surge could imperil the Paris climate accord. That’s because many scenarios for meeting its goal of keeping global warming “well below 2 degrees Celsius” assumed that methane would be falling by now, buying time to tackle the long-term challenge of reducing carbon dioxide emissions ... “It is something that is very, very worrying,” said Euan Nisbet, an Earth scientist at Royal Holloway, University of London, and lead author of a recent study reporting that the growth of atmospheric methane is accelerating.
https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-methane-atmosphere-accelerating-20190301-story.htmlUK will miss almost all its 2020 nature targets, says official report
The nation is failing to protect threatened species; end the degradation of land; reduce agricultural pollution; and increase funding for green schemes, the assessment concludes. It also says the UK is not ending unsustainable fishing; stopping the arrival of invasive alien species; nor raising public awareness of the importance of biodiversity. The targets were set in 2010 by the global Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the report from the joint nature conservation committee (JNCC) found insufficient progress was being made on 14 of the 19 targets.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/22/ukmiss-almost-all-2020-nature-targets-official-report-admitsStanford researchers explore the effects of climate change on disease
Stanford biologist Erin Mordecai and her colleagues have made startling forecasts of how climate change will alter where mosquito species are most comfortable and how quickly they spread disease, shifting the burden of disease around the world ... The good news: higher global temperatures will decrease the chance of most vector-borne disease spreading in places that are currently relatively warm. The bad news: warming will increase the chance that all diseases spread in places that are currently relatively cold.
https://news.stanford.edu/2019/03/15/effect-climate-change-disease/Hundreds of Methane Vents Discovered Off Washington's Coast
The study, from the University of Washington and Oregon State University, was recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth. The first large-scale analysis of these gas emissions along Washington's coast finds more than 1,700 bubble plumes, primarily clustered in a north-south band about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the coast. "If you were able to walk on the seafloor from Vancouver Island to the Columbia River, you would never be out of sight of a bubble plume," Johnson said.
http://www.geologyin.com/2019/03/hundreds-of-methane-vents-discovered.htmlHumanity 'Sleepwalking Towards the Edge of a Cliff': 60% of Earth's Wildlife Wiped Out Since 1970
60 percent of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles have been wiped out by human activity since 1970. The World Wildlife Fund's Living Planet Index details how human's uncontrolled overconsumption of land, food and natural resources has eliminated a majority of the wildlife on the planet—threatening human civilization as well as the world's animals. "We are sleepwalking towards the edge of a cliff ... If there was a 60 percent decline in the human population, that would be equivalent to emptying North America, South America, Africa, Europe, China and Oceania. That is the scale of what we have done."
https://www.ecowatch.com/earths-wildlife-wiped-out-since-1970-2616534688.htmlThe U.S. is about to lose a trillion dollars in coastal property values
They will crash when a large fraction of the financial community — mortgage bankers and opinion-makers, along with a smaller but substantial fraction of the public — realize that it is too late for us to stop catastrophic sea level rise. Sean Becketti, the chief economist for mortgage giant Freddie Mac, warned nearly a year ago this scenario is coming faster than expected. The country is facing a trillion-dollar bubble in coastal property values ... When sellers outnumber buyers, and banks become reluctant to write 30-year mortgages for doomed property, and insurance rates soar, then the coastal property bubble will slow, peak, and crash. As the New York Times article points out, it has already slowed or peaked in some places ... South Miami mayor Philip Stoddard has warned that “coastal mortgages are growing into as big a bubble as the housing market of 2007.” He points out that when this bubble crashes it will never recover, but prices will continue to drop as sea levels and storm surges get higher and higher.
https://thinkprogress.org/trumps-policies-will-wreck-coastal-property-values-before-sea-level-rise-does-b3ac326ebfb6/Climate change could make insurance too expensive for most people – report
“If the risk from wildfires, flooding, storms or hail is increasing then the only sustainable option we have is to adjust our risk prices accordingly." ... Nicolas Jeanmart, the head of personal insurance, general insurance and macroeconomics at Insurance Europe, which speaks for 34 national insurance associations, said the knock-on effects from rising premiums could pose a threat to social order ... Munich Re’s insurance cover in hurricane-prone regions such as Florida is already higher than in northern Europe, by an order of magnitude.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/21/climate-change-could-make-insurance-too-expensive-for-ordinary-people-reportInsurance Rates Seen Rising in Flood-Prone Areas With Trump Plan
Flood insurance premiums could rise and property values fall in the most deluge-prone areas under a plan the Trump administration intends to roll out in coming weeks to change the way risk is calculated under the National Flood Insurance Program. Instead of simply focusing on whether a home is inside or outside of the 100-year flood plain, the Federal Emergency Management Agency plans to use private-sector data to calculate the real flood threat for each home and set costs based on that data, according to people familiar with the effort and a briefing document obtained by Bloomberg.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-12/insurance-rates-seen-rising-in-flood-prone-areas-with-trump-planNOAA Spring Outlook: Historic, widespread flooding to continue through May
Nearly two-thirds of the Lower 48 states face an elevated risk for flooding through May ... Portions of the United States have already experienced record flooding this year ... Additional spring rain and melting snow will prolong and expand flooding ... As this excess water flows downstream through the river basins, the flood threat will become worse and geographically more widespread ... upper Mississippi and Red River of the North basins have received rain and snow this spring up to 200 percent above normal ... “a potentially unprecedented flood season, with more than 200 million people at risk for flooding.”
https://www.noaa.gov/media-release/spring-outlook-historic-widespread-flooding-to-continue-through-may70s [F] in Alaska, Northern Canada, Washington State Smash All-Time March Warm Records Before Winter Ends
Tuesday's high in Klawock, Alaska, about 200 miles south-southeast of Juneau, topped out at 70 degrees [F]. While that wasn't a March record there, it was the earliest in the year any Alaska location had reached 70 degrees ... warmth extended into western and northern Canada in places you'd usually expect to be ice- or snow-covered in late March ... Seattle soared to 79 degrees Tuesday and again Wednesday, not only an all-time March high in records since 1894, but also for any day in the five-month stretch from November through March ... highs also soared into the mid-upper 70s in Oregon's Willamette Valley, including Eugene, which had its third warmest March day on record.
https://weather.com/news/weather/news/2019-03-20-march-record-warmth-alaska-canada-seattleLack of ice and climate change creating fear in Alaska
A floating buoy dubbed ‘Peggy’ has been recording and documenting ice changes in the Arctic and Bering Seas for several years ... Peggy’s research data is alarming, scientists say. In 2018, data from Peggy said Arctic water was warming at a rate that could spell trouble for sea life that exist from the sea floor to fish, crab, and humans on top. In their website publication, Weather and Climate, researchers said: “There were early signs that conditions in the winter of 2017 to 2018 were going to be different. By November 2017, the sea ice was already late.” ... Also troubling to villagers is the dismantling of the State’s Climate Change Commission by the new Republican governor Mike Dunleavy.
https://www.anchoragepress.com/lack-of-ice-and-climate-change-creating-fear-in-alaska/article_aae8b78e-49e7-11e9-b9d7-e3dbcb42f1e3.htmlInsurers Worry a Financial Crisis May Come From Climate Risks
Insurers are increasingly worried that rising temperatures will lead to a slump in property values that could spark broader financial turmoil. Those were the conclusions of a group run out of the University of Cambridge including some of the world’s biggest insurers ... increasing catastrophes linked to climate change could triple losses on property investments over the next 30 years. The warning adds to concerns raised by Munich Re AG last month, which said a string of floods, fires and violent storms had doubled the normal amount of insurable losses.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-22/insurers-worry-a-financial-crisis-may-come-from-climate-risks[Colorado] Alpine tundra releases long-frozen CO2
The new findings, published today in the journal Nature Communications, show that alpine tundra in Colorado’s Front Range emits more CO2 than it captures annually, potentially creating a feedback loop that could increase climate warming and lead to even more CO2 emissions in the future ... A similar phenomenon exists in the Arctic, where research in recent decades has shown that melting permafrost is unearthing long-frozen tundra soil and releasing CO2 reserves that had been buried for centuries.
https://www.colorado.edu/today/2019/03/21/alpine-tundra-releases-long-frozen-co2Britain (Yes, Rainy Britain) Could Run Short of Water by 2050, Official Says
Britain might run out of water, the chief executive of the Environment Agency, a public body responsible for conservation in England, said on Tuesday. “On the present projections, many parts of our country will face significant water deficits by 2050, particularly in the southeast, where much of the U.K. population lives,” the agency chief, James Bevan, said at a conference on water use. In about 20 to 25 years, demand could close in on supply in what Mr. Bevan called “the jaws of death — the point at which, unless we take action to change things, we will not have enough water to supply our needs.” The reasons, he said, were climate change and population growth.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/world/europe/uk-water-shortage.htmlStudy shows IPCC is underselling climate change
A new study has revealed that the language used by the global climate change watchdog, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is overly conservative – and therefore the threats are much greater than the Panel's reports suggest ... "The accumulation of uncertainty across all elements of the climate-change complexity means that the IPCC tends to be conservative," says co-author Professor Corey Bradshaw, Matthew Flinders Fellow in Global Ecology at Flinders University. "The certainty is in reality much higher than even the IPCC implies, and the threats are much worse."
https://phys.org/news/2019-03-ipcc-underselling-climate.htmlOur five biggest delusions about climate change
We tend to think of global warming as a legacy of the Industrial Revolution [but] more than half of the carbon exhaled into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels has come in the last 30 years ... For decades, scientists have defined two degrees as the threshold of climate catastrophe, a worst-case scenario. In fact, it is a best-case scenario that, at this point, will be almost impossible to achieve ... the indirect effects may be even more profound: on our psychology, our culture, our sense of place in nature and history, our relationship to technology and to capitalism. Not to mention our geopolitics. The arrival of roughly 2 million Syrians in Europe unleashed a global wave of populism; some experts believe warming will produce a hundred times as many refugees. What will a migration crisis of that scale do to global affairs?
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-wallace-wells-climate-change-delusions-20190227-story.htmlIconic Forests Reaching Climate Tipping Points in American West, Study Finds
As temperatures rise, the hotter, drier air and drier soil conditions are increasingly unsuitable for young Douglas firs and ponderosa pines to take root and thrive in some of the region's low-elevation forests, scientists write in a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Wildfires in these areas could lead to abrupt ecosystem changes, from forest to non-forest, that would otherwise take decades to centuries, the study says.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11032019/forest-wildfire-climate-change-tipping-point-study-douglas-fir-ponderosa-pines-west
reporting on a study at https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/03/05/1815107116Proposal for U.N. to study climate-cooling technologies rejected
A push to launch a high-level study of potentially risky technological fixes to curb climate change was abandoned on Thursday at a U.N. environmental conference in Nairobi ... “Geoengineering” technologies, which are gaining prominence as international efforts to curb climate-changing emissions fall short, aim to pull carbon out of the atmosphere or block some of the sun’s warmth to cool the Earth ... But opponents argue the emerging technologies pose huge potential risks to people and nature, and could undermine efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, not least because many are backed by fossil-fuel interests. Rapidly slashing emissions - mainly by switching to greener power and preserving forests - remains the cheapest and safest way to fend off worsening droughts, floods, storms and other impacts of global warming, scientists say.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-environment-climatechange-geoengineer/proposal-for-un-to-study-climate-cooling-technologies-rejected-idUSKCN1QV2RL‘Devastating’ Arctic warming of 9-16°F now ‘locked in,’ UN researchers warn
Rapid and “devastating” Arctic warming is now almost unstoppable, United Nations researchers warn in a major new report. Unless humanity makes very rapid and deep pollution cuts, Arctic winter temperatures will rise 5.4° to 9.0°F (3° to 5°C) by 2050 — and will reach an astounding 9° to 16°F (5° to 8.8°C) by 2080 — according to a report by the U.N. Environment Program released Wednesday. Even worse, the report warns that warming will in turn awaken a “sleeping giant” in the form of vast quantities of permafrost carbon. This carbon has been frozen in the permafrost for up to thousands of years, but as the atmosphere warms, the permafrost will thaw ... permafrost contains twice as much carbon as the atmosphere does today ... thawing releases not only carbon dioxide but also methane — a far more potent greenhouse gas — thereby further warming the planet. And as the planet continues to warm, more permafrost will melt, releasing even more greenhouse gases in a continuous feedback loop.
https://thinkprogress.org/devastating-arctic-warming-locked-in-warns-un-48e55348514b/
see also https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/13/arctic-temperature-rises-must-be-urgently-tackled-warns-un
reporting on a study at https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/27687/Arctic_Graphics.pdfClimate study warns of vanishing safety window—here’s why
Out of 5.2 million possible climate futures, carbon emissions must reach zero by 2030 in every country in the world if we are to stay at less than 2 degrees Celsius by 2100 of warming ... the new paper published March 11 in the journal Nature Climate Change employed three practical constraints: spending to cut carbon emissions would be no more than three percent of global GDP per year; no use of geoengineering or technologies to remove carbon; and the climate’s response to doubling carbon in the atmosphere would be at the median level or higher. The latter is called climate sensitivity—how much warming happens when carbon is added to the atmosphere.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/03/climate-change-model-warns-of-difficult-future/Environment damage behind 1 in 4 global deaths, disease
A quarter of all premature deaths and diseases worldwide are due to manmade pollution and environmental damage, the United Nations said Wednesday in a landmark report ... As greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise amid a preponderance of droughts, floods and superstorms made worse by climbing sea levels, there is a growing political consensus that climate change poses a future risk to billions.
https://phys.org/news/2019-03-environment-global-deaths-disease.htmlClimate Agreement Will Likely Not Achieve NL's Climate Goals; Industry Contributing Too Little
The agreements made in the climate agreement will likely not achieve the Netherlands' goal of reducing its CO2 emissions by 48.7 megatons in 2030 compared to 1990. Industry in particular is not providing enough CO2 reductions, were the main conclusions of the Netherlands' environmental assessment agency PBL and the Netherlands' central planning office CPB's calculations of the agreement
https://nltimes.nl/2019/03/13/climate-agreement-will-likely-achieve-nls-climate-goals-industry-contributing-littleResource extraction responsible for half world’s carbon emissions
Extractive industries are responsible for half of the world’s carbon emissions and more than 80% of biodiversity loss, according to the most comprehensive environmental tally undertaken of mining and farming ... the study by UN Environment warns the increasing material weight of the world’s economies is putting a more dangerous level of stress on the climate and natural life-support systems than previously thought ... The biggest surprise to the authors was the huge climate impact of pulling materials out of the ground and preparing them for use. All the sectors combined together accounted for 53% of the world’s carbon emissions – even before accounting for any fuel that is burned.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/12/resource-extraction-carbon-emissions-biodiversity-lossThe Melting Arctic Is Covering Itself in a Warm Layer of Clouds
Ariel Morrison, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, presented research that for the first time offered a clear answer as to how the melting Arctic is changing its clouds ... originally published in the journal JGR Atmospheres Dec. 10, 2018 ... Until Morrison's research, scientists weren't sure if the changing cloud situation in the Arctic was speeding or slowing melting overall ... "It's very, very seasonal in the Arctic ... only in the middle of the summer, only in the middle of July, do clouds have this cooling effect, because they're reflecting away more [light] than they're [trapping]." The rest of the year, more clouds means more heat. And during the fall, less ice also seems to mean more clouds. So as the Arctic melts, it's effectively covering itself in a seasonal blanket that makes that melting happen even faster.
https://www.livescience.com/64942-arctic-clouds-climate.htmlMethane Emergency
[A] greater greenhouse gas (GHG) warming factor than CO2, 34 times that of CO2 over 100 years according to the latest IPCC Assessment Report ... global atmospheric methane readings literally going off the charts ... latest methane readings reported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the Arctic have been in the red zone and higher ... tons of this potent greenhouse gas locked up in icy crystals worldwide in the Earth’s cryosphere — more than the total remaining fossil fuels ... not just CH4, but also even more CO2 and other greenhouse gases, that get released when these ancient stores of carbon are provoked from their slumber in the cryosphere.
http://www.scientistswarning.org/wiki/methane-emergency/US Intelligence Officials Warn Climate Change Is a Worldwide Threat
Worldwide Threat Assessment prepared by the Director of National Intelligence added to a swelling chorus of scientific and national security voices in pointing out the ways climate change fuels widespread insecurity and erodes America's ability to respond to it ... The United Nations Security Council also held a discussion on Friday devoted to understanding and responding to how climate change acts as a "threat multiplier" in countries where governance is already fragile and resources are sparse.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30012019/worldwide-threat-assessment-climate-change-intelligence-agencies-national-securityClimate change creates a new migration crisis for Bangladesh
[C]limate change is accelerating old forces of destruction, creating new patterns of displacement, and fueling an explosion of rapid, chaotic urbanization ... while the country is keenly aware of its vulnerability to climate change, not enough has been done to match the pace and scale of the resultant displacement and urbanization ... Over the last decade, nearly 700,000 Bangladeshis were displaced on average each year by natural disasters, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre ... the number of Bangladeshis displaced by the varied impacts of climate change could reach 13.3 million by 2050, making it the country’s number-one driver of internal migration, according to a March 2018 World Bank report.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/01/climate-change-drives-migration-crisis-in-bangladesh-from-dhaka-sundabans/Corporate America Is Getting Ready to Monetize Climate Change
As the Trump administration rolls back rules meant to curb global warming, new disclosures show that the country’s largest companies are already bracing for its effects. The documents reveal how widely climate change is expected to cascade through the economy -- disrupting supply chains, disabling operations and driving away customers
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-22/muggy-disney-parks-downed-at-t-towers-firms-tally-climate-riskGame Changer: Waning Winters
In the Netherlands, an iconic skating race — and a way of life — faces extinction from climate change
The Elfstedentocht translates to “eleven cities tour.” It’s an ice skating race that measures about 135 miles and takes place on the canals that connect the 11 cities in the Friesland province of the Netherlands. [T]he race only takes place when conditions allow; when extreme winter bowls over the region, the temperatures drop, and the canals freeze over. But the Netherlands is no longer a romantic wintry wonderland, and there hasn’t been an Elfstedentocht since 1997, marking the longest drought ever between races. Climate change has endangered the race and is slowly dousing hopes across the province.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2019/03/07/feature/in-the-netherlands-ice-skating-is-in-the-dna-a-warming-climate-could-change-thatEvidence for man-made global warming hits 'gold standard': scientists
“Humanity cannot afford to ignore such clear signals,” the US-led team wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change of satellite measurements of rising temperatures over the past 40 years. They said confidence that human activities were raising the heat at the Earth’s surface had reached a “five-sigma” level, a statistical gauge meaning there is only a one-in-a-million chance that the signal would appear if there was no warming ... findings by researchers in the United States, Canada and Scotland, said evidence for global warming reached the five sigma level by 2005 in two of three sets of satellite data widely used by researchers, and in 2016 in the third ... Separately in 2013, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that it is “extremely likely”, or at least 95 percent probable, that human activities have been the main cause of climate change since the 1950s.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-temperatures/evidence-for-man-made-global-warming-hits-gold-standard-scientists-idUSKCN1QE1ZUDisappearing rice fields threaten more global warming
All over China ... paddies have been (and are being) converted at an astonishing rate into aquaculture ponds to produce more protein for the worlds growing populations. This change risks creating an unexpected impact on global warming ... conversion of paddy fields to aquaculture is releasing massive amounts of the greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere ... When describing their work which appears in Nature Climate Change, Prof Chris Freeman commented: "We were amazed to discover that methane production from the converted rice paddies was massively higher than before conversion."
https://phys.org/news/2019-03-rice-fields-threaten-global.htmlThe Bering Sea is already nearly ice-free, setting up more havoc for its ecosystem and residents
A year ago, a midwinter meltdown erased most of the ice in the Bering Sea, leaving vast stretches of open water and creating shocking conditions like storm surges in coastal villages normally protected by solid sea ice. The winter ice extent, when it hit its maximum last March, was the lowest, by far, in more than 150 years of records. A similar scenario is unfolding this year. Since late January, the Bering Sea has lost two-thirds of its ice area, according to statistics from the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Waters are open across the entire sea, including in the Bering Strait that separates Alaska and Russia.
https://www.arctictoday.com/the-bering-sea-is-already-nearly-ice-free-setting-up-more-havoc-for-its-ecosystem-and-residentsSharp rise in Arctic temperatures now inevitable – UN
Temperatures likely to rise by 3-5C above pre-industrial levels even if Paris goals met
Winter temperatures at the north pole are likely to rise by at least 3C above pre-industrial levels by mid-century, and there could be further rises to between 5C and 9C above the recent average for the region, according to the UN. Such changes would result in rapidly melting ice and permafrost, leading to sea level rises and potentially to even more destructive levels of warming. Scientists fear Arctic heating could trigger a climate “tipping point” as melting permafrost releases the powerful greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere, which in turn could create a runaway warming effect ... The findings, presented at the UN Environment assembly in Nairobi on Wednesday, give a stark picture of one of the planet’s most sensitive regions and one that is key to the fate of the world’s climate ... Even if all carbon emissions were to be halted immediately, the Arctic region would still warm by more than 5C by the century’s end, compared with the baseline average from 1986 to 2005, according to the study from UN Environment. That is because so much carbon has already been poured into the atmosphere.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/13/arctic-temperature-rises-must-be-urgently-tackled-warns-unEurope’s power grid will survive climate change. The US, not so much
a team of scientists from Denmark’s Aarhus University have determined that come what may, European countries with well-planned renewable energy systems will be able to keep the electricity flowing. The research, published in the journal Joule, suggests that electricity systems comprising large-scale, balanced components of wind and solar generation should work well in European climates, despite changing weather patterns ... used data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to develop models that predict wind turbine and solar panel output for 30 European countries under the most common global warming scenarios, looking at the years from 2006 to 2100.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/climate/europe-s-power-grid-will-survive-climate-change-the-us-not-so-muchRain is melting Greenland’s ice, even in winter, raising fears about sea level rise
Rain is becoming more frequent, melting ice and setting the stage for far more melt in the future, according to a new study. Even more disturbing, researchers say, is that raindrops are pockmarking areas of the ice sheet even in the dead of winter and that as the climate warms, those areas will expand ... Rain-induced melt in winter may quickly refreeze, but the rained-on snow forms a crusty layer that absorbs more sunlight than fresh powder. After decades of increasingly frequent winter rain, the snowpack contains so many of these layers that they accelerate melting when exposed to the sun in the summer
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/03/rain-melting-greenland-s-ice-even-winter-raising-fears-about-sea-level-rise'Whole thing is unravelling': climate change reshaping Australia's forests
Australia’s forests are being reshaped by climate change as droughts, heatwaves, rising temperatures and bushfires drive ecosystems towards collapse ... Trees are dying, canopies are getting thinner and the rate that plants produce seeds is falling. Ecologists have long predicted that climate change would have major consequences for Australia’s forests. Now they believe those impacts are unfolding. “The whole thing is unravelling,” says Prof David Bowman, who studies the impacts of climate change and fire on trees at the University of Tasmania.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/07/whole-thing-is-unraveling-climate-change-reshaping-australias-forestsThe biodiversity that is crucial for our food and agriculture is disappearing by the day
The first-ever report of its kind presents mounting and worrying evidence that the biodiversity that underpins our food systems is disappearing – putting the future of our food, livelihoods, health and environment under severe threat. Once lost, warns [the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations] State of the World’s Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture report, launched today, biodiversity for food and agriculture – i.e. all the species that support our food systems and sustain the people who grow and/or provide our food – cannot be recovered ... The report, prepared by FAO under the guidance of the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture looks at all these elements. It is based on information provided specifically for this report by 91 countries, and the analysis of the latest global data.
http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/1180463/icode/Rising CO2 levels destroying African savannah, scientists warn
A new study suggests that besides warming the climate, rising levels of the greenhouse gas will also trigger profound changes in the planet’s vegetation. The research team analysed “chemical fossils” to track plant growth over the years in south-eastern Africa, and found shifts in CO2 levels had sparked dramatic changes in the region’s greenery.
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/africa-savannah-plants-co2-climate-change-greenhouse-gas-a8804646.htmlThe unprecedented 2015/16 Tasman Sea marine heatwave
This marine heatwave lasted for 251 days reaching a maximum intensity of 2.9 °C above climatology. The anomalous warming is dominated by anomalous convergence of heat linked to the southward flowing East Australian Current. Ecosystem impacts range from new disease outbreaks in farmed shellfish, mortality of wild molluscs and out-of-range species observations ... Climate projections indicate that event likelihoods will increase in the future, due to increasing anthropogenic influences.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms16101Heatwaves sweeping oceans ‘like wildfires’, scientists reveal
The number of heatwaves affecting the planet’s oceans has increased sharply, scientists have revealed, killing swathes of sea-life like “wildfires that take out huge areas of forest” ... Global warming is gradually increasing the average temperature of the oceans, but the new research is the first systematic global analysis of ocean heatwaves ... The research found heatwaves are becoming more frequent, prolonged and severe, with the number of heatwave days tripling in the last couple of years studied. In the longer term, the number of heatwave days jumped by more than 50% in the 30 years to 2016
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/04/heatwaves-sweeping-oceans-like-wildfires-scientists-revealClimate Change Is Here—and It Looks Like Starvation
CARE highlighted the fact that almost all of these crises can be traced in large part to climate change. In Sudan, unpredictable rainfall has meant “frequent droughts,” occasional flooding, and “extreme hunger.” In the island nation of Madagascar, “at the frontline of climate change,” cyclones and drought have put 1.3 million people at risk of hunger and, according to UNICEF, a staggering 49 percent of the country’s children have been left stunted by malnutrition. In the Philippines, 2018’s fiercest storm, “super-typhoon” Mangkhut, fed by the heat of the warming oceans, displaced more than a million people. In Niger, desertification has spurred violence and displacement, just as it has in Chad, where nearly half the population is now chronically malnourished. The major source of fresh water in the region, Lake Chad, has shrunk to one-twentieth the area it once covered.
https://www.thenation.com/article/climate-change-media-humanitarian-crises/Ruined crops, salty soil: How rising seas are poisoning North Carolina’s farmland
Rising seas, sinking earth and extreme weather are conspiring to cause salt from the ocean to contaminate aquifers and turn formerly fertile fields barren ... Scientists are increasingly concerned that rising sea levels are shifting the “zone of transition” — the underground gradient where fresh groundwater meets salty seawater.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ruined-crops-salty-soil-how-rising-seas-are-poisoning-north-carolinas-farmland/2019/03/01/2e26b83e-28ce-11e9-8eef-0d74f4bf0295_story.htmlThe Mush in the Iditarod May Soon Be Melted Snow
Rivers and creeks, used as frozen highways for sleds, are not reliably freezing as expected. Brush grows where it never used to, clogging old routes ... What used to be a given in Alaska — enough snow and ice to run the Iditarod and a slew of other sled dog races without much worry — is now fraught with perennial uncertainty. The cosmic question is how long races like the Iditarod in places like Alaska can keep finding long, continuous threads of snow and ice in a region warming more quickly than most places on the planet.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/01/sports/iditarod-climate-change-warming.htmlIce-free Arctic summers could happen on earlier side of predictions
A closer examination of long-term temperature cycles in the tropical Pacific points towards an ice-free Arctic ... on the earlier side of forecasts, according to a new study in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters ... The climate model used in the new study predicts an ice-free Arctic summer sometime between 2030 and 2050, if greenhouse gases continue to rise ... the new research [estimates] closer to 2030 than 2050.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190227111128.htmThe Ocean Is Running Out of Breath, Scientists Warn
In the past decade ocean oxygen levels have taken a dive—an alarming trend that is linked to climate change ... It is no surprise to scientists that warming oceans are losing oxygen, but the scale of the dip calls for urgent attention, Oschlies says. Oxygen levels in some tropical regions have dropped by a startling 40 percent in the last 50 years, some recent studies reveal.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-ocean-is-running-out-of-breath-scientists-warn/New study finds sea level rise accelerating
The rate of global sea level rise has been accelerating in recent decades, rather than increasing steadily, according to a new study based on 25 years of NASA and European satellite data. This acceleration, driven mainly by increased melting in Greenland and Antarctica, has the potential to double the total sea level rise projected by 2100 when compared to projections that assume a constant rate of sea level rise
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2680/new-study-finds-sea-level-rise-accelerating/Coastal Flooding Is Erasing Billions in Property Value as Sea Level Rises. That's Bad News for Cities.
The analysis ... estimates that property value losses from coastal flooding in 17 states were nearly $16 billion from 2005 to 2017. Florida, New Jersey, New York and South Carolina each saw more than $1 billion in losses ... In 2016, Freddie Mac, the federally-backed mortgage company, warned that sea level rise would eventually destroy billions of dollars worth of property ... and the inevitable decline in coastal property value could ripple throughout local economies. Homeowners might decide to stop paying off their mortgages if their home values drop below the balance they owe the bank ... the Freddie Mac report said [losses] "are likely to be greater in total than those experienced in the housing crisis and Great Recession."
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28022019/coastal-flooding-home-values-sea-level-rise-climate-change-ocean-city-miami-beachAustralia's hottest summer beats previous record by 'large margin'
As Australia welcomes the first day of autumn with a sigh of relief, the summer statistics have arrived from the Bureau of Meteorology confirming suspicions that the country just sweated through it's hottest-ever summer. The national mean temperature for summer smashed the 1961-1990 average by a whopping 2.14 °C, almost a full degree above the previous hottest summer on record (2012-2013), which was 1.28 degrees above the old average. The mean maximum temperature also beat the 2012-2013 mean maximum by a similar margin (2.61 degrees above average compared to 1.64 degrees above) ... "This pattern is consistent with observed climate change," the statement says, which means Australians should expect the mercury to continue to rise and records to continue to break.
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/climate-change/australia-s-hottest-summer-beats-previous-record-by-large-margin-20190301-p5119e.htmlWorld is halfway through its hottest decade
[T]he next five years ... will probably help to complete the hottest decade ever. They will on a global average be at least 1°C higher than the average temperature of the planet 200 years ago, before the accelerating combustion of fossil fuels. That is because the planet is already midway through what may well prove to be its warmest 10 years since records began on a planetary scale in 1850. There is even a possibility that within the next five years, the global temperature rise could tip 1.5°C above the long-term average for human history.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/world-is-halfway-through-its-hottest-decade/A World Without Clouds
Computer simulations of clouds have begun to suggest that as the Earth warms, clouds become scarcer. With fewer white surfaces reflecting sunlight back to space, the Earth gets even warmer, leading to more cloud loss. This feedback loop causes warming to spiral out of control ... Earth’s temperature soars 8 degrees Celsius, in addition to the 4 degrees of warming or more caused by the CO2 directly ... To imagine 12 degrees of warming, think of crocodiles swimming in the Arctic
https://www.quantamagazine.org/cloud-loss-could-add-8-degrees-to-global-warming-20190225/First shipping, now agriculture threatened by drought
The Netherlands continues to suffer from the effects of last year’s drought and not enough rain has fallen this winter to make up for the deficit ... The drought, which hit inland shipping last year, now threatens to affect agriculture as groundwater levels are too low to supply crops with water if rainfall remains elusive.
https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2019/02/first-shipping-now-agriculture-threatened-by-drought/Are we on the road to civilisation collapse?
Collapse can be defined as a rapid and enduring loss of population, identity and socio-economic complexity. Public services crumble and disorder ensues as government loses control of its monopoly on violence. Virtually all past civilisations have faced this fate. Some recovered or transformed, such as the Chinese and Egyptian. Other collapses were permanent ... There is no reason to believe that greater size is armour against societal dissolution. Our tightly-coupled, globalised economic system is, if anything, more likely to make crisis spread ... the world is worsening in areas that have contributed to the collapse of previous societies. The climate is changing, the gap between the rich and poor is widening, the world is becoming increasingly complex, and our demands on the environment are outstripping planetary carrying capacity ... We know what needs to be done: emissions reduced, inequalities levelled, environmental degradation reversed, innovation unleashed and economies diversified. We are only doomed if we are unwilling to listen to the past.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190218-are-we-on-the-road-to-civilisation-collapseUK experiences winter temperatures above 20C for first time
The UK is experiencing its warmest February day on record and some of the highest temperatures ever recorded in winter, according to forecasters. Temperatures in Trawsgoed, Wales, reached 20.3C, (68.5F) on Monday morning and rose to 20.6C in the afternoon ... first time temperatures have exceed 20C during winter, according to a Met Office official.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/feb/25/uk-experiences-winter-temperatures-of-more-than-20c-for-first-timeClimate experts warn of more war and displacement in Middle East
The most volatile region in the world is about to be plunged into further chaos because of climate change, academics and international officials warned at a conference on Tuesday. Food scarcity and water shortages will add to the flood of displaced people, sparking wars and providing opportunities for extremist groups, they said. These developments will mean 7 to 10 million people in the Middle East and North Africa will be forced to leave their ancestral or temporary homes over the next decade ... many at the conference were skeptical that either policymakers or populations had a sense of the looming threat and the waves of crises still ahead.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/middle-east-climate-change-war-food-water-refugees-jihadis-un-a8786911.htmlWorld's food supply under 'severe threat' from loss of biodiversity
The world’s capacity to produce food is being undermined by humanity’s failure to protect biodiversity, according to the first UN study of the plants, animals and micro-organisms that help to put meals on our plates ... warning was issued by the Food and Agriculture Organisation after scientists found evidence the natural support systems that underpin the human diet are deteriorating around the world.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/feb/21/worlds-food-supply-under-severe-threat-from-loss-of-biodiversityArctic Bogs Hold Another Global Warming Risk That Could Spiral Out of Control
Increasing spring rains in the Arctic could double the increase in methane emissions from the region by hastening the rate of thawing in permafrost, new research suggests. The findings are cause for concern because spring rains are anticipated to occur more frequently as the region warms. The release of methane, a short-lived climate pollutant more potent than carbon dioxide over the short term, could induce further warming in a vicious cycle that would be difficult if not impossible to stop.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19022019/arctic-bogs-permafrost-thaw-methane-climate-change-feedback-loopSharp rise in methane levels threatens world targets
In a paper published this month by the American Geophysical Union, researchers say sharp rises in levels of methane – which is a powerful greenhouse gas – have strengthened over the past four years. Urgent action is now required to halt further increases in methane in the atmosphere, to avoid triggering enhanced global warming and temperature rises well beyond 2C.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/17/methane-levels-sharp-rise-threaten-paris-climate-agreementPolar ice loss speeds up by leaps and bounds
Antarctica is now losing ice mass six times faster than it did 40 years ago. In the decade that began in 1979, the great white continent surrendered 40 billion tons of ice a year to raise global sea levels. By the decade 2009 to 2017, this mass loss had soared to 252 billion tons a year. And in Greenland, the greatest concentration of terrestrial ice in the northern hemisphere has also accelerated its rate of ice loss fourfold in this century.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/polar-ice-loss-speeds-up-by-leaps-and-bounds/
reporting on a study at https://www.pnas.org/content/116/4/1095Antarctic ‘time bomb’ waiting to go off could wash away cities, scientists warn
[G]lobal temperatures today are the same as they were 115,000 years ago [when] sea levels were six to nine metres higher than they are today ... that means our planet is “missing” a devastating sea rise ... Scientists think sea levels made this jump 115,000 years ago because of a sudden ice collapse in Antarctica ... Last month, NASA warned Antarctica’s Thwaites glacier could collapse within decades and “sink cities”
https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/antarctic-time-bomb-waiting-to-go-off-could-wash-away-cities-scientists-warn/news-story/55b79907be015b68979ad70c2138e4d1Climate Of North American Cities Will Shift Hundreds Of Miles In One Generation
In one generation, the climate experienced in many North American cities is projected to change to that of locations hundreds of miles away—or to a new climate unlike any found in North America today. A new study and interactive web application aim to help the public understand how climate change will impact the lives of people who live in urban areas of the United States and Canada. These new climate analyses match the expected future climate in each city with the current climate of another location, providing a relatable picture of what is likely in store.
https://www.umces.edu/news/climate-north-american-cities-will-shift-hundreds-miles-one-generation
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08540-3
interactive web application at https://fitzlab.shinyapps.io/cityapp/ [note: does not address forcings such as sea level rise]Ocean waves pack bigger and stronger punch
As the world’s seas warm, the ocean waves are starting to pack more power. Spanish scientists monitoring the tropical Atlantic report that the waves today contain more energy than they did 70 years ago. Sea surface temperatures influence wind patterns, and the payoff is a wave with more impact ... wave energy could join carbon dioxide atmospheric ratios, global sea level rise and global air temperatures as yet one more metric of overall global warming and climate change.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/ocean-waves-pack-bigger-and-stronger-punch/‘The devastation of human life is in view’: what a burning world tells us about climate change
As recently as the 1997 signing of the landmark Kyoto Protocol, 2C of global warming was considered the threshold of catastrophe ... There is almost no chance we will avoid that scenario ... in the 20 years since, despite all our climate advocacy and legislation and progress on green energy, we have produced more emissions than in the 20 years before ... The majority of the burning has come in the last 25 years ... Since the end of the second world war, the figure is about 85%.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/02/the-devastation-of-human-life-is-in-view-what-a-burning-world-tells-us-about-climate-change-global-warmingAustralia's extreme heat is sign of things to come, scientists warn
For the first time since records began, the country’s mean temperature in January exceeded 30C ... daily extremes – in some places just short of 50C – were unprecedented ... This was compounded by drought. Large parts of Australia received only 20% of their normal rainfall ... Hundreds of thousands of native fish, including Murray cod, golden perch and bony bream, died around the Menindee weir. The authorities blamed “thermal stratification” as sudden shifts in temperature – first hot, then cold – caused algae blooms and choked the water of oxygen ... “facing the makings of an ecological disaster ... this is not normal. This is a disaster.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/feb/01/australia-extreme-heat-sign-of-things-to-come-scientists-warn-climateThe truth about big oil and climate change
Even as concerns about global warming grow, energy firms are planning to increase fossil-fuel production. None more than ExxonMobil
Demand for oil is rising and the energy industry, in America and globally, is planning multi-trillion-dollar investments to satisfy it. [ExxonMobil] plans to pump 25% more oil and gas in 2025 than in 2017 ... worldwide demand for oil is growing by 1-2% a year, similar to the average over the past five decades ... investment in renewables, at $300bn a year, is dwarfed by what is being committed to fossil fuels. Even in the car industry, where scores of electric models are being launched, around 85% of vehicles are still expected to use internal-combustion engines in 2030.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/02/09/the-truth-about-big-oil-and-climate-changeLink Between Climate, Conflict and Migration Now Proven
War and migration are becoming ever more interlinked with climate change. A new study has finally grounded these correlations in data and fact. While droughts, food shortages and climate-related stressors have long been assumed to be “push factors” for instability since Biblical times, scientific evidence for these phenomena has been circumstantial ... the team found that human-driven climate change can cause and exacerbate conflict, leading to an increase in migration.
https://earth.org/link-between-climate-conflict-and-migration-provenMassive Starfish Die-Off Is Tied To Global Warming
Since 2013, sea star wasting disease has killed so many starfish along the Pacific Coast that scientists say it's the largest disease epidemic ever observed in wild marine animals ... newly published research suggests that climate change may have exacerbated the disease's deadliness ... study out today in the journal Science Advances.
https://www.npr.org/2019/01/30/690003678/massive-starfish-die-off-is-tied-to-global-warmingClimate change tipping point could be coming sooner than we think
A new study confirms the urgency to tackle climate change ... the first to actually quantify the effects through the 21st century ... do not compensate for losses in carbon uptake during dryer-than-normal years, caused by events such as droughts or heatwaves.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190123131700.htmHuge Cavity in Antarctic Glacier Signals Rapid Decay
A gigantic cavity - two-thirds the area of Manhattan and almost 1,000 feet (300 meters) tall - growing at the bottom of Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is one of several disturbing discoveries reported in a new NASA-led study of the disintegrating glacier ... The size and explosive growth rate of the newfound hole, however, surprised them. It's big enough to have contained 14 billion tons of ice, and most of that ice melted over the last three years ... The paper by Milillo and his co-authors in the journal Science Advances is titled "Heterogeneous retreat and ice melt of Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica."
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7322One-third of Himalayan ice cap doomed, finds 'shocking' report
Even if carbon emissions are dramatically and rapidly cut and succeed in limiting global warming to 1.5C, 36% of the glaciers along in the Hindu Kush and Himalaya range will have gone by 2100. If emissions are not cut, the loss soars to two-thirds, the report found ... 1.65 billion people rely on the great rivers that flow from the peaks into India, Pakistan, China and other nations. More than 200 scientists worked on the report over five years, with another 125 experts peer reviewing their work.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/04/a-third-of-himalayan-ice-cap-doomed-finds-shocking-reportWater wars: Are India and Pakistan heading for climate change-induced conflict?
Across the world, climate change is sparking conflict as people struggle over dwindling resources. The fight over water could quickly escalate between India and Pakistan — and both have nuclear arms ... A 2018 report from the International Monetary Fund ranked Pakistan third among countries facing severe water shortages. When the rapidly-melting glaciers in the Himalayas, which feed the Indus waters, eventually disappear as predicted, the dwindling rivers will be slashed even further.
https://www.dw.com/en/water-wars-are-india-and-pakistan-heading-for-climate-change-induced-conflict/a-47203933Climate change’s impact on soil moisture could push land past ‘tipping point’
The impact of climate change on soil moisture could push the land past a “tipping point” – turning it from a net carbon “sink” to a source of CO2, a study finds.
The research finds that levels of soil moisture could have a “large influence” on the land’s ability to store carbon. This is because, when soils are dry, plants stop carrying out photosynthesis ... The research shows that, in many parts of the world, soils could become drier as the world warms.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/climate-changes-impact-on-soil-moisture-could-push-land-past-tipping-point
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0848-xAntarctic Sea Ice Dips to Record-Low Extent for Early January
The extent of ice cover encircling the Antarctic coast began taking a nosedive in December, dropping even more quickly than usual for the time of year (late spring in the Southern Hemisphere). Since December 25, Antarctic ice extent has set calendar-day record lows every day for more than three solid weeks ... according to polar climate expert Cecilia Bitz (University of Washington). “The minimum won't happen for another 40 days or so”
https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Antarctic-Sea-Ice-Dips-Record-Low-Extent-Early-JanuarySea level fears as more of giant Antarctic glacier floating than thought
The findings are important because recent studies have shown the Totten Glacier's underbelly is already being eroded by warm, salty sea water flowing hundreds of kilometres inland after passing through underwater "gateways". As it does, the portion of the glacier resting on water rather than rock increases, accelerating the pace of disintegration.
https://phys.org/news/2018-03-sea-giant-antarctic-glacier-thought.htmlMore Glaciers in East Antarctica Are Waking Up
NASA maps of ice velocity and elevation show that a group of glaciers spanning one-eighth of East Antarctica’s coast have begun to lose ice over the past decade, hinting at widespread changes in the ocean. In recent years, researchers have warned that Totten Glacier, a behemoth that contains enough ice to raise sea levels by at least 11 feet, appears to be retreating because of warming ocean waters. Now, researchers have found that a group of four glaciers sitting to the west of Totten, plus a handful of smaller glaciers farther east, are also losing ice.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/more-glaciers-in-antarctica-are-waking-upUNDP head: 'The entire economy thrives on the destruction of nature'
We are losing natural habitats and species. But we're also losing ecosystems every day on an unprecedented scale. These are the foundations of life on the planet ... We need to learn how our consumption patterns, how our economies and how our pollution contributes to the decline of these ecosystems. Our daily well-being depends on understanding all of this. But more importantly, we need to do something about it.
https://www.dw.com/en/undp-head-the-entire-economy-thriveson-the-destruction-of-nature/a-47214485‘Worrying’ rise in global CO2 forecast for 2019
The level of climate-warming carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is forecast to rise by a near-record amount in 2019, according to the Met Office. The increase is being fuelled by the continued burning of fossil fuels and the destruction of forests ... Levels of the greenhouse gas have not been as high as today for 3-5m years, when the global temperature was 2-3C warmer and the sea level was 10-20 metres higher. Climate action must be increased fivefold to limit warming to the 1.5C rise above pre-industrial levels that scientists advise, according to the UN.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/25/worrying-rise-in-global-co2-forecast-for-2019Climate Change — A Health Emergency
In this issue of the [New England Journal of Medicine], Haines and Ebi summarize the devastating effects that the global burning of fossil fuels is having on our planet (pages 263–273). Disruption of our climate system, once a theoretical concern, is now occurring in plain view — with a growing human toll brought by powerful storms, flooding, droughts, wildfires, and rising numbers of insectborne diseases. Psychological stress, political instability, forced migration, and conflict are other unsettling consequences .... People who are sick or poor will suffer the most.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1817067The most dangerous climate feedback loop is speeding up
The carbon-rich permafrost warmed “in all permafrost zones on Earth” from 2007 to 2016, according to a new study. Most ominously, Siberian permafrost at depths of up to 30 feet warmed a remarkable 1.6°F (0.9°C) in those 10 years, the researchers found [in a] study which was released Wednesday by the journal Nature Communications.
https://thinkprogress.org/dangerous-permafrost-climate-feedback-loop/Extreme heatwave: all-time temperature records fall across parts of Australia
Temperature records have been broken in towns across parts of Australia sweltering through a heatwave, which is currently in its fourth day. Australia also recorded its hottest December on record the Bureau of Meteorology said on Thursday in a special climate statement on “the unusual extended period of heatwaves” across much of the country. December 27 was the hottest on record for nationally averaged mean maximum temperature (40.19C) and the second hottest day on record for any month.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jan/17/extreme-heatwave-all-time-temperature-records-fall-across-parts-of-australiaIs our daily cup of coffee under threat?
A study conducted by scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in collaboration with scientists in Ethiopia, reports that climate change alone could lead to the extinction of wild Arabica coffee (Coffea arabica) well before the end of this century ... In the locality analysis the most favourable outcome is a c. 65% reduction in the number of pre-existing bioclimatically suitable localities, and at the worst, an almost 100% (99.7%) reduction, by 2080.
https://www.kew.org/science/news/is-our-daily-cup-of-coffee-under-threatGreenland’s Melting Ice Nears a ‘Tipping Point,’ Scientists Say
Greenland’s enormous ice sheet is melting at such an accelerated rate that it may have reached a “tipping point” and could become a major factor in sea-level rise around the world within two decades, scientists said in a study published on Monday ... the latest in a series of papers published this month suggesting that scientific estimates of the effects of a warming planet have been, if anything, too conservative ... The study, which appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, used satellite data and ground-based instruments to measure Greenland’s ice loss in the 21st century.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/21/climate/greenland-ice.htmlAntarctica is losing ice 6 times faster today than in 1980s
Scientists used aerial photographs, satellite measurements and computer models to track how fast the southern-most continent has been melting since 1979 in 176 individual basins. They found the ice loss to be accelerating dramatically — a key indicator of human-caused climate change ... The recent melting rate is 15 percent higher than what a study found last year.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/science/article/Antarctica-is-losing-ice-6-times-faster-today-13532756.phpPG&E: The First S&P 500 Climate Change Casualty
Reuters reported on Monday that PG&E – a regulated utility that serves roughly 5.2 million households in central and northern California – was preparing to file for bankruptcy protection due to “potentially crushing” liabilities stemming from its equipment’s role in starting several of the enormously destructive fires of summer 2018. PG&E, which was trading for over $48 per share just before Thanksgiving, closed yesterday for $6 and change – nearly a 90% drop in a space of less than three months. Future investors will look back on these three months as a turning point, and wonder why the effects of climate change on the economic underpinnings to our society were not more widely recognized at the time. Climate scientists may equivocate about the degree to which Global Warming is contributing to these fires until more detailed research is complete, but for an investor who is used to making decisions based on incomplete or ambiguous information, the warning signs are flashing red.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkobayashisolomon/2019/01/18/pge-the-first-sp-500-climate-change-casualtyCatastrophic wildfires push California’s biggest utility to consider bankruptcy
But some experts are voicing frustration, saying the utility is trying to skirt its financial responsibility and that the focus should be on building resilience as climate change continues to make wildfires more intense and destructive. It’s widely believed that PG&E power lines sparked the state’s most devastating wildfire ever, the Camp Fire ... has pushed the utility to explore “filing some or all of its business for bankruptcy protection as it faces billions of dollars in liabilities related to fatal wildfires in 2018 and 2017,” Reuters reported ... Since the Camp Fire began on November 8, PG&E’s stock value has plummeted 50 percent ... What’s driving financial fears and conversations about bankruptcy “is the fact that now the markets really believe fires like those [in 2017 and 2018] are the norm and will occur on an ongoing basis.”
https://thinkprogress.org/experts-worry-california-utilitys-financial-woes-will-impact-wildfire-preparation-climate-action-00e38c7d943f/Ancient climate change triggered warming that lasted thousands of years
[A] study, published online in Nature Geoscience, provides new evidence of a climate feedback that could explain the long duration of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), which is considered the best analogue for modern climate change. The findings also suggest that climate change today could have long-lasting impacts on global temperature even if humans are able to curb greenhouse gas emissions ... Global temperatures increased by about 9 to 14.4 degrees Fahrenheit during the PETM, radically changing conditions on Earth [and] could have released enough carbon dioxide to explain the roughly 200,000-year duration of the PETM, something that has not been well understood. The researchers said the findings offer a warning about modern climate change. If warming reaches certain tipping points, feedbacks can be triggered that have the potential to cause even more temperature change.
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-ancient-climate-triggered-thousands-years.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0277-3Are We Really in Danger of the Clouds Disappearing? The New Study Explained.
Clouds dissipate with high carbon dioxide emissions—which is a world we're quickly moving toward.
Clouds cover two-thirds of the planet's surface at any given time, and their behavior helps create the conditions that make life as we know it possible. And they could be in trouble ... A new suite of models, published Monday in Nature Geoscience by climate physicists at CalTech [noted] the “breakup of stratocumulus decks” over low-latitude oceans in response to greenhouse warming. The scientists chose stratocumulus clouds for their simulation because they are thick and they shade large areas in the sub-tropics, providing significant cooling for the planet. Their simulation found that the clouds break apart when CO2 levels rise above 1,200 parts per million. The study goes on to explain that the absence of these cloud decks in the simulations “triggers a surface warming of about [8C] globally and [10C] in the subtropics” on top of greenhouse warming. Once the decks have broken up, CO2 concentrations would need to drop well below 1,200 ppm for the clouds to reestablish themselves.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a26553617/clouds-disappear-study/
see also https://www.quantamagazine.org/cloud-loss-could-add-8-degrees-to-global-warming-20190225/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0310-1The World’s Oceans Are Turning Into Bathtubs [note: a good intro/overview - in Esquire of all places]
A study in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences published Wednesday and tracked by CNN found 2018 was the hottest year on record for the planet's oceans ... Want to know what the previous hottest year was? 2017. How about the top five hottest years on record for the oceans? All have occurred since 2014 ... ocean temperatures [is] both the best and most terrifying metric by which to monitor the pace at which human activity is throwing the planet into a state of critical imbalance. The same scientists who produced this study found, in a separate one last week, that the oceans are warming far faster than previously thought ... This is just part of what scientists are calling the sixth mass extinction event ... climate is changing, and we will not like what it looks like soon enough. Massive wildfires, drastic drought, powerful storms, coastal flooding, and mass migration due to all of these - along with food and water scarcity - are not futures to look forward to. Neither are the wars that will inevitably result.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a25916176/2018-oceans-hottest-ever-climate-change/We need to rethink everything we know about global warming [aerosol masking]
New research published in Science by Hebrew University of Jerusalem Professor Daniel Rosenfeld shows that the degree to which aerosols cool the earth has been grossly underestimated, necessitating a recalculation of climate change models to more accurately predict the pace of global warming ... "If the aerosols indeed cause a greater cooling effect than previously estimated, then the warming effect of the greenhouse gases has also been larger than we thought, enabling greenhouse gas emissions to overcome the cooling effect of aerosols and points to a greater amount of global warming than we previously thought."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190122104611.htm
reporting on a study at https://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6427/eaav0566North American glaciers melting much faster than 10 years ago – study
The jet stream - the currents of fast-flowing air in the atmosphere that affect weather - has shifted, causing more snow in the north-western US and less in south-western Canada, according to the study released in Geophysical Research Letters, a publication of the American Geophysical Union. Changes in the northern hemisphere jet stream are increasingly firmly linked to global warming.That warming from humans burning fossil fuels is also expected to continue to melt alpine glaciers, even under scenarios for more moderate greenhouse gas levels.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/18/north-america-glacier-melt-study-climate-changeBats dying 'on biblical scale' due to record-breaking Australia heatwave
Temperatures above 42C can kill flying foxes, and thousands have dropped dead from the trees in Adelaide, South Australia. Back in November, amid another heatwave, more than 23,000 spectacled flying foxes died in just two days in the northern city of Cairns. Residents were forced to move out of their homes due to the smell of rotting carcases, the ABC reported. The figure represents a third of Australia's spectacled flying foxes.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/australia-bats-death-heatwave-cairns-flying-foxes-new-south-wales-adelaide-a8730626.htmlInsect collapse: 'We are destroying our life support systems'
The insect population that once provided plentiful food for birds throughout the mountainous national park had collapsed. On the ground, 98% had gone. Up in the leafy canopy, 80% had vanished. The most likely culprit by far is global warming ... Earth's bugs outweigh humans 17 times over and are such a fundamental foundation of the food chain that scientists say a crash in insect numbers risks 'ecological Armageddon'.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/15/insect-collapse-we-are-destroying-our-life-support-systems <
reporting on a study at https://www.pnas.org/content/115/44/E10397Our oceans broke heat records in 2018 and the consequences are catastrophic
Oceans absorb more than 90% of the heat that results from greenhouse gases. So oceans are key, and they are telling us a clear story. The last five years were the five hottest on record. The numbers are huge: in 2018 the extra ocean heat compared to a 1981-2010 baseline amounted to 196,700,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules. The current rate of ocean warming is equivalent to five Hiroshima-size atomic bombs exploding every second. The measurements have been published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2019/jan/16/our-oceans-broke-heat-records-in-2018-and-the-consequences-are-catastrophicThe oceans are warming faster than we thought, and scientists suggest we brace for impact
"The numbers are coming in 40 to 50 percent [warmer] than the last IPCC report," said Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and an author on the report, published in Science Magazine on Thursday ... Looking forward, there are two scenarios scientists are working with. The low-emissions scenario that the Paris climate change agreement was built around is no longer realistic, Trenberth said. The high-emissions, business-as-usual scenario will probably continue until about 2040 ... "Yes, we need to try and stop emitting greenhouse gas. But the inertia is large," Trenberth said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/01/11/oceans-are-warming-faster-than-we-thought-scientists-suggest-we-brace-impact/
see also https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/climate/ocean-warming-climate-change.html
reporting on a study at http://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6423/128Global warming of oceans equivalent to an atomic bomb per second
Global warming has heated the oceans by the equivalent of one atomic bomb explosion per second for the past 150 years, according to analysis of new research. More than 90% of the heat trapped by humanity's greenhouse gas emissions has been absorbed by the seas, with just a few per cent heating the air, land and ice caps respectively. The research has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and combined measurements of the surface temperature of the ocean since 1871 with computer models of ocean circulation.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/07/global-warming-of-oceans-equivalent-to-an-atomic-bomb-per-secondNatural gas is now getting in the way; US carbon emissions increase by 3.4%
"The US was already off track in meeting its Paris Agreement targets. The gap is even wider headed into 2019." That's the dire news from Rhodium Group, a research firm that released preliminary estimates of US carbon emissions in 2018 ... emissions have increased 3.4 percent in 2018 across the US economy, the second-largest annual increase in 20 years.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/natural-gas-is-now-getting-in-the-way-us-carbon-emissions-increase-by-3-4/Climate change ravages Turner's majestic glaciers
A Royal Academician has followed in the footsteps of JMW Turner and John Ruskin to capture in photographs the breathtaking sites in the French Alps that 19th-century artists caught so strikingly. The resulting images reveal a stark depiction of how climate change has taken its toll on the glaciated landscape ... In June, the same month in which Ruskin produced his daguerreotypes (early photographs) of the Mer de Glace more than 160 years ago, Stibbon found his viewpoint for her own images ... While Turner and Ruskin observed the drama of a sea of ice almost at the level they stood, Stibbon looked down into an exposed deep valley with "a dark moraine-covered floor, almost completely devoid of ice ... it's unrecognisable."
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/jan/06/climate-change-ravages-turner-majestic-glaciers-ruskin--alps-emma-stibbon-exhibitionGreenland melt drives continuous export of methane from the ice-sheet bed
Ice sheets are currently ignored in global methane budgets ... we find that subglacially produced methane is rapidly driven to the ice margin by the efficient drainage system of a subglacial catchment of the Greenland ice sheet. We report the continuous export of methane-supersaturated waters (CH4(aq)) from the ice-sheet bed during the melt season ... Stable-isotope analyses reveal a microbial origin for methane, probably from a mixture of inorganic and ancient organic carbon buried beneath the ice ... our results indicate that ice sheets overlie extensive, biologically active methanogenic wetlands and that high rates of methane export to the atmosphere can occur via efficient subglacial drainage pathways. Our findings suggest that such environments have been previously underappreciated and should be considered in Earth's methane budget.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0800-0A record-low start to the new year in Antarctica
On January 1, Antarctic sea ice extent stood at 5.47 million square kilometers (2.11 million square miles), the lowest extent on this date ... Extent declined at a rate of 253,000 square kilometers (97,700 square miles) per day through December, considerably faster than the 1981 to 2010 mean for December ... the rate of Antarctic ice extent loss for December 2018 is the fastest in the satellite record.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2019/01/a-record-low-start-to-the-new-year-in-antarcticaHow right-wing nationalism fuels climate denial
As leaders like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro call global warming a hoax, a new study shows the link between climate change denial and nationalism.
Until the mid-1980s, there was a strong consensus between politicians and scientists ... that we have to set up bodies of interdisciplinary research and policies and to tackle this threat together. Around the same time, the extractive industries - the oil and coal industries - started to fund climate change denial research to promote their own interests ... That type of counterfactual climate research had a huge impact on politics ... Funding from extractive industries also goes into right-wing think tanks, which are creating this type of distrust of climate science, which then also fuels this type of right-wing nationalist climate change denial.
https://www.dw.com/en/how-right-wing-nationalism-fuels-climate-denial/a-46699510Decline in climate resilience of European wheat
Food security under climate change depends on the yield performance of staple food crops. We found a decline in the climate resilience of European wheat in most countries during the last 5 to 15 y, depending on the country. The yield responses of all the cultivars to different weather events were relatively similar within northern and central Europe, within southern European countries, and specifically regarding durum wheat. We also found serious Europe-wide gaps in wheat resilience
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/12/18/1804387115Katowice climate talks run short of time
Despite some progress, the Katowice climate talks show political action still lags far behind the science ... the underlying message from Poland is that diplomatic efforts to prevent global temperatures increasing to dangerous levels are nowhere near what climate scientists say is needed ... there was little movement on the central question of how countries will step up their targets on making bolder cuts, and without that it is hard to see the Paris Agreement being able to have much practical effect.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/katowice-climate-talks-run-short-of-time/Arctic permafrost might contain 'sleeping giant' of world's carbon emissions
As temperatures rise in the Arctic, permafrost, or frozen ground, is thawing. As it does, greenhouse gases trapped within it are being released into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide and methane ... "We call it the sleeping giant of the global carbon cycle," said Professor Örjan Gustafsson, an environmental scientist at Stockholm University in Sweden. "It’s not really accounted for in climate models."
https://horizon-magazine.eu/article/arctic-permafrost-might-contain-sleeping-giant-world-s-carbon-emissions.htmlThe Next Climate Frontier: Predicting a Complex Domino Effect
The [fourth National Climate Assessment] report emphasizes that scientists need to look not only at how global warming is changing natural systems but also how those changes will set off their own ripple effects through other areas - for example, how the increasing threat of drought harms agriculture, which in turn affects the economy and food availability. "Reality is complex. In a changing climate, nothing is being affected all by itself," says Katharine Mach, a senior research scientist at Stanford University and one of the NCA authors.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-next-climate-frontier-predicting-a-complex-domino-effect/Risks of 'domino effect' of tipping points greater than thought, study says
Policymakers have severely underestimated the risks of ecological tipping points, according to a study that shows 45% of all potential environmental collapses are interrelated and could amplify one another. The authors said their paper, published in the journal Science, highlights how overstressed and overlapping natural systems are combining to throw up a growing number of unwelcome surprises. "So much is happening at the same time and at a faster speed than we would have thought 20 years ago. That’s a real concern ... We’re heading ever faster towards the edge of a cliff."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/20/risks-of-domino-effect-of-tipping-points-greater-than-thought-study-says
reporting on a study at http://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6421/1379Fast Thaw - What Are Arctic Lakes Telling Us?
As lake bottoms thaw due to a warming climate, partially-decayed plants and animals, until now locked in permafrost, are starting to thaw and resume their decay, releasing carbon dioxide and methane ... But what Dr. Anthony found is even more troubling ... a steady eruption of grapefruit-sized bubbles rising to the lake surface. Carbon dating reveals that the gas is fossil methane, not the product of decaying material in permafrost, but gas from deeper geologic formations. Dr. Anthony surmises that as permafrost melts, it unseals fissures and crevices that connect to geologic gas deposits.
https://carbontaxnetwork.org/2018/12/18/fast-thaw-what-are-arctic-lakes-telling-us/Co-extinctions annihilate planetary life during extreme environmental change
Climate change and human activity are dooming species at an unprecedented rate via a plethora of direct and indirect, often synergic, mechanisms. Among these, primary extinctions driven by environmental change could be just the tip of an enormous extinction iceberg ... [In this study] we show how ecological dependencies amplify the direct effects of environmental change on the collapse of planetary diversity by up to ten times.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-35068-1Climate change is 'shrinking winter'
Snowy mountain winters are being "squeezed" by climate change, according to scientists in California. Researchers who studied the winter snowfall in the mountains there revealed that rising temperatures are reducing the period during which snow is on the ground in the mountains - snow that millions rely on for their fresh water. They presented their findings at the American Geophysical Union meeting - the world's largest gathering of Earth and space scientists. "Our winters are getting sick and we know why," said Prof Amato Evan, from the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, who carried out the investigation. "It's climate change; it's rising temperatures."
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46547064Arctic reindeer numbers crash by half
The population of wild reindeer, or caribou, in the Arctic has crashed by more than half in the last two decades. A new report on the impact of climate change in the Arctic ... was released at the American Geophysical Research Union meeting. It revealed how weather patterns and vegetation changes are making the Arctic tundra a much less hospitable place for reindeer.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46516033A larger issue looms over short-term Colorado River plan: climate change
With the water level in Lake Mead hovering near a point that would trigger a first-ever official shortage on the Colorado River, representatives of California, Arizona and Nevada are trying to wrap up ... a stopgap plan to get the region through the next several years until 2026 ... Looming over the negotiations is a long-term issue that is intensifying the strains on the river: climate change. "Lake levels are going down just too fast." The [stopgap plan] is simply to stop the free-fall ... Lake Mead is now just 38 percent full ... the reservoir is likely to fall below a threshold that would trigger a shortage declaration in 2020 ... Another round of more complex negotiations is scheduled to begin in 2020 on new guidelines to replace the existing rules starting in 2026. "I think some people see the real challenge is going forward with the renegotiation: What happens post-2026? And what is the arrangement for sharing less water?" said Sharon Megdal, a board member of the Central Arizona Project.
https://eu.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environment/2018/12/14/climate-change-looms-over-talks-colorado-river-drought-plan/2317125002/Greenland is losing ice at fastest rate in 350 years
Ice melt across Greenland is accelerating, and the volume of meltwater running into the ocean has reached levels that are probably unprecedented in seven or eight millennia. The findings, drawn from ice cores stretching back almost 350 years, show a sharp spike in melting over the past two decades ... "Climate change is impacting the cryosphere much sooner than we thought, and the impact is much larger than we thought"
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07617-1Melting of Arctic mountain glaciers unprecedented in the past 400 years
Glaciers in Alaska's Denali National Park are melting faster than at any time in the past four centuries because of rising summer temperatures, a new study finds. New ice cores taken from the summit of Mt. Hunter in Denali National Park show summers there are least 1.2-2 degrees Celsius (2.2-3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than summers were during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. The warming at Mt. Hunter is about double the amount of warming that has occurred during the summer at areas at sea level in Alaska over the same time period, according to the new research. The warmer temperatures are melting 60 times more snow from Mt. Hunter today than the amount of snow that melted during the summer before the start of the industrial period 150 years ago, according to the study. More snow now melts on Mt. Hunter than at any time in the past 400 years, said Dominic Winski, a glaciologist at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire and lead author of the new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-04/agu-moa041018.phpPermafrost Melt Could Destroy a Third of All Arctic Infrastructure, Affecting as Many as 4 Million People
Rising temperatures are melting frozen soil at an alarming clip with the changes visible before our very eyes today. But the future promises an even more dramatic shift according to a new study published Tuesday in Nature Communications. As the frozen ground turns to muck, it could result in millions of people left without homes or the infrastructure that makes living in one of the harshest environments on Earth possible. What’s more disconcerting is that even if the world slashes carbon emissions dramatically, these changes are basically locked ... 70 percent of infrastructure in the permafrost region - the equivalent of one-third of all Arctic infrastructure - sits on land that has a high potential for permafrost thaw by mid-century ... all due to warming already locked into the climate system. Because it takes the atmosphere so long to reach equilibrium with all the new carbon dioxide humans have added, the planet would continue to warm for decades even if all carbon emissions stopped tomorrow.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/permafrost-melt-could-destroy-a-third-of-all-arctic-inf-1831011572Climate Change Has Wiped Out Most of the World's Oldest Sea Ice
Rising air and ocean temperatures have sent old sea ice into a death spiral. It now stands as a shadow of its former self, its area diminished by 95 percent from where it stood just a little more than three decades ago. Federal scientists led by researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) chronicled the changes afoot in the annual Arctic Report Card at the American Geophysical Union fall meeting.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/climate-change-has-wiped-out-most-of-the-worlds-oldest-1831017554Warming in Arctic Raises Fears of a 'Rapid Unraveling' of the Region
Persistent warming in the Arctic is pushing the region into "uncharted territory" ... Dr. Osborne, the lead editor of the report and manager of NOAA’s Arctic Research Program, said the Arctic was undergoing its "most unprecedented transition in human history." ... Susan M. Natali, an Arctic scientist at Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts who was not involved in the research, said the report was another warning going unheeded. "Every time you see a report, things get worse, and we’re still not taking any action," she said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/11/climate/arctic-warming.html2018 Officially The Sunniest Year Ever Measured In Netherlands
2018 is officially the sunniest year ever measured in the Netherlands, Weerplaza said on Thursday. With over 2,022 hours of sunshine, 2003's record of 2,021 hours and 40 minutes is officially broken. This is only the second time ever since measurements started in 1901 that the Netherlands had over 2000 hours of sunshine in a year. On average the Netherlands gets around 1,600 hours of sunshine per year. Around 30 years ago the Netherlands got an average of 1,480 hours of sunshine per year. "In the past it was not entirely unusual, for example, to have weeks of fog and no sunshine", the weather service said.
https://nltimes.nl/2018/12/13/2018-officially-sunniest-year-ever-measured-netherlandsClimate protection: Germany falls farther behind
As greenhouse gas emissions increase, the Climate Change Performance Index 2019 shows that only a handful of nations have implemented strategies to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
https://www.dw.com/en/climate-protection-germany-falls-farther-behind/a-46669231It’s time to look at the (political) science behind climate change
The data show that, for all the evidence that climate change is real, manmade and dangerous, and despite wide public acceptance of those propositions, people in the United States do not necessarily want to stop climate change, in the sense of being willing to pay the cost - which is the only sense that really matters ... Slashing carbon emissions is a cause that "has no core constituency with a concentrated interest in policy change," while "a majority of people benefit from arrangements that cause" climate change ... It’s not easy to persuade citizens of a democracy to accept real financial sacrifice in the here and now for the sake of a diffuse benefit in the future ... [We] must either overcome that deficit or fail.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/its-time-to-look-at-the-political-science-behind-climate-change/2018/12/10/f1787070-fc96-11e8-862a-b6a6f3ce8199_story.htmlTackle climate or face financial crash, say world's biggest investors
Global investors managing $32tn issued a stark warning to governments at the UN climate summit on Monday, demanding urgent cuts in carbon emissions and the phasing out of all coal burning. Without these, the world faces a financial crash several times worse than the 2008 crisis, they said. The investors include some of the world’s biggest pension funds, insurers and asset managers ... [they] said current national pledges to cut carbon would lead to a catastrophic 3C of global warming and that plans must be dramatically increased by 2020.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/10/tackle-climate-or-face-financial-crash-say-worlds-biggest-investorsAn insurance company is the latest victim of the Camp Fire
[T]he company informed California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones that it was on the brink of insolvency. Concerned about making Camp Fire policyholders whole, Jones successfully petitioned a Merced County judge for permission to liquidate the company’s assets. The order enables the state’s insurance fund to begin paying claims for up to $500,000. (Insurers, not taxpayers, pay into the fund.) "We couldn’t remember the last time we saw a property casualty company go insolvent," said Nancy Kincaid, a spokeswoman for Jones' office. According to Jones’ office, no insurers have contacted them to pull out of the state of California. But warning signs are growing.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-An-insurance-company-is-the-latest-13445848.phpEgypt's fertile Nile Delta threatened by climate change
The fertile arc-shaped basin is home to nearly half the country's population, and the river that feeds it provides Egypt with 90% of its water needs. But climbing temperatures and drought are drying up the mighty Nile - a problem compounded by rising seas and soil salinisation, experts and farmers say. Combined, they could jeopardise crops in the Arab world's most populous country, where the food needs of its 98 million residents are only expected to increase.
https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/egypts-fertile-nile-delta-threatened-by-climate-change-20181207More bad news on the global warming front
[G]lobal warming is getting a lot worse, quickly ... warming is already accelerating ... on track to blow through the 1.5 degree level by 2030, a decade before the IPCC estimated, possibly even earlier ... Some of this failure simply reflects that politicians and diplomats have set goals that never, practically, could be achieved ... a large dose of fantasy about how quickly social and technological systems can change course. That’s a grim view of the future. It is one that spells a lot more warming. And it is probably realistic.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/planetpolicy/2018/12/05/more-bad-news-on-the-global-warming-frontGlobal warming will happen faster than we think
Three trends - rising emissions, declining air pollution and natural climate cycles - will combine over the next 20 years to make climate change faster and more furious than anticipated ... First, greenhouse-gas emissions are still rising ... on track with the highest emissions trajectory the IPCC has modelled so far. Second, governments are cleaning up air pollution faster ... but aerosols reflect sunlight. This shield of aerosols has kept the planet cooler, possibly by as much as 0.7C. Third, there are signs that the planet might be entering a natural warm phase that could last for a couple of decades. These three forces reinforce each other. We estimate that rising greenhouse-gas emissions, along with declines in air pollution, bring forward the estimated date of 1.5C of warming to around 2030, with the 2C boundary reached by 2045. These could happen sooner with quicker shedding of air pollutants.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07586-5With $32 Trillion In Assets, Investors Demand Immediate Action On Climate Change
The group of global investors manages the funds of millions of beneficiaries around the world and urges governments to support and quickly adopt measures outlined in the Paris Agreement. The group warns that ignoring action against climate change could cause permanent economic damage up to four times the size of the 2008 financial crisis ... temperature rise of 4°C could cause $23 trillion in global economic losses over the remainder of the century.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/12/11/with-32-trillion-in-assets-investors-demand-immediate-action-on-climate-change/'We are in trouble.' Global carbon emissions reached a record high in 2018.
nearly 5 percent growth of emissions in China and more than 6 percent in India, researchers estimated, along with growth in many other nations ... Scientists have said that annual carbon dioxide emissions need to plunge almost by half by 2030 ... But emissions are far too high to limit warming to such an extent. And instead of falling dramatically, they're still rising.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/12/05/we-are-trouble-global-carbon-emissions-reached-new-record-highNew Study Shows Just How Frighteningly Fast Greenland Is Melting
Published today in Nature, the research finds that rates of melting at Greenland’s surface have skyrocketed in recent decades ... rapid rise in surface melting over the last two decades in particular suggests a 'non-linear' response to rising temperatures, meaning as global warming progresses this melting could greatly accelerate ... researchers estimated that ice-sheet-wide levels of meltwater runoff have jumped 50 percent in the past 20 years compared with pre-industrial times.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/new-study-shows-just-how-frighteningly-fast-greenland-i-1830867678
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0752-4.epdGreenhouse Gas Emissions Accelerate Like a 'Speeding Freight Train' in 2018
Worldwide, carbon emissions are expected to increase by 2.7 percent in 2018, according to the new research, which was published by the Global Carbon Project, a group of 100 scientists from more than 50 academic and research institutions and one of the few organizations to comprehensively examine global emissions numbers ... third major scientific report in recent months to send a message that the world is failing to make sufficient progress to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/05/climate/greenhouse-gas-emissions-2018.htmlEnvironmental Research Letters: Global energy growth is outpacing decarbonization
After a three-year hiatus with stable global emissions (Jackson et al 2016; Le Quéré C et al 2018a ; IEA 2018), CO2 emissions grew by 1.6% in 2017 to 36.2 Gt (billion tonnes), and are expected to grow a further 2.7% in 2018
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aaf303"We have never been here before"
Ever since records starting being kept in 1850, sea ice had never been as scarce as it was during the winter months of 2017–2018, according to scientists ... Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service began receiving reports last May of dead and dying seabirds from communities along the northern Bering and southern Chukchi seas. Investigators at the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Wildlife Health Center examined carcasses and concluded that the birds died of starvation ... All signs point to a quickly changing environment in the northern Bering Sea. "Unprecedented is the word that is being used."
https://alaskaseagrant.org/2018/11/29/we-have-never-been-here-before-gay-sheffield-on-ecosystem-wide-changes-in-the-bering-sea/Bushfires in the tropics: Queensland faces terrifying new reality
Gray says the fire season in the north now lasts longer. "Climate change is having an impact on firefighting. There’s scientific data to back it up, but I like to think that because we are on the coal face that people are a little bit more aware of just how things have actually changed." In 2014 the Climate Council made six key findings about Australia’s fire season. That risk had increased; the fire season was becoming longer; fires were being fuelled by record conditions; the number of high-risk days would increase; communities should prepare for increasingly severe fires and "this is the critical decade".
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/dec/04/bushfires-tropics-queensland-terrifying-new-reality-cyclones-floodingPortrait of a planet on the verge of climate catastrophe
As recent reports have made clear, the world may no longer be hovering at the edge of destruction but has probably staggered beyond a crucial point of no return. Climate catastrophe is now looking inevitable ... Although most discussions use [2100] as a convenient cut-off point for describing Earth’s likely fate, the changes we have already triggered will last well beyond that date.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/02/world-verge-climate-catastopheIndisputable Facts On Climate Change
National Climate Assessment Report ... contained dire warnings about the consequences to the U.S. as a result of climate change. Here are facts, accepted by almost everyone ... bottom line is we are conducting an unprecedented experiment on the ecosystem, and we can say with a high degree of confidence that further warming is in store. Given the risks, we should use every tool in our arsenal to address this issue.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/11/29/indisputable-facts-on-climate-change/Climate change: EU aims to be 'climate neutral' by 2050
Under the plan, emissions of greenhouse gases after that date would have to be offset by planting trees or by burying the gases underground. Scientists say that net-zero emissions by 2050 are needed to have a fighting chance of keeping global temperatures under 1.5C this century ... Climate campaigners say the step, though welcome, doesn't go far enough fast enough. They are worried that there is no plan to increase the intermediate targets for 2030, which many scientists say is crucial. They also want the net-zero date brought forward. "Going to net-zero by 2050 as the Commission proposes might need a lot of reliance on carbon removal techniques, there are lots of proposals but it is not clear that it can actually happen."
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46360212Tripled climate cuts needed to fulfil pledge
The emissions gap - the difference between the global emissions of greenhouse gases scientists expect in 2030 and the level they need to be at to honour the world’s promises to cut them - is the largest ever. The 2018 Emissions Gap Report is published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). While it is still possible to keep global warming below 2C, its authors say, the world’s current pace of action to cut emissions must triple for that to happen.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/tripled-climate-cuts-needed-to-fulfil-pledgeThe Insect Apocalypse Is Here
[T]he study brought forth exactly the kind of longitudinal data they had been seeking ... indicating a vast impoverishment of an entire insect universe ... speed and scale of the drop were shocking ... showing how much the overall mass of insects dropped over time. When asked to imagine what would happen if insects were to disappear completely, scientists find words like chaos, collapse, Armageddon ... where most plants and land animals become extinct.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-apocalypse.htmlMonarch butterfly populations in the west are down an order of magnitude from last year
Far fewer of the insects were heading south this year, and those that have arrived did so a month late, according to Xerces, a non-profit conservation group for invertebrates ... an 86% decline.
https://qz.com/1480192/monarch-populations-in-the-us-west-are-down-86-this-year
reporting on a study at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320717304809Antarctica Is Melting Three Times as Fast as a Decade Ago
Antarctica is indeed melting, and a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature shows that the melting is speeding up ... Antarctica is, on balance, losing its ice sheets and raising the world’s sea levels.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/13/climate/antarctica-ice-melting-faster.htmlAmazon rainforest deforestation 'worst in 10 years', says Brazil
About 7,900 sq km (3,050 sq miles) of the world's largest rainforest was destroyed between August 2017 and July 2018 - an area roughly five times the size of London ... The Amazon is sometimes called the lungs of the planet ... The figures come amid concerns about the policies of Brazil's newly elected president, Jair Bolsonaro. During the 2018 election campaign, Mr Bolsonaro pledged to limit fines for damaging forestry and to weaken the influence of the environmental agency.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-46327634Slow Arctic freeze raises risk of polar bear extinction, say scientists
A record slow freeze of many regions of the Arctic this winter is making it harder for pregnant polar bears to find birthing dens ... October also saw a huge departure from previous trends, particularly in the Barents Sea, which had freakishly warm weather in February and August. Scientists say these shifts, which are caused by the manmade heating of the globe, are disrupting the behaviour of species that depend on thick winter ice, such as narwhals, seals, belugas and polar bears ... [ice formation] was still the second lowest on record ... "Things can happen fast. I'm not optimistic about whether the bears will survive. If the sea ice disappears, then so will the bears."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/23/slow-arctic-freeze-raises-risk-of-polar-bear-extinction-say-scientistsCo-extinctions annihilate planetary life during extreme environmental change
[P]rimary extinctions driven by environmental change could be just the tip of an enormous extinction iceberg. As our understanding of the importance of ecological interactions in shaping ecosystem identity advances, it is becoming clearer how the disappearance of consumers following the depletion of their resources — a process known as ‘co-extinction’ — is more likely the major driver of biodiversity loss ... we show how ecological dependencies amplify the direct effects of environmental change on the collapse of planetary diversity by up to ten times.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-35068-1White House admits Trump climate policies will cost Americans $500 billion a year
The congressionally-mandated National Climate Assessment (NCA) by hundreds of the country's top scientists warns that a do-nothing climate policy will end up costing Americans more than a half-trillion dollars per year ... projects a devastated America on our current path of unrestricted carbon pollution - widespread Dust-Bowlification and 7F to 8F warming over the entire inland portion of the country, even as coastal America is slammed by sea levels rising a foot per decade, resulting in ever-worsening storm surges ... "It is very likely that some physical and ecological impacts will be irreversible for thousands of years, while others will be permanent."
https://thinkprogress.org/white-house-admits-trump-climate-policies-will-cost-americans-500-billion-a-year-fa82c1557333/Major Trump administration climate report says damages are 'intensifying across the country'
The federal government on Friday released a long-awaited report with an unmistakable message: The effects of climate change, including deadly wildfires, increasingly debilitating hurricanes and heat waves, are already battering the United States, and the danger of more such catastrophes is worsening ... report is striking in its clear statement that climate change is not only already affecting the U.S., but that the effects are getting worse [and] suggests that by 2050, the country could see as much as 2.3 additional degrees of warming in the continental United States.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/11/23/major-trump-administration-climate-report-says-damages-are-intensifying-across-country/
reporting on a study at https://nca2018.globalchange.govCamp Fire devastation worse than California's 10 other most destructive wildfires combined
The Camp Fire has destroyed almost as many structures as the subsequent 10 worst fires in the state's history combined ... of the most destructive fires .. half of them have occurred since 2010.
https://thinkprogress.org/california-camp-fire-destroyed-thousands-buildings-homes-b640d432276dTexas Is About to Create OPEC's Worst Nightmare [and the climate's]
Permian producers expect to iron out distribution snags that will add three pipelines and as much as 2 million barrels of oil a day ... Saudi Arabia's output swelled to a record this month, according to industry executives. That means the three biggest producers - the U.S., Russia and Saudi Arabia - are pumping at or near record levels ... August saw the largest annual increase in U.S. oil production in 98 years, according to government data.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-21/opec-s-worst-nightmare-the-permian-is-about-to-pump-a-lot-moreGlobal temperatures have been above average for 406 months in a row
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [reports] last month was the second hottest October ever recorded since 1880 when data collection began ... 2018 has been the fourth hottest year on record ... 406th consecutive month with temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th century average.
https://thinkprogress.org/global-temperatures-have-been-above-average-for-406-months-in-a-row-5d32b5faba51How Wildfires Are Making Some California Homes Uninsurable
Of the 20 worst wildfires in state history, four were just last year [and] it has not gotten any better this year. The Mendocino Complex Fire in August was the biggest in state history and the Camp Fire that wiped out the town of Paradise is the deadliest ... This has put pressure on property insurers, some of which have been declining to renew homeowners policies in fire-prone areas. When the houses that burned this year are rebuilt, their owners may find that no one is writing insurance there - at least not at affordable prices. "We’re not in a crisis yet, but all of the trends are in a bad direction," said California’s insurance commissioner. "We’re slowly marching toward a world that’s uninsurable."
https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/How-Wildfires-Are-Making-Some-California-Homes-13407987.phpIceland Volcano And Glacier Are Releasing Huge Amounts Of Methane, Scientists Discover
The study, published in Scientific Reports, is the first to show methane is released from glaciers on such a large scale ... while the study only focuses on Sólheimajökull and Katla, there are many other ice-covered active volcanoes that could produce methane in a similar way ... "greater connectivity with volcanic and geothermal areas buried beneath the ice ... means the methane can escape to the atmosphere rather than being trapped beneath the ice."
https://www.newsweek.com/iceland-volcano-and-glacier-are-releasing-huge-amounts-methane-scientists-1224024
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-35253-2Climate change will bring multiple disasters at once, study warns
In the not-too-distant future, disasters won't come one at a time. Instead, according to new research, we can expect a cascade of catastrophes, some gradual, others abrupt, all compounding as climate change takes a greater toll ... researchers identified 467 distinct ways in which society is already being impacted by increasing climate extremes, and then laid out how these threats are likely to compound on top of each other in the decades ahead ... the team of 23 scientists reviewed more than 3,000 peer-reviewed papers ... this paper aggregates the impacts and shows how the threats are not isolated, but rather compound on top of each other.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-multiple-disasters-at-once-study-warns/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0315-6Iraq's climate stresses are set to worsen
Iraq and its 39 million people are facing the hazards of climate change; a prolonged drought and soaring temperatures earlier this year ruined crops. Swathes of land in what was, in ancient times, one of the richest agricultural regions on Earth are drying up and turning into desert ... over the past summer Iraq suffered from its worst water shortage crisis for 80 years ... As water levels have plummeted, salinity has increased dramatically, particularly in the south of the country, due to evaporation and saltwater intrusion from the Gulf. Often, because of salinity and pollution, there is little or no drinkable tap water in Basra, a city of more than 2 million.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/iraqs-climate-stresses-are-set-to-worsen/
reporting on a study at https://www.eastwest.ngo/sites/default/files/iraq-climate-related-security-risk-assessment.pdfState of the climate
Global surface temperatures in 2018 are on track to be the fourth warmest since records began in the mid-1800s, behind only 2015, 2016 and 2017 ... the level of the world's oceans continued to rise in 2018 ... concentrations of greenhouse gases including CO2, methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) also reached record high levels in 2018 ... 2018 has set a new record for the total amount of warmth stored in the seas, known as ocean heat content (OHC) ... OHC represents a much better measure of climate change than global average surface temperatures [because] it is where most of the extra heat ends up and is much less variable on a year-to-year basis than surface temperatures.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/state-of-the-climate-new-record-ocean-heat-content-and-growing-a-el-ninoPolicies of China, Russia and Canada threaten 5C climate change, study finds
China, Russia and Canada's current climate policies would drive the world above a catastrophic 5C of warming by the end of the century, according to a study that ranks the climate goals of different countries. The US and Australia are only slightly behind with both pushing the global temperature rise dangerously over 4C above pre-industrial levels says the paper, while even the EU, which is usually seen as a climate leader, is on course to more than double the 1.5C that scientists say is a moderately safe level of heating.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/16/climate-change-champions-still-pursuing-devastating-policies-new-study-reveals
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07223-9John Kerry: Europe must tackle climate change or face migration chaos
The ex-US secretary of state ... predicts mass movement from Africa
"[I]magine what happens if water dries up and you cannot produce food in northern Africa ... you are going to have hordes of people in the northern part of the Mediterranean knocking on the door."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/16/john-kerry-europe-must-tackle-climate-change-or-face-migration-chaosEffect of Endocrine Disruptors on Human Reproductive Health
Endocrine disruptors (EDs) ... may be any estrogen-like and anti-androgenic chemicals, environmental agents (e.g., polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dichlorodiphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT), dioxin, and some pesticides) or biological stressors like oxidative stress or pharmacological agents like radiation and drugs. These molecules elicit their action by mimicking, blocking and triggering actions of hormones and disturb entire neuro-endocrine equilibrium. EDs may be blamed for functional abnormalities include decreased semen quality, reduced numbers of sperm, disrupted estrous or menstrual cycle and premature menopause, behavioral abnormalities include altered sexual behavior decreased libido and infertility. The present review describes various factors contributing bioaccumulation of EDs and their possible effect on human reproductive function.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329175381_Effect_of_Endocrine_Disruptors_on_Human_Reproductive_HealthCo-extinctions annihilate planetary life during extreme environmental change
Climate change and human activity are dooming species at an unprecedented rate via a plethora of direct and indirect, often synergic, mechanisms. Among these, primary extinctions driven by environmental change could be just the tip of an enormous extinction iceberg ... the disappearance of consumers following the depletion of their resources — a process known as ‘co-extinction’ — is more likely the major driver of biodiversity loss ... ecological dependencies amplify the direct effects of environmental change on the collapse of planetary diversity by up to ten times.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-35068-1Clean Energy Is Surging, but Not Fast Enough to Solve Global Warming
The global march toward clean energy still isn't happening fast enough to avoid dangerous global warming, at least not unless governments put forceful new policy measures in place to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. That's the conclusion of the International Energy Agency, which on Monday published its annual World Energy Outlook, a 661-page report that forecasts global energy trends to 2040. The world is still far from solving global warming. Global carbon dioxide emissions rose 1.6 percent last year and are on track to climb again this year ... the agency expects global oil demand to keep rising through 2040.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/climate/global-energy-forecast.htmlThe Earth is in a death spiral. It will take radical action to save us
Softer aims might be politically realistic, but they are physically unrealistic. Only shifts commensurate with the scale of our existential crises have any prospect of averting them. Hopeless realism, tinkering at the edges of the problem, got us into this mess. It will not get us out.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/14/earth-death-spiral-radical-action-climate-breakdownThe Rhine, a Lifeline of Germany, Is Crippled by Drought
One of the longest dry spells on record has left parts of the Rhine at record-low levels for months, forcing freighters to reduce their cargo or stop plying the river altogether. Parts of the Danube and the Elbe - Germany's other major rivers for transport - are also drying up ... virtually all freight shipped from seaports in the Netherlands and Belgium to the industrial southwest of Germany passes through here ... half of Germany's river ferries have stopped running. It's difficult to overstate the importance of the Rhine to life and commerce in the region. There are reasons to believe such weather will become more frequent with a warming climate.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/04/world/europe/rhine-drought-water-level.htmlWaterboard Expects More Droughts In 2019
Waterboard Rijn en IJssel expects more drought problems next spring, due to the extremely low groundwater level this year. For the water level to recover sufficiently to avoid dry waterways and irrigation bans, it will have to rain every day for months ... groundwater level is currently a meter lower than normal in parts of the Netherlands, and it is still falling
https://nltimes.nl/2018/10/30/waterboard-expects-droughts-2019Male Insect Fertility Plummets After Heat Waves
For years, insect populations have been dropping worldwide without a clear explanation. A new paper suggests male infertility is at least one factor behind that decline. After a lab-simulated heat wave ... sperm production in the flour beetles dropped by half, the study showed. A second heat wave nearly sterilized them.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/science/sperm-infertility-insects-heat.html
see also https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/13/heatwaves-wipe-out-male-insect-fertility-beetles-study
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07273-zDrought-induced Amazonian wildfires instigate a decadal-scale disruption of forest carbon dynamics
Our findings indicate that wildfires in humid tropical forests can significantly reduce forest biomass for decades by enhancing mortality rates of all trees, including large and high wood density trees, which store the largest amount of biomass in old-growth forests ... demonstrates that wildfires slow down or stall the post-fire recovery of Amazonian forests.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rstb.2018.0043At Least 10 Bird Species On Brink Of Extinction In Netherlands: Report
At least 10 bird species are on the brink of disappearing due to the destruction of their habitats and the decline of insects ... In almost all habitats multiple bird species have deteriorated or even disappeared.
https://nltimes.nl/2018/11/07/least-10-bird-species-brink-extinction-netherlands-reportStop biodiversity loss or we could face our own extinction, warns UN
The world must thrash out a new deal for nature in the next two years or humanity could be the first species to document our own extinction, warns the United Nation’s biodiversity chief ... The already high rates of biodiversity loss from habitat destruction, chemical pollution and invasive species will accelerate in the coming 30 years as a result of climate change and growing human populations. By 2050, Africa is expected to lose 50% of its birds and mammals, and Asian fisheries to completely collapse. The loss of plants and sea life will reduce the Earth’s ability to absorb carbon, creating a vicious cycle. "The numbers are staggering ... I hope we aren’t the first species to document our own extinction."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/03/stop-biodiversity-loss-or-we-could-face-our-own-extinction-warns-unTaking the Oceans' Temperature, Scientists Find Unexpected Heat
A study published Wednesday in the journal Nature suggests that oceans are warming far faster than the estimates laid out by the IPCC ... found that between 1991 and 2016 the oceans warmed an average of 60 percent more per year than the panel’s official estimates ... could be another indication that the global warming of the past few decades has exceeded conservative estimates and has been more closely in line with scientists’ worst-case scenarios.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/31/climate/ocean-temperatures-hotter.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0651-8Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier Just Lost Enough Ice to Cover Manhattan 5 Times Over
An enormous iceberg about five times the size of Manhattan broke off Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier ... a mere month after a crack first appeared, satellite imagery shows ... At 115 square miles (300 square kilometers), the enormous amount of ice that calved off the glacier's ice shelf is even larger than the mass that broke off last year ... However, the newborn iceberg didn't stay in one piece for long. Within a day, it had splintered into smaller pieces, with the largest piece measuring a substantial 87 square miles (226 square km) before it later broke apart even more.
https://www.livescience.com/63974-pine-island-iceberg-calves-2018.htmlThe unseen driver behind the migrant caravan: climate change
Most members of the migrant caravans come from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador - three countries devastated by violence, organised crime and systemic corruption ... Experts say that alongside those factors, climate change in the region is exacerbating - and sometimes causing - a miasma of other problems including crop failures and poverty. And they warn that in the coming decades, it is likely to push millions more people north towards the US.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/30/migrant-caravan-causes-climate-change-central-americaTwo generations of humans have killed off more than half the world's wildlife populations, report finds
Human activity has annihilated wildlife on a scale unseen beyond mass extinction, and it has helped put humans on a potentially irreversible path toward a hot, chaotic planet stripped clean of the natural resources that enrich it, a new report has concluded. Populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians have declined by 60 percent since 1970 ... the rate of animal population drop-off is 100 to 1000 times the rate of decline before human activity was a factor.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/10/30/two-generations-humans-have-killed-off-more-than-half-worlds-wildlife-report-finds/
see also https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity-wiped-out-animals-since-1970-major-report-findsEU forests can't help climate fight: study
"The amount of carbon captured over the next 90 years by trees—around 2 parts per million (ppm)—would be low compared to the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere under the most likely scenario—500 ppm," Guillaume Marie, a climate and environment scientist at the University of Paris-Saclay, told AFP.
https://phys.org/news/2018-10-eu-forests-climate.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0577-1Geoengineering is no closer to working
One new study looks at all the tested and yet-to-be-explored mechanisms for either lowering global temperatures by reducing sunlight, or by harnessing new and old ways to capture the extra carbon dioxide released by two centuries of industrial growth. "None of the proposed technologies can realistically be implemented on a global scale in the next few decades"
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/geoengineering-is-no-closer-to-working/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05938-3Scientists Push for a Crash Program to Scrub Carbon From the Air
With time running out to avoid dangerous global warming, the [US] nation's leading scientific body on Wednesday urged the federal government to begin a research program focused on developing technologies that can remove vast quantities of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere in order to help slow climate change. The 369-page report, written by a panel of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, underscores an important shift. For decades, experts said that nations could prevent large temperature increases mainly by reducing reliance on fossil fuels and moving to cleaner sources like solar, wind and nuclear power. But at this point, nations have delayed so long in cutting their carbon dioxide emissions that even a breakneck shift toward clean energy would most likely not be enough.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/climate/global-warming-carbon-removal.htmlUnexpected Future Boost of Methane Possible from Arctic Permafrost
New NASA-funded research has discovered that Arctic permafrost's expected gradual thawing [is] sped up by instances of a relatively little known process called abrupt thawing. The impact on the climate may mean an influx of permafrost-derived methane into the atmosphere in the mid-21st century, which is not currently accounted for in climate projections.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/unexpected-future-boost-of-methane-possible-from-arctic-permafrostOur planet can't take many more populists like Brazil's Bolsonaro
History tells us that when environments deteriorate, societies turn to supposed strongmen and religious zealots rather than smart, pragmatic leaders. That is happening now ... underlying this is environmental stress, which has been building for over two centuries ... Now there are very few places left to absorb the impact. Competition for what is left is growing. So is violence and extremism ... The great fear climate scientists have is that a warming planet could create feedback loops that will make everything much worse. But there has not been enough study of economic and political feedback loops. How drought in China puts pressure on the Amazon to produce more food and clear more forest. Or how powerful business interests will choose a dictator over a democrat if it means easing environmental controls that threaten their ability to meet quarterly growth targets ... At some point, voters will realise that ecological stress is at the core of the world's current woes ... The danger is, by then it may be too late.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/24/planet-populists-brazil-jair-bolsonaro-environmentClimate change is exacerbating world conflicts, says Red Cross president
Climate change is already exacerbating domestic and international conflicts ... "When [populations] start to migrate in big numbers it leads to tensions between the migrating communities and the local communities."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/21/climate-change-is-exacerbating-world-conflicts-says-red-cross-presidentThere's one key takeaway from last week's IPCC report
IPCC ... concludes the world must embark on a World War II-level effort to transition away from fossil fuels, and also start removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at large scales ... Realistically, this isn't going to happen ... with some nations moving in the wrong direction, like the US and potentially Brazil electing climate denier presidents, even staying below 2C is looking increasingly less likely.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/oct/15/theres-one-key-takeaway-from-last-weeks-ipcc-reportThis Remote Hawaiian Island Just Vanished
Hurricane Walaka, one of the most powerful Pacific storms ever recorded, has erased an ecologically important remote northwestern island from the Hawaiian archipelago ... [Scientists] thought it would take another couple decades or more for rising seas to swallow it up. Instead, a Category 4 hurricane eliminated it overnight. The hurricane's pathway wasn't a function of climate change, he said, but its strength and timing were consistent with the effects of a warming ocean and rising global temperatures that make storms more intense.
https://www.civilbeat.org/2018/10/this-remote-hawaiian-island-just-vanishedPolar jet circulation changes bring Sahara dust to Arctic, increasing temperatures, melting ice
Research scientists ... have identified a new mechanism by which warm dust travels from the Sahara Desert to the Arctic Circle, which has been proven to affect rising temperatures and ice melt in Greenland ... enables the transport of dust, warm and moist air masses from subtropics and mid-latitudes to the Arctic.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-10/rai-pjc100218.phpDust and Snowmelt in the Colorado Mountains
Scientists find the effect of dust on mountain snowpack can be the dominant driver of snowmelt and water supplies downstream
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/category/science/dust-and-snowmelt-in-the-colorado-mountainsIt Will Take Millions of Years for Mammals to Recover From Us
A sobering new study ... estimated how long it would take for mammals to evolve enough new species to replace the ones that we have eradicated ... 3 million to 7 million years. That's at least 10 times as long as we have even existed as a species.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/10/mammals-will-need-millions-years-recover-us/573031The latest report on global warming makes grim reading
And what hope it does offer risks being frittered away
Given that the world is actually on track for a rise of more than 3C, regardless of the pieties of Paris, it was ... charged with finding out whether limiting the rise to 1.5C is in any way feasible ... a rise of 2C rather than 1.5C could also see 420m more people exposed regularly to record heat. "Several hundred million" more would have to contend with climate-induced poverty. Food security would decline and water scarcity increase, especially in poor and already-fragile areas ... chance of dangerous feedback loops. A two-degree temperature rise could lead to the thawing of 1.5m-2.5m km2 of permafrost - about the area of Mexico. That, in turn, would release methane, a potent greenhouse gas which would lead to further warming, thawing and so on ... keeping the temperature rise below 1.5C would take an epic effort. Of 90 published models purporting to chart the most economically efficient way to achieve this goal, the IPCC considers that just nine stay below the threshold ... even the existing target looks likely to be missed by a mile.
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2018/10/13/the-latest-report-on-global-warming-makes-grim-readingWhat's Not in the Latest Terrifying IPCC Report? The "Much, Much, Much More Terrifying" New Research on Climate Tipping Points
"This is the scariest thing about the IPCC Report - it's the watered down, consensus version."
If the latest warnings contained in Monday's report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have you at all frightened or despondent, experts responding to the report have a potentially unwelcome message ... its been consistently true that some of the most recent (and increasingly worrying) scientific findings have not yet found enough support to make it into these major reports which rely on near-unanimous agreement [thus the IPCC report] "fails to focus on the weakest link in the climate chain: the self-reinforcing feedbacks which, if allowed to continue, will accelerate warming and risk cascading climate tipping points and runaway warming."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/09/whats-not-latest-terrifying-ipcc-report-much-much-much-more-terrifying-new-researchClimate change will make the next global [financial] crash the worst
Even without the added complication of climate change, the challenge facing the finance ministers and central bank governors gathered in Bali would be significant enough ... Instead, the response to climate change looks similar to the response to the financial crisis: fail to recognise there is a problem until it is too late; panic; then muddle through. That's a sobering prospect.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/11/climate-change-next-global-crash-world-economies-1929Billionaires Are the Leading Cause of Climate Change
The real impact comes on the industrial level, as more than 70 percent of global emissions come from just 100 companies ... The people who are actively cranking up the global thermostat and threatening to drown 20 percent of the global population are the billionaires in the boardrooms of these companies ... the fossil-fuel industry's interests are too well-insulated by the mountains of cash that have been converted into lobbyists, industry-shilling Republicans and Democrats, and misinformation. To them, the rest of the world is just kindling.
https://www.gq.com/story/billionaires-climate-changeThe big lie we're told about climate change is that it's our own fault
The dominant narrative around climate change tells us that it's our fault. We left the lights on too long, didn't close the refrigerator door, and didn't recycle our paper. I'm here to tell you that is bullshit. If the light switch was connected to clean energy, who the hell cares if you left it on? The problem is not consumption - it's the supply. And your scrap paper did not hasten the end of the world. Don't give in to that shame. It's not yours. The oil and gas industry is gaslighting you.
https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/10/11/17963772/climate-change-global-warming-natural-disastersUN Says Climate Genocide Is Coming. It's Actually Worse Than That.
Barring the arrival of dramatic new carbon-sucking technologies, which are so far from scalability at present that they are best described as fantasies of industrial absolution, it will not be possible to keep warming below two degrees Celsius. The IPCC is right that two degrees marks a world of climate catastrophe. [But] four degrees is ... where we are headed, at present - a climate hell twice as hellish as the one the IPCC says, rightly, we must avoid at all costs.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/un-says-climate-genocide-coming-but-its-worse-than-that.htmlClimate report understates threat
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Special Report on Global Warming ... dire as it is, misses a key point: Self-reinforcing feedbacks and tipping points - the wildcards of the climate system - could cause the climate to destabilize even further ... pushing the planet into chaos beyond human control.
https://thebulletin.org/2018/10/climate-report-understates-threatFire and drought threaten China and Europe
Now new research led by Spanish scientists and reported in the journal Nature Communications uses computer simulations and available data to take a look at the fires next time, as the temperatures rise. The authors warn [of] a consistent pattern: the higher the temperatures, the more sustained the droughts, and the larger the areas that will be incinerated.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/fire-and-drought-threaten-china-and-europePlanet has only until 2030 to stem catastrophic climate change, experts warn
Governments around the world must take "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society" to avoid disastrous levels of global warming, says a stark new report from the global scientific authority on climate change. The report issued Monday by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), says the planet will reach the crucial threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by as early as 2030.
https://cnn.com/2018/10/07/world/climate-change-new-ipcc-report-wxc/index.htmlClimate scientists are struggling to find the right words for very bad news
A much-awaited report from the UN's top climate science panel will show an enormous gap between where we are and where we need to be to prevent dangerous levels of warming.
... to limit the warming of the planet to just 1.5C, or 2.7F, when 1 degree C has already occurred and greenhouse gas emissions remain at record highs. "Half a degree doesn't sound like much til you put it in the right context ... It's 50 percent more than we have now." The idea of letting warming approach 2 degrees Celsius increasingly seems disastrous in this context. The window may now be as narrow as around 15 years of current emissions. And if we can't cut other gases such as methane ... the budget gets even narrower. "This would really be an unprecedented rate and magnitude of change." And that's just the point - 1.5 degrees is still possible, but only if the world goes through a staggering transformation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/10/03/climate-scientists-are-struggling-find-right-words-very-bad-newsArctic sea ice continues its downward spiral
Arctic sea-ice cover following this summer’s melt was the sixth lowest on record ... Since satellite records began in 1979, the 12 lowest extents have all happened in the past 12 years.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06882-4Il n’a pas gelé depuis cent jours sur le pic du Midi
Une telle situation n’avait jamais été observée depuis les premiers relevés de température au sommet de cette montagne ... Les températures maximales dans les Pyrénées pourraient augmenterde 7,1C d’ici à la fin du siècle
[English translation:] It has not frozen for 100 days on the Pic du Midi (highest peak in the Pyrenees)
Such a situation had never been observed at any time since the first temperature readings at the top of this mountain ... The maximum temperatures in the Pyrenees could increase by 7.1C by the end of the century
https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2018/09/22/il-n-a-pas-gele-depuis-100-jours-sur-le-pic-du-midi-du-jamais-vu-depuis-1882_5358842_3244.htmlTrump administration sees a 7-degree [F] rise in global temperatures by 2100
Last month, deep in a 500-page environmental impact statement, the Trump administration made a startling assumption: On its current course, the planet will warm a disastrous seven degrees by the end of this century. A rise of seven degrees Fahrenheit, or about four degrees Celsius, compared with preindustrial levels would be catastrophic, according to scientists. But the administration did not offer this dire forecast, premised on the idea that the world will fail to cut its greenhouse gas emissions, as part of an argument to combat climate change. Just the opposite: The analysis assumes the planet’s fate is already sealed. The draft statement, issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), was written to justify President Trump’s decision to freeze federal fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks built after 2020. While the proposal would increase greenhouse gas emissions, the impact statement says, that policy would add just a very small drop to a very big, hot bucket. "The amazing thing they’re saying is human activities are going to lead to this rise of carbon dioxide that is disastrous for the environment and society. And then they’re saying they’re not going to do anything about it," said Michael MacCracken, who served as a senior scientist at the U.S. Global Change Research Program from 1993 to 2002 ... that NHTSA document projects that if the world takes no action to curb emissions, current atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide would rise from 410 parts per million to 789 ppm by 2100. "I was shocked when I saw it," Pettit said in a phone interview. "These are their numbers. They aren’t our numbers."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/trump-administration-sees-a-7-degree-rise-in-global-temperatures-by-2100/2018/09/27/b9c6fada-bb45-11e8-bdc0-90f81cc58c5d_story.htmlWorld 'nowhere near on track' to avoid warming beyond 1.5C target
The world’s governments are "nowhere near on track" to meet their commitment to avoid global warming of more than 1.5C above the pre-industrial period, according to an author of a key UN report that will outline the dangers of breaching this limit. A massive, immediate transformation in the way the world’s population generates energy, uses transportation and grows food will be required to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5C and the forthcoming analysis is set to lay bare how remote this possibility is.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/26/global-warming-climate-change-targets-un-reportNew Climate Debate: How to Adapt to the End of the World
Researchers are thinking about social collapse and how to prepare for it.
[A]s the U.S. stumbles through a second consecutive season of record hurricanes and fires, more academics are approaching questions once reserved for doomsday cults. Can modern society prepare for a world in which global warming threatens large-scale social, economic, and political upheaval? What are the policy and social implications of rapid, and mostly unpleasant, climate disruption? ... Propelling the movement are signs that the problem is worsening at an accelerating rate ... It might be tempting to dismiss Bendell and Gosling as outliers. But they're not alone in writing about the possibility of massive political and social shocks from climate change and the need to start preparing for those shocks. Since posting his paper, Bendell says he's been contacted by more academics investigating the same questions. A LinkedIn group titled 'Deep Adaptation' includes professors, government scientists, and investors. William Clark, a Harvard professor and former MacArthur Fellow who edited the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper, is among those who worry about what might come next. "We are right on the bloody edge," he says.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-26/new-climate-debate-how-to-adapt-to-the-end-of-the-worldNew Evidence That Climate Change Poses a Much Greater Threat to Humanity Than Recently Understood Because the IPCC has been Systematically Underestimating Climate Change Risks
Three papers have been recently published that lead to the conclusion that human-induced climate change poses a much more urgent and serious threat to life on Earth than many have thought who have been relying primarily on the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ... attributes the overly conservative conclusions of the IPCC to the consensus building nature that IPCC must follow to get governments to approve IPCC final reports and scientific norms that condemn speculation. As a result the report concludes that much of the climate research on which IPCC has relied has tended to underplay climate risks ... if the positive feedbacks are fully considered [this] could result in around 5C of warming by 2100 according to a MIT study ... even if warming reaches 3C, most of Bangladesh and Florida would drown, while major coastal cities - Shanghai, Legos, Mumbai - would be swamped likely creating larger flows of climate refugees. Most regions of the world would see a significant drop in food production and an increasing number of extreme weather events, whether heat waves, floods or storms ... warming of 4C or more could reduce the global human population by 80% or 90%, and the World Bank reports "there is no certainty that adaptation to a 4C temperature rise would be possible." ... cites a recent study by the European Commission’s Joint Research Center found that if global temperature rose 4C that extreme heat waves ... will begin to regularly affect many densely populated parts of the world, forcing much activity in the modern industrial world to stop.
https://ethicsandclimate.org/2018/09/21/new-evidence-that-climate-change-poses-a-much-greater-threat-to-humanity-than-recently-understood-because-the-intergovernmental-panel-on-climate-change-has-been-systematically-underestimating-climate
reporting on three papers
1) PNAS: Trajectories in the Earth System in the Anthropocene http://macroecointern.dk/pdf-reprints/Steffen_PNAS_2018.pdf
2) Nature Communications: 21st-Century Modeled Permafrost Carbon Emissions Accelerated by Abrupt Thaw Beneath Lakes https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05738-9
3) Breakthrough Institute: What Lies Beneath: On the Understatement of Climate Change Risks https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/148cb0_a0d7c18a1bf64e698a9c8c8f18a42889.pdfThawing permafrost on Peel Plateau releasing acid that's breaking down minerals: study
Mineral weathering likely increasing carbon dioxide released into the air and water, says study
The study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, found that as permafrost thaw accelerates, a process called mineral weathering intensifies. The growing research in this area shows the need to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, Zolkos said. Once these thaw slump features start, it's not really something you can stop, which I think is true of a lot of permafrost thaw in the Arctic."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/peel-plateau-permafrost-mineral-weathering-1.4838314Arctic Cauldron
[T]he methane venting from the lake seemed to be emerging not from the direct thawing of frozen Arctic soil, or permafrost, but rather from a reservoir of far older fossil fuels. If that were happening all over the Arctic ... could be similar to adding a couple of large fossil-fuel-emitting economies - say, two more Germanys - to the planet ... initial estimate that the lake was producing two tons of methane gas every day - the equivalent of the methane gas emissions from about 6,000 dairy cows (one of the globe’s biggest methane sources). That’s not enough to be a big climate problem on its own, but if there are many more lakes like this one ... coming years will probably reveal what’s behind Esieh and whether it has many cousins across the top of the world. By then, we may also see whether the Arctic’s great thaw will have thwarted attempts to stop global warming.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/arctic-lakes-are-bubbling-and-hissing-with-dangerous-greenhouse-gasesAt this rate, Earth risks sea level rise of 20 to 30 feet, historical analysis shows
Temperatures not much warmer than the planet is experiencing now were sufficient to melt a major part of the East Antarctic ice sheet in Earth's past, scientists reported Wednesday ... sea levels were as much as 20 to 30 feet higher than they are now. "It doesn't need to be a very big warming, as long as it stays 2 degrees warmer for a sufficient time, this is the end game," said David Wilson, a geologist at Imperial College London and one of the authors of the new research, which was published in Nature. Scientists at institutions in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Spain also contributed to the work.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/09/20/antarctica-warming-could-fuel-disastrous-sea-level-rise-study-finds
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0501-8.epdf'We're moving to higher ground': America's era of climate mass migration is here
The era of climate migration is, virtually unheralded, already upon America ... sea level rise alone could displace 13 million people, according to one study, including 6 million in Florida [but] "there’s not a state unaffected ... [migration] from every coastal place in the US to every other place in the US" ... "I don’t see the slightest evidence that anyone is seriously thinking about what to do with the future climate refugee stream," said Orrin Pilkey, professor emeritus of coastal geology at Duke University ... suggestions that people from Central America are being nudged towards the US because of drought and hurricanes in their homelands, part of a trend that will see as many as 300 million climate refugees worldwide by 2050. A buyout of damaged and at-risk homes has already occurred in New York City’s Staten Island ... [b]ut the cost of doing this for all at-risk Americans would be eye-watering. Estimates range from $200,000 to $1m per person to undertake a relocation. "As a country we aren’t set up to deal with slow-moving disasters like this, so people around the country are on their own," said Joel Clement, a former Department of the Interior official who worked on the relocation of Alaskan towns. "In the Arctic I’m concerned we’ve left it too late. Younger people have left because they know the places are doomed."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/24/americas-era-of-climate-mass-migration-is-hereUnprecedented Ice Loss in Russian Ice Cap
In the last few years, the Vavilov Ice Cap in the Russian High Arctic has dramatically accelerated, sliding as much as 82 feet a day ... dwarfs the ice's previous average speed of about 2 inches per day. Scientists have never seen such acceleration in this kind of ice cap before. The rapid collapse of the Vavilov Ice Cap has significant ramifications for glaciers in other polar regions, especially those fringing Antarctica and Greenland.
https://cires.colorado.edu/news/unprecedented-ice-loss-russian-ice-cap
reporting on a study "Massive destabilization of an Arctic ice cap" at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X18305156Florence is not the 'new normal'. We’ve destroyed normal forever.
[T]he problem is that the phrase is counter to both the latest climate science and the "normal" connotation of the word "normal" ... If each decade brings its own unique, ever worsening disasters - and if this never-stabilizing condition continues for a century (and, more likely, many centuries) - then there are no norms, no standards, no regular pattern or points of reference. Because things will keep changing with rising temperatures, with extremes becoming more extreme, there is no point at which one can plausibly say "This is the new normal, and this is what it is going to be like from now on." So, the "new normal" catchphrase is utterly misleading to the general reader and should not be used.
https://thinkprogress.org/florence-is-not-the-new-normal-weve-destroyed-normal-forever-357881eee59b/The world’s largest shipping company is trialing an Arctic route - and it’s a worrying sign for the future of the planet
The first container ship to tackle an Arctic route along [Bering Strait and] Russia’s north coast ... route was once impossible due to ice ... In January this year, Arctic sea ice hit a record low and in March an “extreme event” was declared. The sea ice in the Bering strait reached its lowest levels in recorded history as temperatures 30C above average were recorded. According to figures from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado, sea ice cover this winter was less than a third of what it was five years ago.
https://www.businessinsider.nl/maersk-launches-arctic-shipping-route-in-a-worrying-environmental-sign-2018-8/Shell and Exxon's secret 1980s climate change warnings
In the 1980s, oil companies like Exxon and Shell carried out internal assessments of the carbon dioxide released by fossil fuels, and forecast the planetary consequences of these emissions. In 1982, for example, Exxon predicted that by about 2060, CO2 levels would reach around 560 parts per million ? double the preindustrial level ? and that this would push the planet’s average temperatures up by about 2°C over then-current levels (and even more compared to pre-industrial levels). Later that decade, in 1988, an internal report by Shell projected similar effects but also found that CO2 could double even earlier, by 2030. Privately, these companies did not dispute the links between their products, global warming, and ecological calamity. On the contrary, their research confirmed the connections. Shell’s assessment foresaw ... disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, resulting in a worldwide rise in sea level of "five to six meters." Like Shell's experts, Exxon's scientists predicted devastating sea-level rise, and warned that the American Midwest and other parts of the world could become desert-like.
https://https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/sep/19/shell-and-exxons-secret-1980s-climate-change-warningsAnother Heat Record Broken: Most Warm Days Ever Measured In Netherlands
Up to and including Thursday, the record number of official warm days is expected to climb to 120, according to the weather service.
https://nltimes.nl/2018/09/17/another-heat-record-broken-warm-days-ever-measured-netherlandsEurope's meat and dairy production must halve by 2050, expert warns
Europe's animal farming sector has exceeded safe bounds for greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient flows and biodiversity loss, and urgently needs to be scaled back, according to a major report ... Livestock has the world's largest land footprint and is growing fast, with close to 80% of the planet's agricultural land now used for grazing and animal feed production ... huge sectoral "adjustments" will be needed by 2050 to rebalance the sector ... Long before then, policymakers, farmers and society as a whole face "deeply uncomfortable choices", according to Buckwell.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/15/europe-meat-dairy-production-2050-expert-warnsGot flood insurance? Thousands of homeowners in Hurricane Florence's path do not
Thousands of homeowners in inland North and South Carolina stand to be inundated by Hurricane Florence's drenching over the next few days, but hardly any of them carry federal flood insurance, leaving them at risk of a devastating loss, with little prospect of help from the federal government... Hurricane Harvey in 2017 in Texas caused $8.3 billion in federally insured flood damages, and nearly $120 billion more in uninsured losses. Florence could cause similar destruction.
https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/article218292160.html
see also https://www.wsj.com/articles/thousands-of-homes-in-hurricane-florences-path-lack-flood-insurance-1536831000More Recycling Won't Solve Plastic Pollution
The lie is that blame for the plastic problem is wasteful consumers and that changing our individual habits will fix it. Recycling plastic is to saving the Earth what hammering a nail is to halting a falling skyscraper. You struggle to find a place to do it and feel pleased when you succeed. But your effort is wholly inadequate and distracts from the real problem of why the building is collapsing in the first place.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/more-recycling-wont-solve-plastic-pollution/'Global cataclysm': 200 scientists and artists sign letter warning of looming disaster
'In a few decades, there will be almost nothing left. Humans and most living species are in a critical situation'
A host of Hollywood A-listers [and] prominent scientists ... "Collapse is underway," the letter said. Experts have warned human are indeed ushering in the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth. Writing in a special edition of the journal Nature last year, scientists warned that mammals, birds and amphibians are currently becoming extinct at rates comparable to the previous five mass extinctions.
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/global-warming-climate-change-plastic-extinction-open-letter-bradley-cooper-juliette-binoche-a8522411.htmlGovernments 'not on track' to cap temperatures at below 2 degrees: U.N.
Governments are not on track to meet a goal of the 2015 Paris agreement of capping temperatures well below 2 degrees Celsius. Patricia Espinosa, head of the Executive Secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which steers the climate talks, said both the public and private sector need to act with urgency to avoid "catastrophic effects".
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-thailand-climatechange/governments-not-on-track-to-cap-temperatures-at-below-2-degrees-u-n-idUSKCN1LI03SPermafrost thawing under Arctic lakes warming climate faster than expected: study
That's according to a recent study led by the University of Alaska Fairbanks, published earlier this month in Nature Communications ... "the response of these thermokarst lakes [will] be a flash-thaw of permafrost ... peak of the formation is really only decades away - it's closer to about 2050 or 2060." Thermokarst lakes form in ice-rich areas when warming soil melts ground ice, causing the land surface to collapse and water to fill the sunken area, Anthony explained. This water in turn accelerates the thaw of permafrost deep beneath the expanding lake. Carbon that was stored in the permafrost - which is between 10,000 to 40,000 years old - then becomes food for microbes, Anthony said. The microbes make methane and carbon dioxide that is released into the atmosphere ... the lakes are "hotspots" that could more than double the amount of climate warming that's caused by carbon released from thawing permafrost, by the 2050s. The research, conducted by a team of U.S. and German researchers, is part of a 10-year project funded by NASA to better understand climate change effects on the Arctic. It was also supported by the National Science Foundation.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/permafrost-thawing-methane-1.4806284Study: Climate change could transform Arizona's forests, deserts, worsening drought and fire
Ecosystems across the world will dramatically transform as climate change's effects increase, a new study warns... The study says human-caused climate change could accelerate changes in vegetation around the globe, filling lush forests with flammable brush and worsening drought conditions where relief is needed most. The findings are part of a University of Arizona-led report published in the journal Science, which warns that the earth could warm as much as it did in the thousands of years since the last ice age if greenhouse gas emissions are not substantially reduced. Researchers found changing climates around the globe, but particularly in Arizona and the arid Southwest, where historic drought conditions are showing little signs of relief. "I think it's ubiquitous,' said co-author Jonathan Overpeck, University of Michigan dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability. "It's not just going to be isolated. It's going to be everywhere if we let climate change go unchecked."
https://azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environment/2018/09/01/climate-change-could-transform-arizona-forests-deserts-environment-study/1148294002/
reporting on a study at http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6405/920[Australian] government is not even pretending to act on climate change any more
We have gone from a government under Malcolm Turnbull that at least tried to look like it was aiming to reduce emissions (even if it wasn’t) to one under Scott Morrison that is making no pretence about the fact it is beholden to the charlatans in the party who want to scam votes by lying about the facts of climate change.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2018/sep/02/this-government-is-not-even-pretending-to-act-on-climate-change-anymoreClimate change could render many of Earth’s ecosystems unrecognizable
After the end of the last ice age ... the Earth’s ecosystems were utterly transformed. It’s about to happen again, researchers are reporting Thursday in the journal Science. "Even as someone who has spent more than 40 years thinking about vegetation change looking into the past … it is really hard for me to wrap my mind around the magnitude of change we’re talking about,” said ecologist Stephen Jackson, director of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center and the lead author of the new study.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/08/30/climate-change-could-render-many-earths-ecosystems-unrecognizable
reporting on a study at http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6405/920Global Warming Means More Insects Threatening Food Crops - A Lot More, Study Warns
Growing swarms of hungrier and hyperactive insects may wipe out big percentages of the world's three most important grain crops - wheat, corn and rice - even if the world manages to cap global warming at 2 degrees Celsius, the upper-end target of the Paris climate agreement, scientists warn. The biggest crop losses are expected in temperate areas where global warming will increase both insects' population growth and their metabolic rates. That includes the major breadbaskets of North America and Europe.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30082018/insect-damage-agriculture-food-crops-climate-change-wheat-corn-rice-study
reporting on a study at http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6405/916Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First
Miami-Dade is built on the Biscayne Aquifer, 4,000 square miles of unusually shallow and porous limestone ... without this abundant source of fresh water, made cheap by its proximity to the surface, this hot, remote city could become uninhabitable. Climate change is slowly pulling that machine apart... The economic effects will be devastating: Zillow Inc. estimates that six feet of sea-level rise would put a quarter of Miami’s homes underwater, rendering $200 billion of real estate worthless. But global warming poses a more immediate danger: The permeability that makes the aquifer so easily accessible also makes it vulnerable. "The minute the world thinks your water supply is in danger, you’ve got a problem," says James Murley, chief resilience officer for Miami-Dade ... Earlier this year, Pamela Cabrera, a graduate student at Harvard, mapped the Superfund sites in Miami-Dade County and their proximity to [freshwater] wellfields. Her hypothesis was simple: Increased flooding could dislodge the toxic chemicals that remain on Superfund and other industrial sites, pushing them into the aquifer... The slowest-moving threat to Miami’s drinking water is also the most sweeping: As the ocean rises, salt water is being pushed into the limestone ... As the saltwater front advances westward across the aquifer, reaching each of those intake valves and enveloping them in saline water, it risks rendering them useless.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-08-29/miami-s-other-water-problemState Of California Fourth Climate Change Assessment
Emerging findings for California show that costs associated with direct climate impacts by 2050 are dominated by human mortality, damages to coastal properties, and the potential for droughts and mega-floods. The costs are in the order of tens of billions of dollars ... direct and indirect risks to public health, as people will experience earlier death and worsening illnesses ... management practices for water supply and flood management in California may need to be revised for a changing climate. This is in part because such practices were designed for historical climatic conditions, which are changing and will continue to change during the rest of this century and beyond ... climate change is degrading California's coastal and marine environment. In recent years, several unusual events have occurred along the California coast and ocean, including a historic marine heat wave, record harmful algal bloom, fishery closures, and a significant loss of northern kelp forests.
http://www.climateassessment.ca.gov/state/docs/20180827-StatewideSummary.pdfScientists Warn the UN of Capitalism's Imminent Demise [due to climate change]
So suggests a new report commissioned by a group of scientists appointed by the UN Secretary-General. The main reason? We're transitioning rapidly to a radically different global economy, due to our increasingly unsustainable exploitation of the planet's environmental resources. Climate change and species extinctions are accelerating even as societies are experiencing rising inequality, unemployment, slow economic growth, rising debt levels, and impotent governments... the new report says that these are not really separate crises at all. Rather, these crises are part of the same fundamental transition to a new era characterized by inefficient fossil fuel production and the escalating costs of climate change. Conventional capitalist economic thinking can no longer explain, predict, or solve the workings of the global economy in this new age, the paper says.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43pek3/scientists-warn-the-un-of-capitalisms-imminent-demise
reporting on a paper at https://bios.fi/bios-governance_of_economic_transition.pdfWarming of the interior Arctic Ocean linked to sea ice losses at the basin margins
Arctic Ocean measurements reveal a near doubling of ocean heat content relative to the freezing temperature in the Beaufort Gyre halocline over the past three decades (1987–2017) ... Summer solar heat absorption by the surface waters has increased fivefold over the same time period, chiefly because of reduced sea ice coverage.
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/8/eaat6773Climate change is melting the French Alps, say mountaineers
Permafrost 'cement' is evaporating, making rocks unstable and prone to collapse with many trails now deemed too dangerous to use
[T]he mountaineers who climb among the snowy peaks know that it is far from business as usual - due to a warming climate, the familiar landscape is rapidly changing. "In the Alps, the glacier surfaces have shrunk by half between 1900 and 2012 with a strong acceleration of the melting processes since the 1980s," says Jacques Mourey, a climber and scientist who is researching the impact of climate change on the mountains above Chamonix. "If anyone doesn't believe that climate change exists, they should come to Chamonix to see it for themselves."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/24/climate-change-is-melting-the-french-alps-say-mountaineersArctic's strongest sea ice breaks up for first time on record
Usually frozen waters open up twice this year in phenomenon scientists described as scary
The oldest and thickest sea ice in the Arctic has started to break up, opening waters north of Greenland that are normally frozen, even in summer. This phenomenon - which has never been recorded before - has occurred twice this year due to warm winds and a climate-change driven heatwave in the northern hemisphere. One meteorologist described the loss of ice as "scary". Others said it could force scientists to revise their theories about which part of the Arctic will withstand warming the longest. The sea off the north coast of Greenland is normally so frozen that it was referred to, until recently, as "the last ice area" because it was assumed that this would be the final northern holdout against the melting effects of a hotter planet.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/21/arctics-strongest-sea-ice-breaks-up-for-first-time-on-record?CMP=Share_iOSApp_OtherSummer weather is getting 'stuck' due to Arctic warming
Rising temperatures in the Arctic have slowed the circulation of the jet stream and other giant planetary winds ... authors of the research, published in Nature Communications on Monday, warn this could lead to "very extreme extremes", which occur when abnormally high temperatures linger for an unusually prolonged period, turning sunny days into heat waves, tinder-dry conditions into wildfires, and rains into floods.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/20/summer-weather-is-getting-stuck-due-to-arctic-warmingHeadlines back in 1912 warned 'coal consumption affecting climate'
March 1912 issue of Popular Mechanics on "The effect of the combustion of coal on the climate - what scientists predict for the future" [said] "It has been found that if the air contained more carbon dioxide, which is the product of the combustion of coal or vegetable material, the temperature would be somewhat higher ... Since burning coal produces carbon dioxide it may be inquired whether the enormous use of the fuel in modern times may not be an important factor in filling the atmosphere with this substance, and consequently indirectly raising the temperature of the earth." Indeed, the scientific understanding that certain gases trap heat and warm the planet dates back to the 1850s. Eunice Foote discovered CO2's warming properties in 1856, and was the first scientist to make the connection between CO2 and climate change. Irish physicist John Tyndall, who often gets all the credit, didn't make the connection until 1859. By the turn of the 19th century, Svante August Arrhenius was quantifying how CO2 contributed to the greenhouse effect and later made the connection between global warming and fossil fuel combustion. In a 1917 paper, Alexander Graham Bell wrote that the unrestricted burning of fossil fuels "would have a sort of greenhouse effect ... the net result is the greenhouse becomes a sort of hot-house." Popular Mechanics alone has run articles on climate change in 1912, 1930, 1940, 1957, 1964, 1988, and on and on - as it explained in an article earlier this year.
https://thinkprogress.org/headlines-back-in-1912-warned-coal-consumption-affecting-climate-b0c1373194a1/
Popular Mechanics March 1912: https://books.google.nl/books?id=Tt4DAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA339&dq=Remarkable+Weather+of+1911&pg=PA339
Eunice Foote: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/lady-scientist-helped-revolutionize-climate-science-didnt-get-credit-180961291/Halfway to boiling: the city at 50C
It is the temperature at which human cells start to cook... Once an urban anomaly, 50C is fast becoming reality
Imagine a city at 50C (122F). The pavements are empty, the parks quiet, entire neighbourhoods appear uninhabited. Nobody with a choice ventures outside. The only people in sight are those who do not have access to air conditioning: the poor, the homeless, undocumented labourers. Society is divided into the cool haves and the hot have-nots. There are fewer animals overall; many species of mammals and birds have migrated to cooler environments, perhaps at a higher altitude - or perished. Power grids are overloaded by cooling units. At 50C heat becomes toxic. Human cells start to cook, blood thickens, muscles lock around the lungs and the brain is choked of oxygen. In dry conditions, sweat can lessen the impact. But this protection weakens if there is already moisture in the air. A wet-bulb temperature (which factors in humidity) of just 35C can be fatal after a few hours to even the fittest person, and even under the most optimistic predictions for emissions reductions almost half the world's population will be exposed to potentially deadly heat for 20 days a year by 2100. Several cities in the Persian Gulf are getting increasingly accustomed to such heat. Currently, 354 major cities experience average summer temperatures in excess of 35C; by 2050, climate change will push this to 970, according to the recent "Future We Don't Want" study by the C40 alliance of the world's biggest metropolises. 50C is also uncomfortably near for tens of millions more people. This year, Chino, 50km (30 miles) from Los Angeles, hit a record of 48.9C, Sydney saw 47C, and Madrid and Lisbon also experienced temperatures in the mid-40s. New studies suggest France "could easily exceed" 50C by the end of the century while Australian cities are forecast to reach this point even earlier. Kuwait, meanwhile, could sizzle towards an uninhabitable 60C.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/aug/13/halfway-boiling-city-50cC40: The Future We Don't Want
Analysis shows that, unless governments take urgent steps to cut emissions, over 1.6 billion people living in close to 1000 cities face regular, extreme heatwaves in under 30 years time... equivalent to more than 40 percent of today's total urban population.
https://www.c40.org/other/the-future-we-don-t-want-for-cities-the-heat-is-on
from the full Impact 2050 study at https://c40-production-images.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/impact2050report.pdfClimate Change: Hundreds Of Plants Will Disappear From Netherlands
Netherlands average temperature is currently around 10 degrees. According to meteorological institute KNMI's climate scenarios this will increase to between 11 and 14 degrees by 2085. If average temperature rises by 3 degrees the country will be too hot for nearly 500 plant species, according to research Wageningen University published on Thursday. That is around 40 percent of all plant species in the country.
https://nltimes.nl/2018/08/10/climate-change-hundreds-plants-will-disappear-netherlandsUS climate report confirms: 2017 among hottest years ever
In its 28th annual State of the Climate report, published by the American Meteorological Society, the US agency confirmed findings from a meta-analysis in January of this year that the last three years - 2015, 2016 and 2017 - have been the hottest ever ... 2017 average global CO2 concentration in the atmosphere - 405 parts per million - is the highest it has been in 38 years of record-taking, also higher than ice-core samples dating back up to 800,000 years ... the Arctic saw its sea ice coverage reach its smallest annual maximum in 2017, while in Antarctica, overall sea ice was well below the average of the past several decades ... global average sea level rise increased to a new record high ... average sea surface temperature in 2017 was above that of 2016, continuing a clear long-term upward trend ... wide swing of rainfall extremes, with some regions experiencing remarkable rainfall and others extended drought.
https://www.dw.com/en/us-climate-report-confirms-2017-among-hottest-years-ever/a-449234182018 Is Shaping Up to Be the Fourth-Hottest Year. Yet We’re Still Not Prepared for Global Warming.
This summer of fire and swelter looks a lot like the future that scientists have been warning about in the era of climate change [but temperatures] are still rising... On the horizon is a future of cascading system failures threatening basic necessities like food supply and electricity. "We are living in a world that is not just warmer than it used to be. We haven’t reached a new normal," Dr. Swain cautioned. "This isn’t a plateau." Against that background, industrial emissions of carbon dioxide grew to record levels in 2017, after holding steady the previous three years. Carbon in the atmosphere was found to be at the highest levels in 800,000 years.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/09/climate/summer-heat-global-warming.htmlWeather and climate disasters made 2017 costliest year for US
The final tally of natural disasters in the US was $306 billion dollars, a study has shown, making 2017 the most expensive year on record.
https://www.dw.com/en/weather-and-climate-disasters-made-2017-costliest-year-for-us/a-42073655Immense rains are causing more flash flooding, and experts say it's getting worse
"Things are definitely getting more extreme," said Andreas Prein, an atmospheric scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. "You just have to look at the records. All areas of the continental U.S. have seen increases in peak rainfall rates in the past 50 years. ... And there is a chance that we are underestimating the risk, actually."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/immense-rains-are-causing-more-flash-flooding-and-experts-say-its-getting-worse/2018/06/24/3970a236-765e-11e8-805c-4b67019fcfe4_story.htmlA warmer world means a greater risk rain lands on snow, triggering floods
Musselman and a group of colleagues used historical data to sketch out what the rain-on-snow flood risk looks like across western North America - and how that risk is likely to change in a warming world. Their paper, published in Nature Climate Change this week, finds that ... at higher elevations, where once there would have been snow falling on a snowpack, rising temperatures will now cause rain to fall on that snow. The Sierra Nevada, Canadian Rockies, and Colorado River headwaters saw the highest increases in risk, with floods twice as likely in some cases. "Levees and dams need to be re-analyzed to see if they can safely withstand and handle this new pattern of flooding." This is particularly crucial, he adds, since "most of these dams and levees are old, and a good percentage of them are currently operating under marginal conditions."
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/a-warmer-world-means-a-greater-risk-rain-lands-on-snow-triggering-floods.Methane uptake from forest soils has 'fallen by 77% in three decades'
The amount of methane absorbed by forest soils has fallen by an average of 77% in the northern hemisphere over the past 27 years, a new study finds. The research, which analysed soil data taken from more than 300 studies, suggests that the world is currently "overestimating the role that forest soils play in trapping gas". The discovery "means that methane will accumulate much faster in the atmosphere"
https://www.carbonbrief.org/methane-uptake-from-forest-soils-has-fallen-77-per-cent-three-decadesDisappointing New Problem With Geo-Engineering
On Wednesday, Proctor and his colleagues ... unveiled the first global economic projection of how solar geo-engineering will affect the world's crops. Its conclusions, which are not positive, should not inspire confidence. "You're in an arena with a big bear," he told me. (The bear is climate change.) "And the question is: Should you throw a lion into the arena? You know, maybe they'll fight and kill each other. Or maybe they'll just both kill you." That lion is looking worse and worse. Recently, a surge of academic research has revealed that solar geo-engineering will be anything but straightforward. The results were published in this week's edition of the scientific journal Nature. Proctor compared them to a disappointing clinical trial.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/solar-geo-engineering-cant-save-the-worlds-crops/567017/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0417-3The world is losing the war against climate change
[G]reenhouse-gas emissions are up again. So are investments in oil and gas. In 2017, for the first time in four years, demand for coal rose. Subsidies for renewables, such as wind and solar power, are dwindling in many places and investment has stalled; climate-friendly nuclear power is expensive and unpopular. It is tempting to think these are temporary setbacks and that mankind, with its instinct for self-preservation, will muddle through to a victory over global warming. In fact, it is losing the war... One reason is soaring energy demand, especially in developing Asia. In 2006-16, as Asia's emerging economies forged ahead, their energy consumption rose by 40%. The use of coal, easily the dirtiest fossil fuel, grew at an annual rate of 3.1%. Use of cleaner natural gas grew by 5.2% and of oil by 2.9%. The second reason is economic and political inertia. The more fossil fuels a country consumes, the harder it is to wean itself off them. Coal generates not merely 80% of India's electricity, but also underpins the economies of some of its poorest states (see Briefing). Panjandrums in Delhi are not keen to countenance the end of coal, lest that cripple the banking system, which lent it too much money, and the railways, which depend on it. Last is the technical challenge of stripping carbon out of industries beyond power generation. Steel, cement, farming, transport and other forms of economic activity account for over half of global carbon emissions. Politicians have an essential role to play in making the case for reform and in ensuring that the most vulnerable do not bear the brunt of the change. Perhaps global warming will help them fire up the collective will. Sadly, the world looks poised to get a lot hotter first.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/08/02/the-world-is-losing-the-war-against-climate-changePollution is slowing the melting of Arctic sea ice, for now
Human carbon pollution is melting the Arctic, but aerosol pollution is slowing it down
A recent paper just published in the Journal of Climate by the American Meteorological Society takes an in-depth look at how fast the Arctic ice is melting and why. It turns out 23% of the warming caused by greenhouse gases was offset by the cooling from aerosols. Unfortunately, this isn't good news. It means that if/when humans reduce our aerosol pollution, the warming in the Arctic and the ice loss there will be worse. "If reducing the emissions of aerosols leads to an even faster warming of the Arctic, this will only further decrease the temperature gradient between the pole and the equator, likely adding to the destabilisation of Northern Hemisphere weather patterns. Never mind the longer term risks tied to sea level rise, methane release and changes to ocean currents. Not reducing aerosols isn't an option, either, and so we find ourselves in quite a predicament."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/aug/03/pollution-is-slowing-the-melting-of-arctic-sea-ice-for-now
reporting on a study at https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0552.1Lake Tahoe is warmer than ever before, new study shows
The study ... found that surface water temperatures [were] the warmest on record ... more than six degrees warmer than the previous year ... Tahoe Basin will also continue to warm and dry up in the next few decades.
https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/Lake-Tahoe-study-basin-davis-warmer-13112065.phpPummeled by drought and climate change, beloved Lake Tahoe in hot water
Lake Tahoe and the community around it are increasingly battered by climate change and drought, with the lake’s temperature climbing 10 times faster than the historic average ... now sees summer conditions for 26 more days than it did in 1968, boosting the danger of devastating wildfires, while the spring snowmelt has moved up 19 days since 1961.
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Pummeled-by-drought-and-climate-change-beloved-11537274.phpWorld's Hottest Rain Fell In California, Setting New Record
It was 119 degrees (Fahrenheit) on July 24 in Imperial, California when it rained, according to weather expert Jeff Masters, prompting the hottest ever rainfall.
https://www.newsweek.com/worlds-hottest-rain-fell-california-setting-new-record-1057622Planet at Risk of Heading Towards Apocalyptic, Irreversible 'Hothouse Earth' State
We only have 10-20 years to fix this.
Hothouse Earth is an apocalyptic nightmare where the global average temperatures is 4 to 5 degrees Celsius higher (with regions like the Arctic averaging 10 degrees C higher) than today, according to the study, "Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene," published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Sea levels would eventually be 10-60 meters higher as much of the world's ice melts. In these conditions, large parts of the Earth would be uninhabitable.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8xbdnk/planet-at-risk-of-heading-towards-hothouse-earthHothouse Earth Is Merely the Beginning of the End
A new paper published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences called “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene” [suggests that] even if we managed to hit the carbon emissions targets set in the Paris Climate Accord, we still might trigger a series of accelerating climate-system feedback loops that would push the climate into a permanent hothouse state, with a warming of four, five or even six degrees Celsius. If that were to happen, the paper argued, “Hothouse Earth is likely to be uncontrollable" ... There is no groundbreaking new science in the Hothouse Earth paper. Rather, it’s a synthesis of what is already known and presented in a compelling way. But it is an important reminder ... that the real threat of climate change is not a slow slide into a warmer world; it’s a fast change into a radically different climate ... by continuing to dump fossil fuels into the atmosphere at an ever-increasing rate, we are rolling the dice.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/hothouse-earth-climate-change-709470/Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene
We explore the risk that self-reinforcing feedbacks could push the Earth System toward a [2C above preindustrial] planetary threshold that, if crossed, could prevent stabilization of the climate at intermediate temperature rises and cause continued warming on a “Hothouse Earth” pathway even as human emissions are reduced ... the Earth System may be approaching a planetary threshold that could lock in a continuing rapid pathway toward much hotter conditions ... propelled by strong, intrinsic, biogeophysical feedbacks difficult to influence by human actions, a pathway that could not be reversed, steered, or substantially slowed.
https://www.pnas.org/content/115/33/8252New Study: The Arctic Carbon Cycle is Speeding Up
A new NASA-led study using data from the Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE)shows that carbon in Alaska's North Slope tundra ecosystems spends about 13 percent less time locked in frozen soil than it did 40 years ago. In other words, the carbon cycle there is speeding up -- and is now at a pace more characteristic of a North American boreal forest than of the icy Arctic.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7209California wildfires will only get worse in the future because of climate change, experts say
What we're seeing over the last few years in terms of the wildfire season in California [is] very consistent with what we can expect in the future as global warming continues... California recorded 9,560 wildfires in 2017 - about 2,000 more than the year before, according to the US Forest Service. As of this of July, however, California wildfires had destroyed three times the amount of land compared to the time same period last year... But he US is not alone in this battle: Mr Diffenbaugh's research team found that global warming had increased the odds of record-setting hot events for more than 80 percent of the globe in recent decades.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/carr-fire-latest-california-wildfire-worse-update-global-warming-a8471956.htmlFossil fuel industry spent nearly $2 billion to kill U.S. climate action, new study finds
Industry has out-lobbied environmentalists 10-to-1 on climate since 2000.
Legislation to address climate change has repeatedly died in Congress. But a major new study says the policy deaths were not from natural causes - they were caused by humans, just like climate change itself is. Climate action has been repeatedly drowned by a devastating surge and flood of money from the fossil fuel industry - nearly $2 billion in lobbying since 2000 alone. This is according to stunning new analysis in the journal Climatic Change on "The climate lobby" by Drexel University environmental sociologist Robert J. Brulle.
https://thinkprogress.org/fossil-fuel-industry-outspends-environment-groups-on-climate-new-study-231325b4a7e6/Here's another climate change concern: Superheated bugs in the soil, belching carbon
Increased heat is activating microbes in the soil, converting organic matter into carbon dioxide at a heightened rate... In the past, many researchers assumed that increased carbon dioxide would trigger a boost in growth of forests and vegetation that would capture carbon and counteract impacts of more rapid soil decay. This week's study casts doubt on that theory... Forests and grasslands are obvious reservoirs of carbon, but the planet's soils are actually larger storehouses... Scientists have have long known that certain soils worldwide were increasing outputs of carbon dioxide, but this week's study is the first to synthesize all of that research and provide a global estimate of the increase. "This study asks the question on a global scale," said Vanessa Bailey, a soil scientist at the Pacific Northwest laboratory who contributed to the research. "We are talking about a huge quantity of carbon."
https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article215848615.html
also in AAAS EurekAlert https://www.eurekalert.org/emb_releases/2018-08/dnnl-atr072918.phpYour [south Florida] flood insurance premium is going up again, and that's only the beginning
The bottom line: your flood insurance premium is going up again - and under a policy change the Federal Emergency Management Agency is considering, it could skyrocket even more in coming years [because FEMA is] looking into switching to risk-based pricing in 2020, which would end the subsidies most coastal communities enjoy on their flood insurance premiums and show the true dollar cost of living in areas repeatedly pounded by hurricanes and drenched with floods. "That means insurance is about to become very expensive" ... by charging homeowners the real cost it takes to insure their properties from flood risk... If there is a lapse (and there have been several in the last year of extensions) it would prevent insurers from writing new policies. Since banks demand flood insurance policies on homes with mortgages, this could slow down home sales... vulnerable South Florida could face economic chaos.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article215162440.htmlScientists shocked by mysterious deaths of ancient trees
International scientists have discovered that most of the oldest and largest African baobab trees have died over the past 12 years... "We suspect that the demise of monumental baobabs may be associated at least in part with significant modifications of climate conditions that affect southern Africa ... associated with increased temperature and drought," Dr Patrut told BBC News. "It's shocking and very sad to see them dying."
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44418849
reporting on a study in Nature Plants https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-018-0170-5Climate Change Is Killing the Cedars of Lebanon
As temperatures rise, the cedars' ecological comfort zone is moving up the mountains to higher altitudes, chasing the cold winters they need to reproduce. But here in the Barouk forest, part of the Shouf Biosphere Reserve, south of Beirut, there isn't much farther up to go... A generation ago, it typically rained or snowed 105 days a year in the mountains. High up, snow stayed on the ground for three to four months. This past winter, there were just 40 days of rain and a only month of snow cover. "Climate change is a fact here," said Nizar Hani, the Shouf Biosphere's director.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/07/18/climate/lebanon-climate-change-environment-cedars.htmlClimate change is making the Arab world more miserable
Already-long dry seasons are growing longer and drier, withering crops. Heat spikes are a growing problem too, with countries regularly notching lethal summer temperatures. Stretch such trends out a few years and they seem frightening - a few decades and they seem apocalyptic. Extreme temperatures of 46C (115F) or more will be about five times more likely by 2050 than they were at the beginning of the century, when similar peaks were reached, on average, 16 days per year. By 2100 "wet-bulb temperatures" - a measure of humidity and heat - could rise so high in the Gulf as to make it all but uninhabitable
https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2018/05/31/climate-change-is-making-the-arab-world-more-miserableCanada's high Arctic glaciers at risk of disappearing completely, study finds
Using satellite imagery, researchers catalogued more than 1,700 glaciers in northern Ellesmere Island and traced how they had changed between 1999 and 2015... the glaciers had shrank by more than 1,700 sq km of over a 16-year period, representing a loss of about 6%. A previous study of glaciers in the region...showed a loss of 927 sq km between 1959 and 2000, hinting that the pace of loss may be increasing.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/18/canadas-high-arctic-glaciers-at-risk-of-disappearing-completely-study-finds
reporting on study at https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-glaciology/article/area-change-of-glaciers-across-northern-ellesmere-island-nunavut-between-1999-and-2015/597055ECFD496885D0CF0CB8C9528E8E#In India, Summer Heat Could Soon Be Unbearable. Literally.
"These cities are going to become unlivable unless urban governments put in systems of dealing with this phenomenon and make people aware," said Sujata Saunik, who served as a senior official in the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs and is now a fellow at the Harvard University School of Public Health. "It's a major public health challenge." Indeed, a recent analysis of climate trends in several of South Asia's biggest cities found that if current warming trends continued, by the end of the century, wet bulb temperatures - a measure of heat and humidity that can indicate the point when the body can no longer cool itself - would be so high that people directly exposed for six hours or more would not survive.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/17/climate/india-heat-wave-summer.htmlWhy Carbon Pricing Isn’t Working
If governments proved willing to impose carbon prices that were sufficiently high and affected a broad enough swath of the economy, those prices could make a real environmental difference. But political concerns have kept governments from doing so, resulting in carbon prices that are too low and too narrowly applied to meaningfully curb emissions ... even in those sectors in which carbon pricing might have a significant effect, policymakers have lacked the spine to impose a high enough price.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2018-06-14/why-carbon-pricing-isnt-workingGlobal Warming in South Asia: 800 Million at Risk
Climate change could sharply diminish living conditions for up to 800 million people in South Asia, a region that is already home to some of the world's poorest and hungriest people, if nothing is done to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, the World Bank warned Thursday in an ominous new study... across South Asia annual average temperatures are projected to rise by 2.2 degrees Celsius (3.9 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2050 relative to 1981 to 2010 conditions under a high emissions scenario. Temperatures are projected to rise 1.6 degrees Celsius if steps are taken to reduce global emissions. In the high emissions scenario, 800 million people stand to be at risk. Under the reduced-emissions scenario, that number falls to 375 million.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/28/climate/india-pakistan-warming-hotspots.html
reporting on a World Bank study https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/28723California's Priority over the Central Arizona Project
One of the things that Arizona had to agree to, in order to get the CAP authorized, was to allow California to have senior priority over the CAP. In Arizona, the Central Arizona Project, that is, will be reduced till the point that it has no water, before California's 4.4 million acre-feet is cut.That agreement, that Arizona was going to be the junior partner, is coming back to haunt us.
https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/kaet.beyond.ca/californias-priority-over-the-central-arizona-project/The Law of the Colorado River: Coping with Severe Sustained Drought
The Colorado River Basin Project Act specifically gave California higher priority to receive its 4.4 maf of water than any diversions to provide water for the Central Arizona Project (CAP;. Arizona agreed to sub ordinate its CAP diversion rights in return for Cali fornia's support for the project, which was authorized in 1968.
https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.nl/&httpsredir=1&article=1053&context=books_reports_studiesRed-hot planet: All-time heat records have been set all over the world during the past week
No single record, in isolation, can be attributed to global warming. But collectively, these heat records are consistent with the kind of extremes we expect to see increase in a warming world... These various records add to a growing list of heat milestones set over the past 15 months that are part and parcel of a planet that is trending hotter as greenhouse gas concentrations increase because of human activity
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2018/07/03/hot-planet-all-time-heat-records-have-been-set-all-over-the-world-in-last-week/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.d69382752fb0Arizona swings closer to shortage on Colorado River system
If or when a [water shortage] call is declared, Arizona would face the largest water reduction among the lower basin states which also includes California and Nevada. Overall, Arizona has junior water rights on the river and would face the steepest water cuts under a stage one shortage call ... California's allocation of 4.4 million acre feet would not be cut.
ttp://www.westernfarmpress.com/irrigation/arizona-swings-closer-shortage-colorado-river-systemStudy suggests buried Internet infrastructure at risk as sea levels rise
"Most of the damage that's going to be done in the next 100 years will be done sooner than later," says Barford, an authority on the "physical internet" -- the buried fiber optic cables, data centers, traffic exchanges and termination points that are the nerve centers, arteries and hubs of the vast global information network. "That surprised us. The expectation was that we'd have 50 years to plan for it. We don't have 50 years." [B]y the year 2033 more than 4,000 miles of buried fiber optic conduit will be underwater and more than 1,100 traffic hubs will be surrounded by water. ... the effects ... would ripple across the internet, says Barford, potentially disrupting global communications. The peer-reviewed study study ... only evaluated risk to infrastructure in the United States.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-07/uow-ssb071218.phpWe Know Plastic Is Harming Marine Life. What About Us?
[M]icroplastics ... block digestive tracts, diminish the urge to eat, and alter feeding behavior, all of which reduce growth and reproductive output ... oysters exposed to tiny pieces of polystyrene—the stuff of take-out food containers—produce fewer eggs and less motile sperm. The list of freshwater and marine organisms that are harmed by plastics stretches to hundreds of species ... [Humans are] steeped in this material—from the air we breathe to both the tap and bottled water we drink, the food we eat, and the clothing we wear ... [Plastic] comes in many forms and contains a wide range of additives—pigments, ultraviolet stabilizers, water repellents, flame retardants, stiffeners such as bisphenol A (BPA), and softeners called phthalates—that can leach into their surroundings. Some of these chemicals are considered endocrine disruptors—chemicals that interfere with normal hormone function ... scientists remain concerned about the human-health impacts of marine plastics.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/plastic-planet-health-pollution-waste-microplasticsThe methane time bomb
During much of the upper Cenozoic, the accumulation of organic matter in Polar Regions, as well as in bogs in tropical and subtropical zones, has created large reservoirs of methane, the most potent common greenhouse gas, vulnerable to release upon a rise in temperature. Global warming, driving a mean rise of 3 to 8C in the Arctic early during 2015-2018, is leading toward the release of billions of tons of methane into the atmosphere, from permafrost, lakes, shallow seas and sediments ... The triggering of methane release induced by anthropogenic transfer of carbon to the atmosphere is leading to a major shift in state of the terrestrial atmosphere and habitats.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187661021830136XSurvival of the Richest
The wealthy are plotting to leave us behind
[The 1% know full well that climate collapse is coming soon. They call it "The Event."] Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system and asked, "How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?" The Event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, unstoppable virus, or Mr. Robot hack that takes everything down. This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angry mobs. But how would they pay the guards once money was worthless? What would stop the guards from choosing their own leader? The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers?-?if that technology could be developed in time... The mental gymnastics required for such a profound role reversal between humans and machines all depend on the underlying assumption that humans suck. Let's either change them or get away from them, forever. [But what they don't understand is that] being human is not about individual survival or escape. It's a team sport. Whatever future humans have, it will be together.
https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/survival-of-the-richest-9ef6cddd0cc12018 In Top 5 Pct. Of Netherlands' Driest Years
On Sunday the Netherlands had an average precipitation shortage of 155 mm, placing 2018 officially in the 5 percent driest years since the beginning of rainfall measurements in 1906... Over the next week, the weather in the Netherlands is expected to remain sunny and dry with a dry northeast wind. On such days around 7 mm of water can evaporate per day. As a result, Weeronline expects that the precipitation deficit will rise to 210 mm by mid-July.
https://nltimes.nl/2018/07/02/2018-top-5-pct-netherlands-driest-yearsMIT Technology Review: We still have no idea how to eliminate more than a quarter of energy emissions
Air travel, shipping, and manufacturing are huge sources of carbon that we lack good options for addressing.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611498/we-still-have-no-idea-how-to-eliminate-more-than-a-quarter-of-energy-emissions/ reporting on a study in Science http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6396/eaas9793Climate change has turned Peru's glacial lake into a deadly flood timebomb
[Lake Palcacocha is] swollen with glacial meltwater like an almost-overflowing bathtub... a breakaway chunk of glacier could displace up to 15bn litres of meltwater ... "There are around 50,000 people living in the danger zone... even if you were able to warn the people, there could still be about 20,000 fatalities."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/29/climate-change-has-turned-perus-glacial-lake-into-a-deadly-flood-timebombRecord Warm Second Quarter In Netherlands
The second quarter of 2018 was the warmest second quarter in the Netherlands since temperature measurements started in 1901... the average temperature for the second quarter [was]15.2 degrees - much warmer than the usual average temperature of 12.5 degrees.
https://nltimes.nl/2018/06/29/record-warm-second-quarter-netherlands2017 Was the Second-Worst Year on Record for Tropical Tree Cover Loss
In total, the tropics experienced 15.8 million hectares (39.0 million acres) of tree cover loss in 2017 ... the equivalent of losing 40 football fields of trees every minute for an entire year ... tree cover loss has been rising steadily in the tropics over the past 17 years. Natural disasters like fires and tropical storms are playing an increasing role, especially as climate change makes them more frequent and severe. But clearing of forests for agriculture and other uses continues to drive large-scale deforestation.
https://www.wri.org/blog/2018/06/2017-was-second-worst-year-record-tropical-tree-cover-lossBarents Sea seems to have crossed a climate tipping point
[A] team of Norwegian scientists is suggesting it has watched the climate reach a tipping point: the loss of Arctic sea ice has flipped the Barents Sea from acting as a buffer between the Atlantic and Arctic oceans to something closer to an arm of the Atlantic... Sea-ice drift into the Barents sea dropped enough so that the 2010-2015 average was 40 percent lower than the 1979-2009 mean. [T]he surface water in this area is exchanging heat with the atmosphere and absorbing more sunlight during the long Arctic summer days. These two have combined to heat the top 100m of water dramatically. If the mean of its temperature from 1970-1999 is taken as a baseline, the temperatures from 2010-2016 are nearly four standard deviations higher. 2016-the most recent year we have validated data for-was 6.3 standard deviations higher. This has the effect of heating the intermediate water from above. Meanwhile, the warm Atlantic water will heat it from below. As a result, the cold intermediate water has essentially vanished [which will] make it extremely difficult for the sea ice to re-establish itself during the winter: "Increased Atlantic water inflow has recently enlarged the area where sea ice cannot form, causing reductions in the sea-ice extent." The water both starts out warmer and has increased salt content, making [winter] freezing more difficult.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/06/barents-sea-seems-to-have-crossed-a-climate-tipping-point/
reporting on a study in Nature Climate Change, 2018 Arctic warming hotspot in the northern Barents Sea linked to declining sea-ice importRising seas: 'Florida is about to be wiped off the map'
Sea level rises are not some distant threat; for many Americans they are very real. In an extract from her chilling new book, Rising, Elizabeth Rush details how the US coastline will be radically transformed in the coming years
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/26/rising-seas-florida-climate-change-elizabeth-rushPalm oil 'disastrous' for wildlife but here to stay, experts warn
The deforestation it causes is decimating species such as orangutans and tigers - but the alternatives could be worse
The analysis, from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), found that rainforest destruction caused by palm oil plantations damages more than 190 threatened species on the IUCN's red list, particularly in Indonesia and Malaysia. It also found that palm oil certified as "sustainable" is, so far, only marginally better in terms of preventing deforestation. However, alternative oil crops, such as soy, corn and rapeseed, require up to nine times as much land and switching to them could result in the destruction of wild habitat in other parts of the world
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/26/palm-oil-disastrous-for-wildlife-but-here-to-stay-experts-warnOur Climate Is Changing Rapidly. It's Time to Talk About Geoengineering.
Experts have suggested a number of methods that we could use ... though the technical challenges for implementing each would be immense. Accomplishing these proposals would also require a precise and sustained collaboration between nearly every nation on Earth, a feat that has never been accomplished. On top of that, scientists are still divided over the safety of geoengineering... "All the models suggest that if, say, you were geoengineering from now into 2100, and then suddenly stopped in 2100 ... you would get all of the global warming accumulated in the business as usual model, in about five years," Haywood says. This rebound, known as the "termination effect," means that if humans want to use any geoengineering scheme ... we would also have to dramatically reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and the amount of emissions we produce... Where does this leave us? To make a decision about anything related to climate change, no matter if it's with geoengineering or reducing emissions, the process on the human side is fundamentally the same: We all need to sit at the table and agree to collaborate to make it work. Even if a miracle-pill geoengineering technique were to emerge tomorrow, one that would guarantee a return to pre-industrial climate without side effects, we would still all have to decide to test and implement it together. So the problem moving forward probably won't be a lack of scientific wherewithal or political heft - it's simply that we have trouble agreeing. That's a problem harder than any scientific challenge, and one as old as our species. Yet, in order to avoid a worst-case scenario, it's one we'll have to overcome.
https://futurism.com/climate-change-geoengineering/Climate Change May Already Be Hitting the Housing Market
Between 2007 and 2017, average home prices in areas facing the lowest risk of flooding, hurricanes and wildfires have far outpaced those with the greatest risk, according to figures compiled for Bloomberg News by Attom Data Solutions, a curator of national property data. Homes in areas most exposed to flood and hurricane risk were worth less last year, on average, than a decade earlier.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-climate-change-home-sales/Deadly Tensions Rise as India's Water Supply Runs Dangerously Low
[mostly on Shimla but also this:] A government report released on Thursday said that India was experiencing the worst water crisis in its history, threatening millions of lives and livelihoods. Some 600 million Indians, about half the population, face high to extreme water scarcity conditions, with about 200,000 dying every year from inadequate access to safe water, according to the report. By 2030, it said, the country's demand for water is likely to be twice the available supply. "There's global warming all over India, and Shimla is no exception," said Vineet Chawdhry, chief secretary of the state of Himachal Pradesh, whose capital is Shimla. "There are around 90 cities in India which are water stressed. They face crisis today, tomorrow and the day after," Mr. Singh said. "Shimla got more media attention, but many areas are facing water scarcity."
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/17/world/asia/shimla-india-drought-water.htmlGermany Signals It Won't Target Transport for Quick Carbon Cuts
Merkel's Cabinet on Wednesday is reviewing an update of national carbon emissions that show a widening chasm between promise and reality... Cabinet ministers are at loggerheads over policy ... "I'm not going to support the destruction of the European car industry," Scheuer, a member of the Bavarian Christian Social Union, told Der Spiegel magazine.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-13/germany-signals-it-won-t-target-transport-for-quick-carbon-cutsDisasters Are Getting Costlier, So the U.S. Government Is Buying Reinsurance
Reinsurance is coverage bought by insurers -- or, in this case, FEMA -- as protection against unexpectedly high claims... In 2014, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae began buying reinsurance to protect against a drop in the value of their mortgage loans,including losses caused by natural disasters.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-13/disasters-are-getting-costlier-so-u-s-is-buying-reinsurancePollinators, but No Pollen: Spring Heat Left Europe's Plants, Insects Out of Sync
In Austria, butterflies hatched early with the heat, but their flowers hadn't opened yet. Bees are under pressure, too. 'You can see the climate change.'
About 80 percent of all wild plants rely on insect pollinators, and the majority of food crops benefit from them, according to the European Commission report. But 10 percent of pollinating insects are "on the verge of extinction," and a third of all butterfly and bee species are declining, the report states. It warns that the loss of pollinators would cost billions of dollars and could threaten food security. "It's pretty clear that bumblebees will take a big global warming hit," University of Sussex ecologist Dave Goulson said. "Many bumblebee populations are small and stressed already, and their habitat is really fragmented. That's going to greatly hamper their ability to shift in response to global warming"
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15062018/climate-change-impacts-pollination-flowers-bees-butterflies-europe-heat-wave-global-warming-researchLeaked UN draft report warns of urgent need to cut global warming
Human-induced warming would exceed 1.5C by about 2040 if emissions continued at their present rate, the report found, but countries could keep warming below that level if they made "rapid and far-reaching" changes ... if emissions continued on their present pathway, there was no chance of limiting global temperature rises even to 3C.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/15/leaked-un-draft-report-warns-of-urgent-need-to-cut-global-warming
reporting on https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-report-exclusive/exclusive-global-warming-set-to-exceed-15c-slow-growth-un-draft-idUSKBN1JA1HDGlobal vegetable supply could plummet by more than a third due to climate change, says study
The world's supply of vegetables could fall by more than a third by 2050 unless urgent action is taken to combat climate change, according to a new study. Global average yields of common crops such as soy beans and lentils are set to decrease as a result of increased temperatures and water shortages ... warn researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "Our analysis suggests that if we take a 'business as usual' approach, environmental changes will substantially reduce the global availability of these important foods," said co-author Professor Alan Dangour.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/vegetable-shortage-supply-food-production-climate-change-a8394336.html'Australia doesn't realise': worsening drought pushes farmers to the brink
Liverpool plains farmer Megan Kuhn says cows are being slaughtered because there is no way of feeding them after years of extreme weather
December was the end of their seventh calendar year of below-average rainfall. In the 12 months to May this year, they have had just over 50% of their annual average rainfall. "We can't get over a string of really hot summers. With the sheer consistency of extreme temperatures, the rate of evaporating is so high. We don't have any surface water left on our property." Last week the Timor dam was at 23.6 % of its capacity
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/10/australia-doesnt-realise-worsening-drought-pushes-farmers-to-the-brink'Carbon bubble' could spark global financial crisis, study warns
Plunging prices for renewable energy and rapidly increasing investment in low-carbon technologies could leave fossil fuel companies with trillions in stranded assets and spark a global financial crisis, a new study has found. A sudden drop in demand for fossil fuels before 2035 is likely, according to the study ... published on Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, shows that a sharp slump in the value of fossil fuels would cause this bubble to burst, and posits that such a slump is likely before 2035 based on current patterns of energy use... detailed simulations found the demand drop would take place even if major nations undertake no new climate policies, or reverse some previous commitments. That is because advances in technologies for energy efficiency and renewable power, and the accompanying drop in their price, have made low-carbon energy much more economically and technically attractive.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/04/carbon-bubble-could-spark-global-financial-crisis-study-warns
the study is at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0182-1"Die off, soft landing or full-blown collapse": Maths model reveals three possible fates facing humanity, and none are pretty
a study from the University of Rochester in New York which has mathematically modelled the outcome of an intelligent species mining a planet's resources and growing their populations accordingly. There were three outcomes, and they're varying flavours of bad.
1) The Die Off: this was by far the most common outcome - if you wanted to bet on humanity's fate, this would have pretty short odds... the population explodes and burns through the planet's resources pushing the world away from comfortable conditions. The population exceeds the planet's limit, and the life rapidly dies off to a sustainable level... as high as 70% of the population dying before things level out... Professor Frank's words here: "In reality, it's not clear that a complex technological civilization like ours could survive such a catastrophe."
2) The Soft Landing: the best option, but that's not saying a great deal... the same population growth, leading to the planet irreversibly changing, but somehow civilisation transitions to a "new, balanced equilibrium." The planet transforms, but those to blame for its transformation get to live another day.
3) Full-blown Collapse: Like the previous two scenarios, the population explodes, but in this version of events the planet just can't cope. Planets facing this model had conditions that "deteriorated so fast the civilisation's population nose-dived all the way to extinction."
4) The researchers [also] tested a model where the planets would at some point switch from high-impact resources to low-impact - like if the whole of Earth abandoned fossil fuels and installed solar panels. In some of the scenarios, this made surprisingly little difference - and some planetary models still collapsed. For these poor planets, going green only delayed the inevitable
http://www.alphr.com/science/1009482/mathematical-model-climate-change-planets
reporting on a study at https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2017.1671 which notes "In addition, values of L will be directly relevant to discussions of Fermi's paradox, as very low values could be seen as a solution to the question of "where are they" (the answer being "gone")."Tourists told to stay away from Indian city of Shimla due to water crisis
Residents of the picturesque Indian hill station Shimla are begging tourists to stay away amid a severe drinking water shortage that is being compared to Cape Town's water crisis. Water supplies have been critically low for at least the past three years but ran out completely on 20 May.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/31/tourist-told-to-stay-away-from-indian-city-shimla-water-crisisA Deadly Heat Wave Is Sweeping Over Pakistan
Temperatures in [Karachi] reached 44 degrees Celsius (111.2 degrees Fahrenheit) on Monday... temperatures could climb as high as 50C (122F) by the end of the month. Research published last year in Science Advances shows that extreme heat is likely to get worse in the region as the climate changes. The research focused on wet bulb temperature, which measures heat and humidity. The study identified a wet bulb temperature of 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) as the "upper limit on human survivability in a natural (not air-conditioned) environment." The results show that if greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current trajectory, parts of South Asia could become uninhabitable at certain times of the year.
https://earther.com/a-deadly-heat-wave-is-sweeping-over-pakistan-1826222563[Karachi] Is Running Out of Water
Karachi, home to more than 20 million people, is among the most water-stressed cities in the world, only able to meet half of its daily water demand. ... linked to myriad factors including climate change, mismanagement of water resources, and corruption. Most of all, however, a rising population increasing at a rate of 4.5 percent a year creates a strain on the finite water supply. Pakistan ranks in the top ten of countries worst affected by climate change, and water shortages are likely to deepen in both intensity and frequency in the coming decade. Pakistan's national water supply is predicted to reach critical levels of scarcity by 2025.
https://earther.com/this-coastal-megacity-is-running-out-of-water-1821950015Earth's climate to increase by 4 degrees by 2084 [possibly by 2064]
new analysis that shows the Earth's climate would increase by 4 C, compared to pre-industrial levels, before the end of 21st century ... in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-018-7160-4) ... compared 39 coordinated climate model experiments from the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (https://www.wcrp-climate.org/wgcm-cmip), which develops and reviews climate models to ensure the most accurate climate simulations possible. They found that most of the models projected an increase of 4C as early as 2064 and as late as 2095 in the 21st century, with 2084 appearing as the median year." https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-018-7160-4) ... compared 39 coordinated climate model experiments from the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (https://www.wcrp-climate.org/wgcm-cmip), which develops and reviews climate models to ensure the most accurate climate simulations possible. They found that most of the models projected an increase of 4C as early as 2064 and as late as 2095 in the 21st century, with 2084 appearing as the median year.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-05/ioap-ect052318.phpWhat 'decarbonization'? The world will soon be burning 100 million barrels of oil per day
Within a year, world oil consumption will top 100 million barrels of oil per day ... percentage of fossil fuels in the world's energy mix - coal, oil and natural gas - is still lingering well above 80 per cent, a figure that has changed little in 30 years... despite being challenged by serious environmental policies, financial pressures, viable alternative systems, public awareness and social activism... Oil and gas are growing especially fast. Recently published data reminds us that we're consuming hydrocarbons faster than ever, at robust rates on a global absolute basis
http://business.financialpost.com/commodities/energy/what-decarbonization-the-world-will-soon-be-burning-100-million-barrels-of-oil-per-dayThe year is 2050, and as climate change takes hold the bees will be the first to fall
Using climate change models, Jeff Price, a biodiversity researcher at the University of East Anglia in Norwich has compiled a list of Norfolk-based species that are unlikely to stick around if global temperature increases carry on as projected. There are 13 bumblebee species on Price's list, as well as 24 birds, 15 trees and some 270 moths that could vanish altogether if global temperatures rise by 3.2 degrees centigrade.
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/climate-change-norfolk-species-conservationIn a Warming West, the Rio Grande Is Drying Up
With spring runoff about one-sixth of average and more than 90 percent of New Mexico in severe to exceptional drought, conditions here are extreme. Even in wetter years long stretches of the riverbed eventually dry as water is diverted to farmers, but this year the drying began a couple of months earlier than usual. A study last year of the Colorado River, which provides water to 40 million people and is far bigger than the Rio Grande, found that flows from 2000 to 2014 were nearly 20 percent below the 20th century average... "Both of these rivers are poster children for what climate change is doing to the Southwest," said Jonathan T. Overpeck, dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan and an author of the Colorado study.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/24/climate/dry-rio-grande.htmlHuman race just 0.01% of all life but has eradicated most other living things
Humankind is revealed as simultaneously insignificant and utterly dominant in the grand scheme of life on Earth by a groundbreaking new assessment of all life on the planet, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/05/15/1711842115). The world's 7.6 billion people represent just 0.01% of all living things, according to the study. Yet since the dawn of civilisation, humanity has caused the loss of 83% of all wild mammals and half of plants, while livestock kept by humans abounds.Another surprise is that the teeming life revealed in the oceans ... turns out to represent just 1% of all biomass. The vast majority of life is land-based ... The new work reveals that farmed poultry today makes up 70% of all birds on the planet, with just 30% being wild. The picture is even more stark for mammals - 60% of all mammals on Earth are livestock, mostly cattle and pigs, 36% are human and just 4% are wild animals. [Comparisons with] the time before humans became farmers and the industrial revolution began reveal the full extent of the huge decline. Just one-sixth of wild mammals, from mice to elephants, remain, surprising even the scientists. In the oceans, three centuries of whaling has left just a fifth of marine mammals in the oceans ... Despite humanity's supremacy, in weight terms Homo sapiens is puny. Viruses alone have a combined weight three times that of humans, as do worms. Fish are 12 times greater than people and fungi 200 times as large. But our impact on the natural world remains immense."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-race-just-001-of-all-life-but-has-destroyed-over-80-of-wild-mammals-studyEarth just had its 400th straight warmer-than-average month thanks to global warming
Last month marked the planet's 400th consecutive month with above-average temperatures, federal scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday. The cause for the streak? Unquestionably, it's climate change, caused by humanity's burning of fossil fuels.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/17/global-warming-april-400th-consecutive-warm-month/618484002/April was Earth's 400th warmer-than-normal month in a row
In every single month after February 1985, the average global temperature has been warmer than normal - 400 months in a row.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2018/05/18/april-was-earths-400th-warmer-than-normal-month-in-a-row/Arctic Sea Ice Is Getting Younger. Here Is Why That Is a Problem.
Young, thin sea ice melts faster, putting Arctic ecosystems in danger
Since 1984, the percentage of multiyear ice cover has declined from 61 percent to just 34 percent, according to a new report from the National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC). And the oldest sea ice-ice that's been frozen for at least five years-now accounts for just 2 percent of the ice cover.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/arctic-sea-ice-is-getting-younger-here-is-why-that-is-a-problem/Emissions of banned ozone-eating chemical somehow are rising
When a hole in the ozone formed over Antarctica, countries around the world in 1987 agreed to phase out several types of ozone-depleting chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Production was banned, emissions fell and the hole slowly shrank. But starting in 2013, emissions of the second most common kind started rising, according to a study in Wednesday's journal Nature . The chemical, called CFC11, was used for making foam, degreasing stains and for refrigeration. "Emissions today are about the same as it was nearly 20 years ago,"
https://phys.org/news/2018-05-emissions-ozone-eating-chemical.html
also https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/climate/ozone-layer-cfc.htmlUncertainty in long-run economic growth likely points toward greater emissions, climate change costs
In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, researchers from the University of Illinois and Yale University ... suggest more than a 35 percent probability that emissions concentrations will exceed those assumed in even the most severe of available climate change scenarios because of the larger range of growth rates. "In the absence of meaningful climate policy, higher baseline growth scenarios likely imply higher emissions growth around the world."
https://phys.org/news/2018-05-uncertainty-long-run-economic-growth-greater.htmlScientists concerned by dramatic decline in [NL] insect population
The insect population of the Netherlands has fallen dramatically in the last 20 years, according to a detailed year-long study by the nature watchdog Natuurmonumenten ... the figures were in line with a German study of 63 rural areas, published last October, which found that the total volume of insects had fallen by 75%.
https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2018/05/scientists-concerned-by-dramatic-decline-in-insect-population/Shrinking glaciers, bigger fires and hotter nights: How climate change is altering California
As global warming accelerates, California is getting hotter and drier. Trees and animals are moving to higher ground. Air conditioning is an increasing necessity. More winter precipitation is falling as rain and there's less spring snowmelt to satisfy the water demands of farms and cities. "From record temperatures to proliferating wildfires and rising seas, climate change poses an immediate and escalating threat to California's environment, public health, and economic vitality," says a new report by dozens of scientists and compiled by the California Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-california-climate-change-20180511-story.html
CEPA report is at https://oehha.ca.gov/climate-change/report/2018-report-indicators-climate-change-californiaPrecipitation whiplash and climate change threaten California's freshwater
Almost two-thirds of California's freshwater originate in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The California Department of Water Resources found last month that the water content in the Sierra snowpack was about half its historical average for the beginning of April despite late winter storms.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/california-snow/Another extreme heat wave strikes the North Pole
In four of the past five winters, the North Pole has witnessed dramatic temperatures spikes, which previously were rare. Now, in the lead up to summer, the temperature has again shot up to unusually high levels at the tip of the planet. In just the past few days, the temperature at the North Pole has soared to the melting point of 32 degrees, which is about 30-35 degrees (17-19 Celsius) above normal. Much of the entire Arctic north of 80 degrees latitude is abnormally warm. The temperature averaged over the whole region appears to be the warmest on record for the time of year ... Already, Arctic sea ice is near its lowest extent on record. The Bering and Chukchi seas have never had so little ice in recorded history.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2018/05/07/another-extreme-heat-wave-strikes-the-north-pole/Pakistani city breaks April record with day of 50C heat
A Pakistani city has set a global record temperature for the month of April, with the mercury rising to more than 50C on Monday, prompting fears that people might leave to escape even higher temperatures when summer sets in.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/02/pakistani-city-breaks-april-record-with-day-of-50c-heat-nawabshah
see also: Climate change to cause humid heatwaves that will kill even healthy people
New analysis assesses impact of climate change on the deadly combination of heat and humidity, measured as the "wet bulb" temperature. Once this reaches 35C, the human body cannot cool itself by sweating and even fit people sitting in the shade will die within six hours.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/02/climate-change-to-cause-humid-heatwaves-that-will-kill-even-healthy-people
reporting on a study at http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/8/e1603322Shock and Thaw - Alaskan Sea Ice Just Took a Steep, Unprecedented Dive
Winter sea ice cover in the Bering Sea did not just hit a record low in 2018; it was half that of the previous lowest winter on record (2001), says John Walsh, chief scientist of the International Arctic Research Center at The University of Alaska Fairbanks. "There's never ever been anything remotely like this for sea ice" in the Bering Sea going back more than 160 years, says Rick Thoman, an Alaska-based climatologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/shock-and-thaw-alaskan-sea-ice-just-took-a-steep-unprecedented-dive/Earth's carbon dioxide levels continue to soar, at highest point in 800,000 years
Carbon dioxide - the gas scientists say is most responsible for global warming - reached its highest level in recorded history last month, at 410 parts per million. This amount is highest in at least the past 800,000 years, according to the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. Prior to the onset of the Industrial Revolution, carbon dioxide levels had fluctuated over the millennia but had never exceeded 300 parts per million. "We keep burning fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide keeps building up in the air," said Scripps scientist Ralph Keeling, who maintains the longest continuous record of atmospheric carbon dioxide on Earth. "It's essentially as simple as that."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/05/04/global-warming-carbon-dioxide-levels-continue-soar/581270002/Stronger evidence for a weaker Atlantic overturning
The Atlantic overturning—one of Earth's most important heat transport systems, pumping warm water northward and cold water southward—is weaker today than any time before in more than 1000 years ... Human-made climate change is a prime suspect for these worrying observations ... The results are supported and put into a longer-term perspective by a second study ... published in the same issue of Nature [which] provides independent confirmation for earlier conclusions that the recent weakness of the circulation is unprecedented at least for more than a millennium.
https://phys.org/news/2018-04-stronger-evidence-weaker-atlantic-overturning.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0006-5A Population That Pollutes Itself Into Extinction (and It's Not Us)
Jeff Gore, a biophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his colleagues Christoph Ratzke and Jonas Denk, report that when a sample of Paenibacillus sp., a soil bacteria, is ... allowed to grow at will, the microbes end up polluting their local environment so quickly and completely that the entire population soon kills itself off. In essence, the researchers said, the microbes commit "ecological suicide."
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/30/science/microbes-ecological-suicide.htmlLife on Earth Is Under Assault-But There's Still Hope
The Earth's life support system is failing. Nearly everywhere, the various forms of non-human life are in decline, according to a series of landmark international reports released Thursday in Medellin, Colombia. One of the studies in the assessment, published in the journal Science, found that 58 percent of Earth's land surface-where 71 percent of all humans live-has already lost enough biodiversity "to question the ability of ecosystems to support human societies."
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/03/ipbes-biodiversity-report-conservation-climate-change-spd/'Catastrophe' as France's bird population collapses due to pesticides
Bird populations across the French countryside have fallen by a third over the last decade and a half, researchers have said. Dozens of species have seen their numbers decline, in some cases by two-thirds, the scientists said in a pair of studies – one national in scope and the other covering a large agricultural region in central France ... The primary culprit, researchers speculate, is the intensive use of pesticides on vast tracts of monoculture crops, especially wheat and corn. The problem is not that birds are being poisoned, but that the insects on which they depend for food have disappeared.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/21/catastrophe-as-frances-bird-population-collapses-due-to-pesticidesAmazon deforestation is close to tipping point
Deforestation of the Amazon is about to reach a threshold beyond which the region's tropical rainforest may undergo irreversible changes that transform the landscape into degraded savanna with sparse, shrubby plant cover and low biodiversity.
https://phys.org/news/2018-03-amazon-deforestation.htmlWater shortages could affect 5bn people by 2050, UN report warns
Humans use about 4,600 cubic km of water every year, of which 70% goes to agriculture, 20% to industry and 10% to households, says the report, which was launched at the start of the triennial World Water Forum. Global demand has increased sixfold over the past 100 years and continues to grow at the rate of 1% each year. In drought belts encompassing Mexico, western South America, southern Europe, China, Australia and South Africa, rainfall is likely to decline. The shortage cannot be offset by groundwater supplies, a third of which are already in distress. Nor is the construction of more dams and reservoirs likely to be a solution... Water quality is also deteriorating. Since the 1990s, pollution has worsened in almost every river in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and it is expected to deteriorate further in the coming two decades, mainly due to agriculture runoffs.. "We all know that water scarcity can lead to civil unrest, mass migration and even to conflict within and between countries ... Ensuring the sustainable use of the planet's resources is vital for ensuring long-term peace and prosperity."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/19/water-shortages-could-affect-5bn-people-by-2050-un-report-warns'We're doomed': [UK scholar and political/social scientist] Mayer Hillman on the climate reality no one else will dare mention
"The outcome is death, and it's the end of most life on the planet because we're so dependent on the burning of fossil fuels. There are no means of reversing the process which is melting the polar ice caps. And very few appear to be prepared to say so." Hillman, an 86-year-old social scientist and senior fellow emeritus of the Policy Studies Institute, does say so. His bleak forecast of the consequence of runaway climate change, he says without fanfare, is his "last will and testament". His last intervention in public life. "I'm not going to write anymore because there's nothing more that can be said"
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/26/were-doomed-mayer-hillman-on-the-climate-reality-no-one-else-will-dare-mentionCalifornia's Water Whiplash Is Only Going To Get Worse
California was a land of extremes well before humans started pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, but Swain says that natural drought-to-deluge boomerang is already turning into whiplash. Between 2013 and 2016 the state experienced the driest three years in state history. Toward the end of 2016 a cluster of atmospheric river storms set rainfall records, causing mudslides, a major bridge collapse, and a failure on the Oroville Dam's primary spillway. Months later the largest wildfire in state history burned 280,000 acres outside of LA followed shortly by more floods and deadly mudslides.This caroming between extremes year to year is only expected to increase as a warming climate allows the atmosphere to hold exponentially more water.
https://www.wired.com/story/californias-water-whiplash-is-only-going-to-get-worse/What Is Eating Away at the Greenland Ice Sheet?
A living carpet of microbes, dust and wind-blown soot is exacerbating ice melt as Arctic temperatures rise, and it's raising alarms about sea level rise.
The problem isn't just rising temperatures: soot from ships, wildfires and distant power plants, as well as dust and a living carpet of microbes on the surface of the ice, are all speeding up the melting.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19042018/greenland-ice-sheet-melting-climate-change-arctic-pollution-sea-level-rise-algae-black-carbonOne of the most worrisome predictions about climate change may be coming true
The new research, based on ocean measurements off the coast of East Antarctica, shows that melting Antarctic glaciers are indeed freshening the ocean around them. And this, in turn, is blocking a process in which cold and salty ocean water sinks below the sea surface in winter... the melting of Antarctica's glaciers appears to be triggering a "feedback" loop in which that melting, through its effect on the oceans, triggers still more melting... it would be a Southern Hemisphere analogue of a process that has already caused great worry and drawn considerably more attention - a potential slowdown of the overturning circulation in the North Atlantic Ocean, thanks to freshening of the ocean from the melting of Greenland.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/04/23/one-of-the-most-worrisome-predictions-about-climate-change-may-be-coming-trueNorth Atlantic ocean currents are slowing
The North Atlantic currents which help to warm north-west Europe have slowed significantly since the last century, scientists confirm.
"The evidence we're now able to provide is the most robust to date," says Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute, who conceived the study. "We've analysed all the available sea surface temperature data sets, comprising data from the late 19th century until the present. The specific trend pattern we found in measurements looks exactly like what is predicted by the computer simulations as a result of a slowdown in the Gulf Stream system, and I see no other plausible explanation for it."
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/north-atlantic-ocean-currents-are-slowing/Germany agrees to take in 10,000 more migrants selected by UN refugee agency
[Woo hoo, ten thousand refugees. In a few years there will be ten million seeking entry.]
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-migrants-angela-merkel-refugees-un-a8318646.htmlOne in eight bird species is threatened with extinction, global study finds
The State of the World's Birds, a five-year compendium of population data from the best-studied group of animals on the planet, reveals a biodiversity crisis driven by the expansion and intensification of agriculture... According to the report, at least 40% of bird species worldwide are in decline, with researchers blaming human activity for the losses.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/23/one-in-eight-birds-is-threatened-with-extinction-global-study-findsSince 2016, Half of All Coral In the Great Barrier Reef Has Died
A new paper, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, reports that the Great Barrier Reef has lost more than half of its corals since 2016. The authors inspected every one of its reefs, surveying them on an almost species-by-species basis, and found the damage to be widespread across the entire ecosystem. From the report: "On average, across the Great Barrier Reef, one in three corals died in nine months," said Terry Hughes, an author of the paper and the director of the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, the Australian government's federal research program devoted to corals. "You could say [the ecosystem] has collapsed."
https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/04/19/2245211/since-2016-half-of-all-coral-in-the-great-barrier-reef-has-died
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/since-2016-half-the-coral-in-the-great-barrier-reef-has-perished/558302/Western [US] Snowpack Trends
2011 and 2017 were the only two years this decade in which the snowpack was above normal... drought returned to California after last year's wet season, with extreme drought now extending eastward from California to the Southern Plains. Arizona and New Mexico are particularly dry, with each state receiving less than half of its normal snowfall through the end of March... While the West has a long history of droughts and wet periods, the droughts have been getting more intense over the past century. This has led to a depletion of deeper groundwater... water managers in 40 states expect water shortages in some parts of their states in the next 10 years.
http://www.climatecentral.org/gallery/graphics/western-snowpack-trendsWorld's largest high Arctic lake shows startling new evidence of climate change
Remote areas in Canada's Arctic region - once thought to be beyond the reach of human impact - are responding rapidly to warming global temperatures, the University of Toronto's Igor Lehnherr has found. His research, published in Nature Communications, is the first to aggregate and analyze massive data sets on Lake Hazen, the world's largest lake by volume located north of the Arctic Circle. "Even in a place so far north, it's no longer cold enough to prevent the glaciers from shrinking," says the U of T Mississauga geographer and lead author of the study. "If this place is no longer conducive for glaciers to grow, there are not many other refuges left on the planet."
https://www.utoronto.ca/news/world-s-largest-high-arctic-lake-shows-startling-new-evidence-climate-changeUnderwater melting of Antarctic ice far greater than thought, study finds
Warming waters have caused the base of ice near the ocean floor around the south pole to shrink by 1,463 square kilometres ... suggests climate change is affecting the Antarctic more than previously believed and is likely to prompt global projections of sea-level rise to be revised upward... "What's happening is that Antarctica is being melted away at its base. We can't see it, because it's happening below the sea surface," said Professor Andrew Shepherd, one of the authors of the paper.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/02/underwater-melting-of-antarctic-ice-far-greater-than-thought-study-findsAn alarming 10 percent of Antarctica's coastal glaciers are now in retreat, scientists find
Antarctica's ocean-front glaciers are retreating, according a new satellite survey that raises additional concerns about the massive continent's potential contribution to rising sea levels... the more glaciers are retreating, the more one worries about sea-level rise. Retreating grounding lines can expose more ice to the ocean, allowing it to flow outward more rapidly.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/04/02/an-alarming-10-percent-of-antarcticas-coastal-glaciers-are-in-retreat-scientists-find/Study indicates that climate change will wreak havoc on California agriculture
But the researchers focused on a different aspect of California agriculture: You can kiss much of it goodbye because of climate change. The paper, published in the journal Agronomy last month, is the most thorough review of the literature on the regional impact of climate change in recent memory. It makes grim reading. Disruption is already evident with some crops in some regions, the paper notes... but that's nothing compared to what lies ahead. "The increased rate and scale of climate change," the researchers say, "is beyond the realm of experience for the agricultural community."
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-climate-agriculture-20180309-story.html
reporting on a paper in Agronomy "Climate Change Trends and Impacts on California Agriculture: A Detailed Review" https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4405251/Agronomy-08-00025.pdfThe Artificial Intelligence apocalypse will be a corporate hostile takeover, not Skynet
1) an Artificial Intelligence (AI) can become an Algorithmic Entity (AE) -- a fully autonomous legal person -- when an AI is merged with a corporation as its owner and controller. 2) an AE - devoid of all human control - is likely to plunge into crime as the most efficient means of fulfilling its objectives and that an AE has the particular characteristics to make it an extremely successful and ruthless criminal. 3) how would a lawful AE comport itself? Goody Two-Shoes AE would still be an awful citizen even as it scrupulously obeyed the law. 4) The major powers are suspicious of the US under our current regime and unlikely to cooperate. Our own political leadership is in thrall to the ideology that the state should regulate next to nothing. The chances of preventatively dealing with this threat, internally or internationally, are virtually nil. So, in that spirit, I suggest you all join me in welcoming our new AE overlords. They'll be arriving soon.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/3/28/1751782/-The-Artificial-Intelligence-apocalypse-will-be-a-corporate-hostile-takeover-not-Skynet-Part-I
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/3/29/1752634/-The-Artificial-Intelligence-apocalypse-will-be-a-corporate-hostile-takeover-not-Skynet-Part-II
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/3/31/1753335/-The-Artificial-Intelligence-apocalypse-will-be-a-corporate-hostile-takeover-not-Skynet-Part-IIINetherlands Butterfly Population Declined 40 Percent Since 1992
Since 1992, the number of butterflies in the country dropped by around 40 percent, ANP reports... because heathlands are closing up as a result of too high concentrations of nitrogen and its habitat is being destroyed.
https://nltimes.nl/2018/03/30/netherlands-butterfly-population-declined-40-percent-since-1992Alarmed conservationists call for urgent action to fix 'America's wildlife crisis'
One-third of species in the US are vulnerable to extinction, a crisis that has ravaged swaths of creatures such as butterflies, amphibians, fish and bats, according to a report compiled by a coalition of conservation groups. A further one in five species face an even greater threat, with a severe risk of being eliminated amid a "serious decline" in US biodiversity, the report warns... 40% of freshwater fish species in the US now vulnerable or endangered. "Species are living in smaller patches of habitat and not interacting with other members," said Erle Ellis, a professor of geography and environmental systems at the University of Maryland. Ellis has co-authored research on how the world is moving toward its sixth great mass extinction event. "Extinctions are ramping up, and if that continues it will be one for the history books for the whole planet."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/29/us-wildlife-extinction-species-reportMore Than 75 Percent of Earth's Land Areas Are 'Broken,' Major Report Finds
Once-productive lands have become deserts, are polluted, or deforested, putting 3.2 billion people at risk.
These once-productive lands have either become deserts, are polluted, or have been deforested and converted for unsustainable agricultural production. This is a major contributor to increased conflict and mass human migration, and left unchecked, could force as many as 700 million to migrate by 2050 ... It was written by more than 100 leading experts from 45 countries for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). IPBES is the 'IPCC for biodiversity,' a scientific assessment of the status of non-human life that makes up the Earth's life support system. Less than 25 percent of the Earth's land surface has escaped the substantial impacts of human activity-and by 2050, this will have fallen to less than 10 percent. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ne9nkq/how-will-we-produce-food-in-the-future-soil-degradation-climate-change-pollutionWe've lost half our wildlife. Now's the time to shout about it
Intensive farming is the problem. Three generations of making agriculture more industrial have given Europe cheap food on a mammoth scale, but a terrible environmental price has eventually been paid, which we are only now understanding. The heart of the matter is universal pesticide use: we benefit from farming wholly based on poison, which has exterminated more and more of the insects at the base of myriad food chains in the natural world.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/26/wildlife-modern-farming-insects-birdsPaul Ehrlich: 'Collapse of civilisation is a near certainty within decades'
Fifty years after the publication of his controversial book The Population Bomb, biologist Paul Ehrlich warns overpopulation and overconsumption are driving us over the edge ... The Population Bomb, written with his wife Anne Ehrlich in 1968, predicted "hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death" in the 1970s - a fate that was avoided by the green revolution in intensive agriculture. Many details and timings of events were wrong, Paul Ehrlich acknowledges today, but he says the book was correct overall.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/22/collapse-civilisation-near-certain-decades-population-bomb-paul-ehrlichWhen will the US feel the heat of global warming?
[The] authors developed a simple measure: the year in which half of the heat waves wouldn't have qualified as heat waves if it weren't for the influence of climate change. For the US West, that point was crossed in 2028. The West was followed by the Great Lakes, which crossed the threshold a decade later in 2037.... In the Northern Plains, the 50-percent threshold wasn't crossed until 2056, while the Southern Plains didn't have a clear signal of climate change until 2074... heat-related fatalities have been the biggest weather-related cause of death in the US. Identifying the areas most at risk of increased heat would help us prepare for a future where that's looking increasingly inevitable. And, in the case of the West Coast, it may be arriving in as little as a decade.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/when-will-the-us-feel-the-heat-of-global-warming/Last year dashed hopes for a climate change turnaround
After three flat years that had hinted at a possible environmental breakthrough, carbon dioxide emissions from the use of energy rose again by 1.4 percent in 2017. Global coal demand increased 1 percent last year, following two years of declines, the IEA found. Demand for oil and gas surged even more, at 1.6 percent and 3 percent, respectively.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/03/21/bad-news-for-the-climate-coal-burning-and-carbon-emissions-are-on-the-rise-again/Flooding and heavy rains rise 50% worldwide in a decade, figures show [also: a complete "switch off of the gulf stream" increasingly thought possible]
1) Global floods and extreme rainfall events have surged by more than 50% this decade, and are now occurring at a rate four times higher than in 1980, according to a new report. Other extreme climatological events such as storms, droughts and heatwaves have increased by more than a third this decade and are being recorded twice as frequently as in 1980, the paper by the European Academies' Science Advisory Council (Easac) says. The paper, based partly on figures compiled by the German insurance company Munich Re, also shows that climate-related loss and damage events have risen by 92% since 2010. The Easac study, Extreme weather events in Europe: Preparing for climate change adaptation, looked at new data and models focused on a potential slowdown of the Atlantic Gulf Stream, due to an influx of freshwater from melted ice sheets in Greenland. It was compiled by experts from 27 national science academies in the EU, Norway and Switzerland, although the paper was not peer-reviewed.
2) The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has assessed the probability of a [gulf stream] slowdown before 2100 at more than 90% - or "very likely". However, a complete "switch off of the gulf stream - or Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) - is increasingly thought possible by some scientists. Some studies say this could lower land temperatures in the UK, Greenland, Iceland and Scandinavia by up to 9C. UK arrays positioned in the north Atlantic measured a 30% drop in AMOC strength between 2009-10, the Easac study says. And while uncertainties persist about the pace and scale of possible future changes, the decline in Gulf Stream strength itself has now been "confirmed".
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/21/flooding-and-heavy-rains-rise-50-worldwide-in-a-decade-figures-showPlight of Phoenix: how long can the world's 'least sustainable' city survive?
Phoenix gets less than eight inches of rainfall each year; most of the water supply for central and southern Arizona is pumped from Lake Mead, fed by the Colorado river over 300 miles away. That river is drying up. This winter, snow in the Rocky Mountains, which feeds the Colorado, was 70% lower than average. Last month, the US government calculated that two thirds of Arizona is currently facing severe to extreme drought... The Hoover Dam holds much of the Colorado's flow in the vast Lake Mead reservoir, but the river itself is sorely depleted. That water has now dropped to within a few feet of levels that California, Nevada and Arizona, which all rely on it, count as official shortages. [BDS: at which point the CAP protocols kick in and AZ gets nothing.]
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/20/phoenix-least-sustainable-city-survive-waterClimate change soon to cause mass movement, World Bank warns
Climate change will result in a massive movement of people inside countries and across borders, creating "hotspots" where tens of millions pour into already crowded slums, according to the World Bank... Such flows of people could cause enormous disruption, threatening governance and economic and social development
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/19/climate-change-soon-to-cause-mass-movement-world-bank-warnsPart of the Great Barrier Reef exposed to more CO2; results are grim
Results from the ocean mimic those from the lab: We're screwed.
They provide homes to about a quarter of the world's fish, which many people rely on as a food source. They can act as a barrier to rising sea levels, and they can protect coastlines from eroding. But thanks to all the carbon we've pumped into the air, coral reefs are disappearing. Fast.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/part-of-the-great-barrier-reef-exposed-to-more-co%e2%82%82-and-results-are-grim/'Game changer': New vulnerability to climate change in ocean food chain
A team of researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) [demonstrated] how ocean acidification from the absorption of CO2 is affecting tiny plants known as phytoplankton...the team demonstrated how the microscopic plants require carbonate ions to acquire iron from the water to grow. As CO2 levels rise, the oceans have less carbonate, affecting phytoplankton's ability to secure sufficient nutrient iron for growth. In fact, the concentration of sea surface carbonate ions are on course to drop by half by the end of this century.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/game-changer-new-vulnerability-to-climate-change-in-ocean-food-chain-20180314-p4z4cg.htmlResearch hints at tipping point in the Atlantic's currents
A new study, however, suggests that there's a tipping point for the Atlantic conveyor that could be reached much sooner. It only relies indirectly on warm temperatures; instead, it is driven by the melting of the Greenland Icecap. And the new research suggests we've already gone nearly halfway to the tipping point.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/research-hints-at-tipping-point-in-the-atlantics-currents/Wanna limit global warming to 1.5C? Get cracking
Analysis breaks down what it would take-and it's a lot.
...it should come as no surprise that 1.5-degree scenarios involve herculean transformations of our behavior. Global emissions would have to peak within the next few years and then drop like a rock...we would probably emit the maximum allowable total of greenhouse gas in less than a decade.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/wanna-limit-global-warming-to-1-5c-get-cracking/Drastic Arctic warm event stuns scientists, as record-breaking temperatures reach the North Pole
Not only was the region near the North Pole the warmest it has been during the month of February since at least the 1950s, but one of the northernmost land-based weather stations, known as Cape Morris Jesup, exceeded the freezing mark on an unprecedented nine separate days during the month. On Feb. 25, that weather station remained above freezing for about 24 hours, which is virtually unheard of during February, when there is no sunlight reaching the ground there. Arctic sea ice in the Bering Sea and to the north of Greenland actually declined during February, a time when sea ice usually expands toward its seasonal maximum in early to mid-March.
https://mashable.com/2018/02/26/arctic-heat-wave-north-pole-february-sea-ice/Spring is Springing Earlier, Especially at the Poles
The study, published in Nature's online journal Scientific Reports, found that for every 10 degrees north from the equator you move, spring arrives about four days earlier than it did a decade ago. For example, at southern to mid latitudes such as Los Angeles, New Orleans or Dallas, the study suggests spring might be arriving a mere one day earlier than it did a decade ago. Farther north, in Seattle, Chicago or Washington D.C., it might be arriving four days earlier. And if you live in the Arctic, it might be arriving as much as 16 days earlier.
http://climatechange.ucdavis.edu/news/spring-springing-earlier-especially-poles/
journal article at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-22258-0Jason Box: Earth's Ice Is Melting Much Faster Than Forecast. Here's Why That's Worrying.
If the past decade of scientific inquiry is any indication, I'd say we are in for more surprises [because d]espite decades of progress by many clever scientists engaged with climate modeling, climate models used to inform policymakers don't yet encode key pieces of physics that have ice melting so fast ... climate models have under-predicted the loss rate of snow on land by a factor of four and the loss of sea ice by a factor of two. What ends up in global assessment reports intended to help guide policy decisions and national discussions of climate change are very conservative averages of dozens of models that don't include the latest, higher sensi tivity physics. If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on it going faster than forecast.
http://garnpress.com/2018/earths-ice-is-melting-much-faster-than-forecast-heres-why-thats-worrying/Jason Box on Youtube explaining all this
https://youtu.be/TksH_vcBxbU"Freakishly Warm" Arctic Weather Has Scientists Reconsidering Worst-Case Scenarios on Climate Change
Jason Box interview, explaining what is going on
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/3/1/freakishly_warm_arctic_weather_has_scientistsDevil’s Bargain
We already have planet-cooling technology. The problem is, it’s killing us.
When most people hear “climate change,” they think of greenhouse gases overheating the planet. But there’s another product of industry changing the climate that has received scant public attention: aerosols. They’re microscopic particles of pollution that, on balance, reflect sunlight back to space and help cool the planet down, providing a crucial counterweight to greenhouse-powered global warming. An effort to co-opt this natural cooling ability of aerosols has long been considered a potential last-ditch, desperate shot at slowing down global warming ... But there’s a catch. Our surplus of aerosols is a huge problem for those of us who like to breathe air. At high concentrations, these tiny particles are one of the deadliest substances in existence ... Research by an international team of scientists recently published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters says that the cooling effect of aerosols is so large that it has masked as much as half of the warming effect from greenhouse gases. So aerosols can’t be wiped out. Take them away and temperatures would soar overnight ... This puts our increasingly interdependent global civilization in a tough bind. Get rid of carbon emissions to fight global warming and you get rid of aerosols, pushing temperatures back up ... We are fast entering a world in which there are no good options remaining to tackle climate change. Geoengineering is dangerous, but so are aerosols, and so is accelerating climate change.
https://grist.org/article/geoengineering-climate-change-air-pollution-save-planet/Cleaning Up Air Pollution May Strengthen Global Warming
Pollution in the atmosphere is having an unexpected consequence, scientists say—it's helping to cool the climate, masking some of the global warming that's occurred so far. That means efforts worldwide to clean up the air may cause an increase in warming, as well as other climate effects, as this pollution disappears ... A study published this month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters suggests that eliminating the human emission of aerosols—tiny, air-polluting particles often released by industrial activities—could result in additional global warming ... Scientists have long known that some types of pollution can actually help cool the climate. Certain aerosols — sulfate, for instance — can reflect sunlight away from the Earth or enhance sun-reflecting cloud cover. As nations around the world have begun to crack down on air pollution, scientists have grown interested in figuring out how much extra warming might be expected as they disappear. This is critical information for strategizing ways to meet global climate goals ... results are in line with other studies that have investigated the cooling "mask" of aerosols ... Like the new study, those findings speak to both the considerable cooling effect aerosols have had on the climate and to the atmospheric linkages between different regions of the Northern Hemisphere ... the research indicates that greenhouse gas emissions have had an even greater effect on the climate so far than it appears—it's just that part of it has been obscured by the presence of air pollution. As the air gets cleaner, those masked effects will start to make themselves known.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cleaning-up-air-pollution-may-strengthen-global-warming/Timelapse video: shipping first as LNG tanker crosses Arctic in winter without icebreaker escort
vessel Eduard Toll set out from South Korea in December for Sabetta terminal in northern Russia, cutting through ice 1.8m thick. Last month, it completed the route... Arctic sea ice is steadily thinning and receding, with seasonal fluctuation, as global temperatures rise due to human activity. In January 2018, ice extent hit another record low for the month, according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Center.
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/02/12/timelapse-video-shipping-first-lng-tanker-crosses-arctic-winter-without-icebreaker-escort/Sea ice extent in the Bering Sea (Arctic) continues its decline.
https://twitter.com/ZLabe/status/967538448327352321/photo/1Sea Ice Plays a Pivotal Role in the Arctic Methane Cycle
Sea ice forms a natural barrier on the Central Arctic Ocean, limiting gas exchange between water and atmosphere. Over the past several years, the summer sea ice cover in the Arctic has rapidly decreased.
https://www.awi.de/en/about-us/service/press/archive/sea-ice-plays-a-pivotal-role-in-the-arctic-methane-cycle.htmlTop Climate Scientist: Humans Will Go Extinct if We Don't Fix Climate Change by 2023
James Anderson - a professor of atmospheric chemistry at Harvard University - warned that climate change is drastically pushing Earth back to the Eocene Epoch from 33 million BCE, when there was no ice on either pole... Anderson's assessment of humanity's timeline for action is likely accurate, given that his diagnosis and discovery of Antarctica's ozone holes led to the Montreal Protocol of 1987. Anderson's research was recognized by the United Nations in September of 1997. He subsequently received the United Nations Vienna Convention Award for Protection of the Ozone Layer in 2005, and has been recognized by numerous universities and academic bodies for his research... While some governments have made commitments to reduce carbon emissions (Germany has pledged to cut 95 percent of carbon emissions by 2050), Anderson warned that those measures were insufficient to stop the extinction of humanity by way of a rapidly changing climate.
https://gritpost.com/humans-extinct-climate-change/What Land Will Be Underwater in 20 Years? Figuring It Out Could Be Lucrative
As companies around the world grow concerned about the risks of climate change, they have started looking for clarity on how warming might disrupt their operations in the future. But governments in the United States and Europe have been slow to translate academic research on global warming into practical, timely advice for businesses or local city planners. Now some private companies, like Jupiter, are trying to fill the gap.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/23/climate/mapping-future-climate-risk.htmlCountries made only modest climate-change promises in Paris. They're falling short anyway.
Even as renewable energy grows cheaper and automakers churn out battery-powered and more efficient cars, many nations around the world are nonetheless struggling to hit the relatively modest goals set in Paris. "It's not fast enough. It's not big enough," said Corinne Le Quere, director of the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research in England. "There's not enough action."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/its-not-fast-enough-its-not-big-enough-theres-not-enough-action/2018/02/19/5cf0a7d4-015a-11e8-9d31-d72cf78dbeee_story.htmlPolar ice is lost at sea
Our planet reached another miserable milestone earlier this week: Sea ice fell to its lowest level since human civilization began more than 12,000 years ago... the overall pace of change is even worse. Global temperatures are rising at a rate far in excess of anything seen in recent Earth history.
https://grist.org/article/polar-ice-is-lost-at-sea/'Silver bullet' to suck CO2 from air and halt climate change ruled out
Scientists say climate targets cannot be met using the technologies, which either risk huge damage to the environment or are very costly
The new report is from the European Academies Science Advisory Council(EASAC), which advises the European Union and is comprised of the national science academies of the 28 member states. It warns that relying on [negative emissions technologies] instead of emissions cuts could fail and result in severe global warming and "serious implications for future generations".
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/01/silver-bullet-to-suck-co2-from-air-and-halt-climate-change-ruled-outHalf-Assed Solar Geoengineering Is Worse Than Climate Change Itself
A new paper in Nature Ecology & Evolution pokes a hole in the idea that solar geoengineering is a quick fix for global warming... would be far more dire than if we never geoengineered at all.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjy4z5/half-assed-solar-geoengineering-is-worse-than-climate-change-itselfFive-year forecast indicates further warming
A new forecast published by scientists at the Met Office indicates the annual global average temperature is likely to exceed 1 C and could reach 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels during the next five years (2018-2022) ... chance that at least one year in the period could exceed 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels (1850-1900), although it is not anticipated that it will happen this year. It is the first time that such high values have been highlighted within these forecasts.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/2018/decadal-forecast-2018Bigger, Faster Avalanches, Triggered by Climate Change
The only other comparable event scientists have recorded was the 2002 collapse of the Kolka glacier in the Caucasus Mountains. Researchers thought that collapse was linked to factors specific to the region - the glacial equivalent of a freak accident. Then came the first collapse in Tibet. "We were thinking, 'It happened again. It's not only in the Caucasus. This is crazy, it can happen somewhere else,'" Dr. Ka'a'b said. "We were not even finished thinking that, then the second one came down." It's not certain what caused the Caucasus collapse. But scientists say the driving factor in Tibet was climate change.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/climate/glacier-collapse-avalanche.htmlGlobal temperature targets will be missed within decades unless carbon emissions reversed: new study
In their latest paper, published in the February issue of Nature Geoscience, Dr Philip Goodwin from the University of Southampton and Professor Ric Williams from the University of Liverpool have projected that if immediate action isn't taken, the earth's global average temperature is likely to rise to 1.5C above the period before the industrial revolution within the next 17-18 years, and to 2.0C in 35-41 years respectively if the carbon emission rate remains at its present-day value.
https://phys.org/news/2018-01-global-temperature-decades-carbon-emissions.htmlWe Have Five Years To Save Ourselves From Climate Change, Harvard Scientist Says
James Anderson, a Harvard University professor of atmospheric chemistry best known for establishing that chlorofluorocarbons were damaging the Ozone Layer ... Recovery is all but impossible, he argued, without a World War II-style transformation of industry—an acceleration of the effort to halt carbon pollution and remove it from the atmosphere, and a new effort to reflect sunlight away from the earth's poles. This has do be done, Anderson added, within the next five years. "The chance that there will be any permanent ice left in the Arctic after 2022 is essentially zero," Anderson said, with 75 to 80 percent of permanent ice having melted already in the last 35 years. "Can we lose 75-80 percent of permanent ice and recover? The answer is no."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2018/01/15/carbon-pollution-has-shoved-the-climate-backward-at-least-12-million-years-harvard-scientist-says/Study finds that global warming exacerbates refugee crises
Higher temperatures increase the number of people seeking asylum in the EU
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/jan/15/study-finds-that-global-warming-exacerbates-refugee-crisesNOAA: Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters
During 2017, the U.S. experienced a historic year of weather and climate disasters ... tying 2011 for the record number of billion-dollar disasters ... 2017 arguably has more events than 2011 given that our analysis traditionally counts all U.S. billion-dollar wildfires, as regional-scale, seasonal events, not as multiple isolated events. More notable ... is the cumulative cost, which exceeds $300 billion in 2017 - a new U.S. annual record. The cumulative damage of these 16 U.S. events during 2017 is $306.2 billion, which shatters the previous U.S. annual record cost of $214.8 billion (CPI-adjusted), established in 2005 due to the impacts of Hurricanes Dennis, Katrina, Rita and Wilma. [Highest in order: 2017, 2011, 2016, 2008, 2012, 2015]
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/On its 100th birthday in 1959, Edward Teller warned the oil industry about global warming
Over 300 government officials, economists, historians, scientists, and industry executives were present for the Energy and Man symposium ... the American Petroleum Institute quietly received a report on air pollution it had commissioned from the Stanford Research Institute, and its warning on carbon dioxide was direct: "Significant temperature changes are almost certain to occur by the year 2000, and these could bring about climatic changes. [...] there seems to be no doubt that the potential damage to our environment could be severe."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/jan/01/on-its-hundredth-birthday-in-1959-edward-teller-warned-the-oil-industry-about-global-warmingOceans suffocating as huge dead zones quadruple since 1950, scientists warn
Areas starved of oxygen in open ocean and by coasts have soared in recent decades, risking dire consequences for marine life and humanity
Current trends would lead to mass extinction in the long run ... Climate change caused by fossil fuel burning is the cause of the large-scale deoxygenation ... coastal dead zones result from fertiliser and sewage running off the land and into the seas.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jan/04/oceans-suffocating-dead-zones-oxygen-starved
reporting on: Declining oxygen in the global ocean and coastal waters, http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6371/eaam7240Get Ready for More Volcanic Eruptions as the Planet Warms
But scientists have found another force—climate change—affects the frequency of eruptions. Now a new study shows even relatively minor climate variations may have such an influence. If they are right, today’s global warming could mean more and bigger volcanic eruptions in the future ... Scientists have noted volcanic eruptions tended to increase as glaciers melted. In a recent study published in Geology researchers looked at smaller-scale changes in glacial coverage to see if these incremental differences had any effect ... they found the number of eruptions indeed dropped significantly as the climate cooled and ice expanded [and] believe the mechanics may be fairly straightforward. When glaciers expand, all that ice puts immense pressure on Earth’s surface ... When glaciers retreat, the pressure lifts and volcanic activity surges.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/get-ready-for-more-volcanic-eruptions-as-the-planet-warms/Those 3% of scientific papers that deny climate change? A review found them all flawed
It’s often said that of all the published scientific research on climate change, 97% of the papers conclude that global warming is real. But what about those 3% of papers that reach contrary conclusions? Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist at Texas Tech University, worked with a team of researchers to look at the 38 papers published in peer-reviewed journals in the last decade that denied anthropogenic global warming. “Every single one of those analyses had an error ... none of the papers had results that were replicable.
https://qz.com/1069298/the-3-of-scientific-papers-that-deny-climate-change-are-all-flawed/How well have climate models projected global warming?
Climate models published since 1973 have generally been quite skillful in projecting future warming. While some were too low and some too high, they all show outcomes reasonably close to what has actually occurred, especially when discrepancies between predicted and actual CO2 concentrations and other climate forcings are taken into account. Models are far from perfect and will continue to be improved over time [but] the close match between projected and observed warming since 1970 suggests that estimates of future warming may prove similarly accurate.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-well-have-climate-models-projected-global-warmingClimate Migrants Might Reach One Billion by 2050
Imagine a world with as many as one billion people facing harsh climate change impacts resulting in devastating droughts and/or floods, extreme weather, destruction of natural resources, in particular lands, soils and water, and the consequence of severe livelihoods conditions, famine and starvation.
http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/08/climate-migrants-might-reach-one-billion-by-2050Heat Waves Creeping Toward a Deadly Heat-Humidity Threshold
If global warming continues on its current pace, heat waves in South Asia will begin to create conditions so hot and humid that humans cannot survive outdoors for long ... About 1.5 billion people live in the crescent-shaped region identified as the highest-risk area in a new study by scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Loyola Marymount University ... The researchers focused on a key human survivability threshold first identified in a 2010 study, when U.S. and Australian researchers showed there is an upper limit to humans' capacity to adapt to global warming. That limit is expressed as a wet-bulb temperature ... "Not even the fittest of humans can survive, even in well-ventilated shaded conditions, when the wet-bulb temperature stays above 35," said study co-author Jeremy Pal of Loyola Marymount University ... In 2015, a related study reached similar conclusions about the Persian Gulf region, projecting an even higher number of extremely hot days that could make some places unlivable ... East Asia (including parts of China, Japan and the Korean Peninsula) is another potentially vulnerable region.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02082017/heatwaves-deadly-heat-humidity-wet-bulb-human-survivability-threshold
reporting on a study at https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/8/e1603322Methane Seeps Out as Arctic Permafrost Starts to Resemble Swiss Cheese
As the Earth's frozen crust thaws, some of that gas appears to be finding new paths to the surface through permafrost that's starting to resemble Swiss cheese in some areas, scientists said.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18072017/arctic-permafrost-melting-methane-emissions-geologic-sources-studyMelting permafrost in the Arctic is unlocking diseases and warping the landscape
You can think of the Arctic permafrost as a giant kitchen freezer. If you put organic (carbon-based) matter in your freezer, the food will stay intact. But if the freezer compressor breaks, it will slowly heat up. As it heats up, bacteria begin to eat your food. The bacteria make the food go rotten. And as the bacteria consume the food, they produce carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases and chemicals that smell terrible. For tens of thousands of years, permafrost has acted like a freezer, keeping 1,400 gigatons (billion tons) of plant matter carbon trapped in the soil. (That’s more than double the amount of carbon currently in the atmosphere.) ... When the bacteria turn the carbon in the Arctic into C02 and methane, it accelerates a feedback loop. The more methane and carbon released, the more warming ... the logic here is simple: The more warming, the greater the risk of kick-starting this feedback loop.
https://www.vox.com/2017/9/6/16062174/permafrost-melting7,000 underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' in Arctic
Scientists have discovered as many as 7,000 gas-filled 'bubbles' expected to explode in Actic regions of Siberia after an exercise involving field expeditions and satellite surveillance, TASS reported. Alexey Titovsky, director of Yamal department for science and innovation, said: 'At first such a bump is a bubble, or 'bulgunyakh' in the local Yakut language. 'With time the bubble explodes, releasing gas. This is how gigantic funnels form.'
https://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0905-7000-underground-gas-bubbles-poised-to-explode-in-arctic/Russian scientists find 7,000 Siberian hills possibly filled with explosive gas
Russian scientists recently discovered 7,000 earthen knobs erupting from the Siberian Arctic, each the size of a small hill. It was as though the permafrost had broken out into giant grass-covered mounds. What's more, an unknown number of these bubbles could contain methane and explode ... Such pingos are typically up to a kilometer in diameter (six-tenths of a mile) and several tens of yards high. But the smaller, methane-filled bulges do not fit the classical definition of a pingo ... When researchers drill straight down into a traditional pingo, they hit the kernel of ice at the center. But if someone were to take a drill to an alternative pingo? "That's not good news," as Romanovsky put it. The gas within the hill is not only under immense pressure but is quite flammable." ... It is possible that alternative pingos exist in North America. The conditions seem ripe for it in the natural gas fields of Canada and Alaska.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/03/27/russian-scientists-find-7000-siberian-hills-possibly-filled-with-explosive-gas/How Air Pollution Has Put a Brake on Global Warming
Norwegian climate scientist Bjørn H. Samset talks about the results of his team’s recent research showing that aerosols linked to human activities cool the planet far more than previously believed.
Scientists have long known that these aerosols serve to block incoming solar radiation and temporarily cool the planet, but now an international team of scientists has quantified that cooling effect ... the volume of human-created aerosols is so great that they have counteracted the effect of global warming to a certain extent. There is a kind of tug of war taking place between the warming greenhouse gases and the mainly cooling aerosols.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/air-pollutions-upside-a-brake-on-global-warming
reporting on a study at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2017GL076079Global Warming Is Putting The Ocean's Phytoplankton In Danger
For decades, researchers have pointed to phytoplankton as one of the planet's most valuable resources. They form the basis of the marine food chain and provide half the ocean's oxygen ... [But] scientists say that phytoplankton is in serious danger of dying out. "Over the next 100 years, the climate will warm as greenhouses gases increase in our atmosphere," says Andrew Barton, oceanographer and associate research scholar at Princeton University. As the climate warms, Barton says, so will the oceans—bad news for phytoplankton ... Already, gradually warming ocean waters have killed off phytoplankton globally by a staggering 40 percent since 1950.
https://psmag.com/environment/global-warming-is-putting-phytoplankton-in-dangerExxon's Oil Industry Peers Knew About Climate Dangers in the 1970s, Too
Just as Exxon began tracking climate science in the late 1970s, when only small groups of scientists in academia and the government were engaged in the research, other oil companies did the same ... American Petroleum Institute together with the nation's largest oil companies ran a task force to monitor and share climate research between 1979 and 1983 ... The group's members included senior scientists and engineers from nearly every major U.S. and multinational oil and gas company, including Exxon, Mobil, Amoco, Phillips, Texaco, Shell, Sunoco, Sohio as well as Standard Oil of California and Gulf Oil, the predecessors to Chevron ... A background paper on CO2 informed API members in 1979 that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was rising steadily, and it predicted when the first clear effects of climate change might be felt, according to a memo by an Exxon task force representative. [API's work] estimated that the effects would be felt after 2000.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22122015/exxon-mobil-oil-industry-peers-knew-about-climate-change-dangers-1970s-american-petroleum-institute-api-shell-chevron-texacoPopulation Trend of the World's Monitored Seabirds, 1950-2010
We found the monitored portion of the global seabird population to have declined overall by 69.7% between 1950 and 2010. This declining trend may reflect the global seabird population trend, given the large and apparently representative sample.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0129342How did half of the great Florida coral reef system disappear?
Corals are intolerant both of temperature and salinity change and it just takes a rise of 1C for a few weeks or extreme rainfall for them to begin to die. In the past 20 years, extreme weather linked to El Nino events and climate change has hit the world's shallow reefs hard.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/27/how-did-half-of-the-great-florida-coral-reef-system-disappear-climate-bleachingLet it go: The Arctic will never be frozen again
The region is now definitively trending toward an ice-free state, the scientists said, with wide-ranging ramifications for ecosystems, national security, and the stability of the global climate system ... 2017 has seen the highest permafrost temperatures in Alaska on record. If that warming continues at the current rate, widespread thawing could begin in as few as 10 years.
http://grist.org/article/let-it-go-the-arctic-will-never-be-frozen-again/California wildfire: Thousands flee third largest blaze in state's history [note: now LARGEST in state's history]
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/california-wildfire-latest-thousands-flee-homes-blaze-evacuations-ghost-towns-santa-barbara-a8115206.htmlCalifornia's hellish fires: a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future
California's wildfire season normally ends in October. But fires are raging in Southern California two weeks shy of Christmas, impossible to contain due to intense Santa Ana winds... This was predicted by climate scientists. A 2006 study published in Geophysical Research Letters found that global warming would push the Southern California fire season associated with Santa Ana winds into the winter months.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/dec/11/californias-hellish-fires-a-visit-from-the-ghost-of-christmas-futureFuture loss of Arctic sea-ice cover could drive a substantial decrease in California's rainfall
From 2012 to 2016, California experienced one of the worst droughts since the start of observational records. As in previous dry periods, precipitation-inducing winter storms were steered away from California by a persistent atmospheric ridging system in the North Pacific. Here we identify a new link between Arctic sea-ice loss and the North Pacific geopotential ridge development... We conclude that sea-ice loss of the magnitude expected in the next decades could substantially impact California's precipitation, thus highlighting another mechanism by which human-caused climate change could exacerbate future California droughts.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01907-4The year is 2037. This is what happens when the hurricane hits Miami
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/17/miami-hurricane-2037-climate-changeEarth Will Likely Be Much Warmer in 2100 Than We Anticipated, Scientists Warn
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xwvx5q/earth-will-likely-be-much-warmer-in-2100-ipcc-projectionsLarge emissions from floodplain trees close the Amazon methane budget
Wetlands are the largest global source of atmospheric methane (CH4), a potent greenhouse gas. However, methane emission inventories from the Amazon floodplain, the largest natural geographic source of CH4 in the tropics, consistently underestimate the atmospheric burden of CH4 determined via remote sensing and inversion modelling, pointing to a major gap in our understanding of the contribution of these ecosystems to CH4 emissions.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature24639More-severe Climate Model Predictions Could Be The Most Accurate
The climate models that project greater amounts of warming this century are the ones that best align with observations of the current climate ... the models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, on average, may be underestimating future warming.
https://carnegiescience.edu/news/more-severe-climate-model-predictions-could-be-most-accurate
also see: Bad news: Warmest climate models might also be most accurate
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/12/climate-models-that-project-more-warming-might-be-more-reliable/
also see: Worst-case global warming predictions are the most accurate, say climate experts
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/global-warming-temperature-rise-climate-change-end-century-science-a8095591.html)The Dirty Secret of the World's Plan to Avert Climate Disaster
The plausibility of the Paris Climate Agreement's goals rested on what was lurking in the UN report's fine print: massive negative emissions achieved primarily through BECCS-an unproven concept to put it mildly. "negative emissions [is] "magical thinking"-a concept, he says, meant to keep the "story" of 2C, the longtime goal of international climate negotiations, alive. ... For that reason, in an article last year in Science, Anderson and Peters called relying on negative emissions "an unjust and high-stakes gamble" and a "moral hazard" that allows policymakers to avoid making tough emissions cuts right now.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-dirty-secret-of-the-worlds-plan-to-avert-climate-disaster/As Oceans Warm, the World's Kelp Forests Begin to Disappear
Kelp forests - luxuriant coastal ecosystems that are home to a wide variety of marine biodiversity - are being wiped out from Tasmania to California, replaced by sea urchin barrens that are nearly devoid of life.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/as-oceans-warm-the-worlds-giant-kelp-forests-begin-to-disappearNOAA: Climate Change: Global Temperature
By 2020, models project that global surface temperature will be more than 0.5C (0.9F) warmer than the 1986-2005 average, regardless of which carbon dioxide emissions pathway the world follows. This similarity in temperatures regardless of total emissions is a short-term phenomenon: it reflects the tremendous inertia of Earth's vast oceans. The high heat capacity of water means that ocean temperature doesn't react instantly to the increased heat being trapped by greenhouse gases. By 2030, however, the heating imbalance caused by greenhouse gases begins to overcome the oceans' thermal inertia, and projected temperature pathways begin to diverge, with unchecked carbon dioxide emissions likely leading to several additional degrees of warming by the end of the century.
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-temperatureThe Doomsday Glacier
The trouble with Thwaites ... instead of melting slowly like an ice cube on a summer day, it is more like a house of cards: It's stable until it is pushed too far, then it collapses... could happen within decades. And its loss will destabilize the rest of the West Antarctic ice, and that will go too. Seas will rise about 10 feet in many parts of the world; in New York and Boston, because of the way gravity pushes water around the planet, the waters will rise even higher, as much as 13 feet.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/the-doomsday-glacier-w481260
also see: https://grist.org/article/antarctica-doomsday-glaciers-could-flood-coastal-cities/Negative-emissions technology: What they don't tell you about climate change
Stopping the flow of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is not enough. It has to be sucked out, too
Fully 101 of the 116 models IPCC uses to chart what lies ahead assume that carbon will be taken out of the air in order for the world to have a good chance of meeting the 2C target. The total amount of CO2 to be soaked up by 2100 could be a staggering 810bn tonnes, as much as the world's economy produces in 20 years at today's rate (see article). Putting in place carbon-removal schemes of this magnitude would be an epic endeavour even if tried-and-tested techniques existed. They do not.
https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21731397-stopping-flow-carbon-dioxide-atmosphere-not-enough-it-has-be-sucked-outThe world is warming even faster than expected. Trump isn't going to act. The rest of us need to step up.
The global climate is in trouble, worsening faster than experts believed only two years ago, and ambitious international steps to address the problem have been insufficient thus far.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-climate-change-paris-bonn-20171104-story.htmlAbrupt Climate Justice
[We must change everything about how we live on the planet, very very fast, or it is game over very very soon.]
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-11-16/abrupt-climate-justice/The three-degree world: the cities that will be drowned by global warming
The UN is warning that we are now on course for 3C of global warming. This will ultimately redraw the map of the world ... latest projections pointing to an increase of 3.2C by 2100 [and good chart on averages of projections]
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/ng-interactive/2017/nov/03/three-degree-world-cities-drowned-global-warming
reporting on IPCC report The Regional Impacts of Climate Change https://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/sres/regional/index.php?idp=91Have psychologists found a better way to persuade people to save the planet? [no, but they found links between caring about equality and caring about the environment ... (duh?)]
Two recent studies relate people's views on social equality to how they think and act on environmental issues such as climate change and conservation.... Their conclusion: being accepting of social inequality ... makes a person less likely to take pro-environmental actions.
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/nov/02/psychologists-better-way-persuade-people-to-save-planet-environmentBP and Shell planning for catastrophic 5°C global warming despite publicly backing Paris climate agreement
Oil giants Shell and BP are planning for global temperatures to rise as much as 5°C by the middle of the century. The level is more than double the upper limit committed to by most countries in the world under the Paris Climate Agreement, which both companies publicly support. The discrepancy demonstrates that the companies are keeping shareholders in the dark about the risks posed to their businesses by climate change, according to two new reports published by investment campaign group Share Action. Many climate scientists say that a temperature rise of 5°C would be catastrophic for the planet.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/bp-shell-oil-global-warming-5-degree-paris-climate-agreement-fossil-fuels-temperature-rise-a8022511.htmlAre we headed for near-term human extinction? [Nov 2017]
Recent studies suggest it is irresponsible to rule out the possibility after last week's "warning to humanity" from more than 15,000 climate change scientists
A "warning to humanity" ... "of potentially catastrophic climate change" ... was published in the journal BioScience last week ... mounting evidence that points to a worst-case scenario unfolding of near-term human extinction.
https://nowtoronto.com/news/are-we-headed-for-near-term-human-extinction/
reporting on a study at https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/67/12/1026/4605229Climate change 'will create world's biggest refugee crisis'
Senior US military and security experts: Tens of millions of people will be forced from their homes by climate change in the next decade, creating the biggest refugee crisis the world has ever seen.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/02/climate-change-will-create-worlds-biggest-refugee-crisisHere's How Far the World Is From Meeting Its Climate Goals
Worse, even if governments do take further steps to meet their individual pledges, the world will still be on pace to warm well in excess of 2 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/06/climate/world-emissions-goals-far-off-course.htmlThe U.S. Is on the Threshold of the Biggest Oil and Gas Boom Ever
The IEA said the U.S. will account for 80% of the increase in global oil supply between now and 2025, as shale producers find ever more ways to pump oil profitably even at lower prices. By the late 2020s, the U.S. will become a net exporter of oil for the first time since the 1950s.
http://fortune.com/2017/11/14/us-oil-and-gas-boomUN Environment: 2017 Emissions Gap Report
Documents the gap between what must be done to meet IPCC targets, and what is actually being done. TLDR: we aren't doing anywhere near enough
http://www.unenvironment.org/resources/emissions-gap-reportTHE UNINHABITABLE VILLAGE
Hotter temperatures are forcing families in southern India to decide: Try to survive here, or leave?
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/26/world/middleeast/india-farmers-drought.htmlUK is 30-40 years away from 'eradication of soil fertility', warns Gove
The UK is 30 to 40 years away from "the fundamental eradication of soil fertility" in parts of the country, the [Tory!] environment secretary Michael Gove has warned ... In 2014 Sheffield University researchers said that UK farm soils only had 100 harvests left in them [note: some places have more than one harvest annually], and a year later a UN spokesperson warned that at current rates of degradation, the world's topsoil could be gone within 60 years.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/24/uk-30-40-years-away-eradication-soil-fertility-warns-michael-gove'We will be toasted, roasted and grilled': IMF chief sounds climate change warning
"If we don't address these issues... we will be moving to a dark future" in 50 years, she told a major economic conference ... "we will be toasted, roasted and grilled" if the world fails to take "critical decisions" on climate change.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/25/we-will-be-toasted-roasted-and-grilled-imf-chief-sounds-climate-change-warningGlobal wine production predicted to slump to 50-year low
"This drop is the consequence of climate hazards," said Aurand. "In the European Union extreme weather events - from frost to drought - significantly impacted 2017 wine production, which was historically low." [and so it begins...]
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/oct/24/global-wine-production-predicted-to-slump-to-50-year-lowHidden Costs of Climate Change Running Hundreds of Billions a Year
In the coming decade, economic losses from extreme weather combined with the health costs of air pollution spiral upward to at least $360 billion annually, potentially crippling U.S. economic growth
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/09/climate-change-costs-us-economy-billions-report/Extreme Weather, Climate Change Costing Taxpayers Billions
The economic impacts are already enormous, yet this is just the beginning.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/extreme-weather-climate-change-costing-taxpayers-billions-n813431There's Only One Way to Avoid Climate Catastrophe: 'De-growing' our Economy
Study after study shows the same thing: keeping global warming below 2 degrees is simply not compatible with continued economic growth.
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-10-20/theres-only-one-way-to-avoid-climate-catastrophe-de-growing-our-economy/Hurricane Maria May Be a Preview of Climate-Fueled Migration in America
Influx could strain housing, services in East Coast cities
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-27/hurricane-maria-may-be-u-s-preview-of-climate-fueled-migrationThis Isn't 'the New Normal' for Climate Change - That Will Be Worse
[W]e have not, at all, arrived at a new normal. It is more like we've taken one step out on the plank off a pirate ship ... The last few months of climate disasters may look like about as much as the planet can take. But things are only going to get worse.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/10/why-this-isnt-the-new-normal-for-climate-change.htmlChipocalypse: potato shortage in New Zealand sparks crisp crisis
Fears grow of 'potatogeddon' after up to 30% of the crop are hit by heavy rains blamed on climate change
"You can go for a week without politics but try going for a week without potatoes. It is a food staple and this is becoming a food security issue as the effects of climate change take their toll on our potato crop" Potato crops planted last year have either rotted in the soil due to the heavy rains, or had to remain unharvested because of the torrential downpours. Next year's crop will also be affected because the ground has not been dry enough for planting.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/16/chipocalypse-potato-shortage-in-new-zealand-sparks-crisp-crisisTropical forests are a net carbon source based on aboveground measurements of gain and loss
Are tropical forests a net source or net sink of atmospheric carbon dioxide? Baccini et al. used 12 years of MODIS satellite data to determine ... that the tropics are a net carbon source, with losses owing to deforestation and reductions in carbon density within standing forests being double that of gains resulting from forest growth.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6360/230'Antibiotic apocalypse': doctors sound alarm over drug resistance
At present about 700,000 people a year die from drug-resistant infections. However, this global figure is growing relentlessly and could reach 10 million a year by 2050. "In the Ganges during pilgrimage season, there are levels of antibiotics in the river that we try to achieve in the bloodstream of patients" ... "In the end, the problem posed to the planet by antimicrobial resistance is not that difficult," says O'Neill. "All that is required is to get people to behave differently. How you achieve that is not so clear, of course."
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/oct/08/world-faces-antibiotic-apocalypse-says-chief-medical-officerSeptember [2017] sets alarming global temperature record and negates a favorite denier talking point
It was also the most active month on record for North Atlantic hurricanes.
https://thinkprogress.org/september-climate-records-488cfe1703f9/Why the wiring of our brains makes it hard to stop climate change
Humans aren't well wired to act on complex statistical risks. We care a lot more about the tangible present than the distant future.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/planetpolicy/2017/09/18/why-the-wiring-of-our-brains-makes-it-hard-to-stop-climate-change/2017 is so unexpectedly warm it is freaking out climate scientists
"Extremely remarkable" 2017 heads toward record for hottest year without an El Nino episode.
https://thinkprogress.org/no-el-nino-still-hot-39162a5cc5bc/Brazil's worst month ever for forest fires blamed on human activity
September saw more fires than any month on record, as experts say uptick is due to expansion of agriculture and reduction of oversight and surveillance
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/brazils-worst-month-ever-for-forest-fires-blamed-on-human-activity-21739Sixth mass extinction of wildlife also threatens global food supplies
Plant and animal species that are the foundation of our food supplies are as endangered as wildlife but get almost no attention, a new report reveals
Three-quarters of the world's food today comes from just 12 crops and five animal species and this leaves supplies very vulnerable to disease and pests that can sweep through large areas of monocultures, as happened in the Irish potato famine when a million people starved to death. Reliance on only a few strains also means the world's fast changing climate will cut yields just as the demand from a growing global population is rising.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/26/sixth-mass-extinction-of-wildlife-also-threatens-global-food-suppliesChips, chocolate and coffee - our food crops face mass extinction too
Up to 22% of wild potato species are predicted to become extinct by 2055 due to climate change. In Ghana and Ivory Coast, where the raw ingredient for 70% of our chocolate is grown, cacao trees will not be able to survive as temperatures rise by two degrees over the next 40 years. Coffee yields in Tanzania have dropped 50% since 1960.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/26/chips-chocolate-and-coffee-our-food-crops-face-mass-extinction-tooAlarm as study reveals world's tropical forests are huge carbon emission source
Forests globally are so degraded that instead of absorbing emissions they now release more carbon annually than all the traffic in the US, say researchers
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/28/alarm-as-study-reveals-worlds-tropical-forests-are-huge-carbon-emission-sourceThresholds of catastrophe in the Earth system [mass extinction by 2100]
perturbations of Earth's carbon cycle lead to mass extinction if they exceed either a critical rate at long time scales or a critical size at short time scales. By analyzing 31 carbon isotopic events during the past 542 million years, I identify the critical rate with a limit imposed by mass conservation. Identification of the crossover time scale separating fast from slow events then yields the critical size. The modern critical size ... is roughly similar to the mass of carbon that human activities will likely have added to the oceans by the year 2100.
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/9/e1700906The great nutrient collapse
The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the worse. And almost nobody is paying attention.
Due to rising CO2 levels "[a]cross nearly 130 varieties of plants and more than 15,000 samples collected from experiments over the past three decades, the overall concentration of minerals like calcium, magnesium, potassium, zinc and iron had dropped by 8 percent on average. The ratio of carbohydrates to minerals was going up. The plants ... were becoming junk food."
http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrients-carbon-dioxide-000511Red list: ash trees and antelopes on the brink of extinction
Native ash trees, abundant across North America, are on the brink of extinction as an invasive beetle ravages forests... list now includes more than 25,000 species at risk of extinction... species that were thought to be safe, are now disappearing faster than they can be counted.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/14/red-list-ash-trees-and-antelopes-on-the-brink-of-extinctionThe Ends of the World is a page-turner about mass extinction
Brannen shows us how [all] past extinction crises were in fact climate crises... For instance, at the end of the Permian 252 million years ago, colossal lava flows in what is now Siberia poisoned the atmosphere with deadly gases. Geologists call it "The Great Dying" for a reason... as Penn State geoscientist Lee Kump dryly notes in the book: "the rate at which we're injecting CO2 into the atmosphere today, according to our best estimates, is ten times faster than it was during the End-Permian."
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/the-ends-of-the-world-is-page-turner-about-mass-extinction/Stop talking right now about the threat of climate change. It's here; it's happening
This is a race against time. Global warming is a crisis that comes with a limit - solve it soon or don't solve it
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/11/threat-climate-change-hurricane-harvey-irma-droughtsThe World's Largest Chocolate Maker Is Committing $1 Billion to Fight Climate Change
Grant Reid, CEO of Mars, explained the rationale behind the investment, noting that "most scientists are saying there's less than a 5% chance we will hit Paris agreement goals...which is catastrophic for the planet." He argued that the global supply chain is broken, requiring "transformational, cross-industry collaboration" to fix it.
http://fortune.com/2017/09/06/mars-pledge-one-billion-fight-climate-change/Alaska's Permafrost Is Thawing
By 2050, much of this frozen ground, a storehouse of ancient carbon, could be gone.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/23/climate/alaska-permafrost-thawing.htmlNASA: Carbon Dioxide July 2017 406.69 ppm
Historic comparison of CO2 ppm. Going back hundreds of thousands of years it never exceeded about 300 ppm and was usually much lower. In 1958 it was 315 ppm, 1968 about 320 ppm. Since then it's been accelerating, especially the last 25 years. 1993 it was about 360, today it's 406. At this rate it will be 450 in 20 years and we're headed to Venus. [my paraphrase]
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/Climate change to cause humid heatwaves that will kill even healthy people
New analysis assesses impact of climate change on the deadly combination of heat and humidity, measured as the "wet bulb" temperature. Once this reaches 35C, the human body cannot cool itself by sweating and even fit people sitting in the shade will die within six hours.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/02/climate-change-to-cause-humid-heatwaves-that-will-kill-even-healthy-people
reporting on a study at http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/8/e1603322Today's Extreme Heat May Become Norm Within a Decade
When 2015 blew the record for hottest year out of the water, it made headlines around the world. But a heat record that was so remarkable only two years ago will be just another year by 2040 at the latest, and possibly as early as 2020, regardless of whether theStadhouderslaan 41, 2517 HV Den Haag greenhouse gas emissions warming the planet are curtailed
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/extreme-heat-norm-within-decade-21622As a river dies: India could be facing its 'greatest human catastrophe' ever
As crops and farmers die, experts blame a man-made "drought of common sense" for the drying up of Southern India's Cauvery River, once a lifeline to millions.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/cnainsider/as-a-river-dies-india-could-be-facing-its-greatest-human-9060070A third of the world now faces deadly heatwaves as result of climate change
Study shows risks have climbed steadily since 1980, and the number of people in danger will grow to 48% by 2100 even if emissions are drastically reduced
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/19/a-third-of-the-world-now-faces-deadly-heatwaves-as-result-of-climate-changeHuge drop in men’s sperm levels confirmed by new study
From the study: "Sperm count and other semen parameters have been plausibly associated with ... endocrine disrupting chemicals."
Sperm count in men from North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand declined by 50-60% between 1973 and 2011 ... most experts agree that the data presented is of a high quality and that the conclusions, although alarming, are reliable ... There has been concern for a number of years about an increase in abnormalities in male reproductive health, such as testicular cancer. The decline in sperm counts is consistent with these increases and this adds weight to the concept that male reproductive health is under attack and is declining rapidly. In fact, if the data on sperm counts is extrapolated to its logical conclusion, men will have little or no reproductive capacity from 2060 onwards.
https://theconversation.com/huge-drop-in-mens-sperm-levels-confirmed-by-new-study-here-are-the-facts-81582
reporting on a study at https://academic.oup.com/humupd/article/23/6/646/4035689Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says
If fossil fuels continue to be extracted at the same rate over the next 28 years as they were between 1988 and 2017, says the report, global average temperatures would be on course to rise by 4C by the end of the century.
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-changeThe Uninhabitable Earth
David Wallace-Wells on famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak - sooner than you think.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html
and the annotated edition (with citations for every claim) at http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans-annotated.htmlEarth's sixth mass extinction event already under way, scientists warn
The new study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, eschews the normally sober tone of scientific papers and calls the massive loss of wildlife a "biological annihilation" that represents a "frightening assault on the foundations of human civilisation".
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/10/earths-sixth-mass-extinction-event-already-underway-scientists-warn
study at http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/07/05/1704949114.abstractThird-hottest June globally puts 2017 on track to make one of three hottest years
2017 will almost certainly make a hat-trick of annual climate records, with 2015, 2016 and 2017 being the three hottest years since records began. ... warming is now at levels not seen for 115,000 years, and leave some experts with little hope for limiting warming to 1.5C or even 2C. ... Pitman said the ongoing trend was "entirely inconsistent" with the target of keeping warming at just 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures. ... Current trends suggest the 1.5C barrier would be breached in the 2040s, with some studies suggesting it might happen much sooner.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/19/third-hottest-june-puts-2017-on-track-to-make-trifecta-of-hottest-yearsStephen Hawking issues dire warning about the threat Trump poses to a livable climate
Famed physicist warns that by exiting the Paris climate deal, the president could render Earth uninhabitable.
https://thinkprogress.org/stephen-hawking-trump-could-push-earth-over-the-brink-to-catastrophic-warming-8a7fcaffb855Tipping points are real: Gradual changes in carbon dioxide levels can induce abrupt climate changes
During the last glacial period, within only a few decades the influence of atmospheric CO2 on the North Atlantic circulation resulted in temperature increases of up to 10 degrees Celsius in Greenland [my note: ...and we're pumping CO2 (etc) into the atmosphere much faster now than happened then...]
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170623100414.htm
and https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170619125822.htmRising seas could result in 2 billion refugees by 2100
By 2060, about 1.4 billion people could be climate change refugees, according to the paper. Geisler extrapolated that number to 2 billion by 2100.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170626105746.htmThe trouble with geoengineers “hacking the planet”
Albedo modification is sometimes thought of as something you can do to hold warming in check while “buying time” to decarbonize the economy, but this is a fundamental misconception. Each additional kilogram of carbon dioxide emitted commits the Earth to a certain amount of warming that essentially never goes away ... so the need for continued geoengineering to counteract that additional warming never goes away ... Moreover, because carbon dioxide accumulates inexorably in the atmosphere so long as emissions continue, one cannot even achieve the more modest goal of slowing the rate of warming without inexorably increasing the amount of albedo modification deployed each year.
https://thebulletin.org/2017/06/the-trouble-with-geoengineers-hacking-the-planet/World has three years left to stop dangerous climate change, warn experts
"Avoiding dangerous levels of climate change is still just about possible, but will require unprecedented effort and coordination from governments, businesses, citizens and scientists in the next three years, a group of prominent experts has warned ... if emissions can be brought permanently lower by 2020 then the temperature thresholds leading to runaway irreversible climate change will not be breached."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/28/world-has-three-years-left-to-stop-dangerous-climate-change-warn-expertsScientists stunned by Antarctic rainfall and a melt area bigger than Texas
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/06/15/scientists-just-documented-a-massive-melt-event-on-the-surface-of-antarcticaIs the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet inevitable?
Short answer: yes. "[U]nder medium and high scenarios, collapse is unstoppable."
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-collapse-west-antarctic-ice-sheet-inevitable
reporting on a study in Nature http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v526/n7573/abs/nature15706.htmlThe New Climate
... it goes without saying that "ordinary folk" shouldn't have too many illusions about how the venture is going to turn out. You don't need to be very bright to foresee that the whole thing will end in a terrible conflagration. This is the only real parallel with the different fascisms. The challenge to be met is tailor-made for Europe, since it is Europe that invented the strange story of globalization and then became one of its victims. History will belong to those who can be the first to come to earth, to land on an earth that can be inhabited - unless the others, the dreamers of old-style realpolitik, have finally made that earth vanish for good.
https://harpers.org/archive/2017/05/the-new-climate/Study suggests melting of Arctic permafrost may release massive amounts of nitrous oxide
[N]itrous oxide is also a greenhouse gas, but because far less of it is emitted into the atmosphere, it has not generated the same degree of interest as carbon dioxide. But that might have to change, as the researchers suggest that the impact of melting permafrost might lead to the release of massive amounts of the gas. This could be a problem because nitrous oxide causes more blanketing in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide-prior research has shown it to be 300 times as heat retaining.
https://phys.org/news/2017-05-arctic-permafrost-massive-amounts-nitrous.htmlHalf the global population could face 'unknown' climates by mid-century
The results suggest that by the 2030s, around half of the global population can expect to experience "unfamiliar" climates (compared to 1986-2005), and "unknown" climates by mid-century. By 2100, only 20% of the world's population would avoid living in "unknown" climates, the paper says.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/half-global-population-could-face-unknown-climates-by-mid-century reporting on a study in Nature Climate Change https://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v7/n6/full/nclimate3297.html (see also Tropics to see 'unprecedented' climates under future warming https://www.carbonbrief.org/video-tropics-to-see-unprecedented-climates-under-future-warming)The Nightmare Scenario for Florida's Coastal Homeowners
Demand and financing could collapse before the sea consumes a single house.
...banks could stop writing 30-year mortgages for coastal homes, shrinking the pool of able buyers and sending prices lower still... causing more sales and another drop in revenue. And all of that could happen before the rising sea consumes a single home.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-04-19/the-nightmare-scenario-for-florida-s-coastal-homeownersEarth could break through a major climate threshold in the next 15 years, scientists warn
Using model projections of future climate warming under a business-as-usual scenario, they suggest that the Earth could hit the 1.5-degree temperature threshold as early as 2025 ... The scientists explored all but the last scenario in their paper and found that the projected year for crossing the 1.5-degree threshold varied slightly among them. Generally, however, the models suggested it would occur between 2025 and 2029 (most likely around 2026) ... the 2025 date for hitting the 1.5-degree temperature threshold is looking more and more likely.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation-world/ct-earth-major-climate-threshold-20170509-story.htmlPlanting trees cannot replace cutting carbon dioxide emissions, study shows
Growing plants and then storing the carbon dioxide they have taken up from the atmosphere is not a viable option to counteract unmitigated emissions from fossil fuel burning, a new study shows. Plantations would need to be so large they would eliminate most natural ecosystems or reduce food production if implemented as a late-regret option in the case of substantial failure to reduce emissions, finds the new study in Earth’s Future, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
https://blogs.agu.org/geospace/2017/05/18/planting-trees-cannot-replace-cutting-carbon-dioxide-emissions-study-shows/Major Report Prompts Warnings That the Arctic Is Unraveling
The report increases projections for global sea-level rise ... IPCC's middle estimates for sea-level rise should now be considered minimum estimates.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/major-report-prompts-warnings-that-the-arctic-is-unraveling1/
also in Nature http://www.nature.com/news/huge-arctic-report-ups-estimates-of-sea-level-rise-1.21911 Huge Arctic report ups estimates of sea-level riseStop swooning over Justin Trudeau, the man is a disaster for the planet. by Bill McKibben
Last month speaking at a Houston petroleum industry gathering he got a standing ovation from the oilmen for saying "No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there." 173 billion barrels is indeed the estimate for recoverable oil in the tarsands. If Canada digs up that oil and sells it to people to burn, it will produce 30% of the carbon necessary to take us past the 1.5C target that Canada helped set in Paris. Canada's oil will use up a third of the earth's remaining carbon budget.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/17/stop-swooning-justin-trudeau-man-disaster-planet900 miles of the Great Barrier Reef have bleached severely since 2016
In 2016, two thirds of corals in the northern sector of the reef died after severe bleaching from unusually warm waters. 2017 has seen the major bleaching shift southward.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/04/09/for-the-second-year-in-a-row-severe-coral-bleaching-has-struck-the-great-barrier-reef/'It scares me': Permafrost thaw in Canadian Arctic sign of global trend
Like a popsicle taken out of the freezer and left on the counter, the permanently frozen ground in the northern reaches of this country is thawing at an ever faster rate ... Scientists in the Northwest Territories, Alaska and Siberia are now realizing that as the ground under them melts, it will not only make life harder for the people living in the Arctic, but will in fact speed up climate change around the globe.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/it-scares-me-permafrost-thaw-in-canadian-arctic-sign-of-global-trend-1.4069173Humans causing climate to change 170 times faster than natural forces
"We are not saying the astronomical forces of our solar system or geological processes have disappeared, but in terms of their impact in such a short period of time they are now negligible compared with our own influence," Steffen said.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/12/humans-causing-climate-to-change-170-times-faster-than-natural-forces
also in https://www.newscientist.com/article/2120951-simple-equation-shows-how-human-activity-is-trashing-the-planet/Japan's Biggest Coral Reef Devastated by Bleaching
Almost three-quarters of Japan's biggest coral reef has died [due to] rising sea temperatures caused by global warming.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/12/almost-75-of-japans-biggest-coral-reef-has-died-from-bleaching-says-reportRise in methane emissions in 10 years surprises scientists
Scientists have been surprised by the surge, which began just over 10 years ago in 2007 and then was boosted even further in 2014 and 2015.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/dec/12/rapid-rise-methane-emissions-10-years-surprises-scientistsClimate change escalating so fast it is 'beyond point of no return'
New study rewrites two decades of research and author says we are 'beyond point of no return' Global warming is beyond the “point of no return”, according to the lead scientist behind a ground-breaking climate change study. The full impact of climate change has been underestimated because scientists haven't taken into account a major source of carbon in the environment ... The findings, which say temperatures will increase by 1C by 2050, are already being adopted by the United Nations ... study found that 55bn tonnes in carbon, not previously accounted for by scientists, will be emitted into the atmosphere by 2050.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/donald-trump-climate-change-policy-global-warming-expert-thomas-crowther-a7450236.htmlQuantifying global soil carbon losses in response to warming
The majority of the Earth's terrestrial carbon is stored in the soil. Our empirical relationship suggests that global soil carbon stocks in the upper soil horizons will fall by 30 +/- petagrams of carbon under [just] one degree of warming [and more with further warming]. Under the conservative assumption that the response of soil carbon to warming occurs within a year, a business-as-usual climate scenario would drive the loss of 55 +/- petagrams of carbon from the upper soil horizons by 2050. [about the same amount as entire US economy]
http://www.nature.com/articles/nature20150.epdf'Last Chance' to Limit Global Warming to Safe Levels, UN Scientists Warn
unless nations ramp up their carbon-reduction pledges before 2020, it will be nearly impossible to keep warming to 2 degrees.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03112016/un-climate-scientists-last-chance-limit-global-warming-marrakech-morocco-cop-22Melting Ice Raised Sea Levels More Than Previously Thought, Study Says
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21102016/melting-ice-glaciers-sea-level-rise-underestimated-study-GreenlandConsensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming
The consensus that humans are causing recent global warming is shared by 90%–100% of publishing climate scientists according to six independent studies by co-authors of this paper. Those results are consistent with the 97% consensus reported by Cook et al (Environ. Res. Lett. 8 024024) based on 11 944 abstracts of research papers
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002
see also https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024/metaWorld wildlife 'falls by 58% in 40 years'
decline could reach two-thirds among vertebrates by 2020.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37775622Rapid submarine ice melting in the grounding zones of ice shelves in West Antarctica
Extraordinarily rapid melting of the bottom 1000 to 1500 feet of solid ice of west Antarctica's Smith glacier
http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13243World on track to lose two-thirds of wild animals by 2020, major report warns
animal populations plummeted by 58% between 1970 and 2012, with losses on track to reach 67% by 2020.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/oct/27/world-on-track-to-lose-two-thirds-of-wild-animals-by-2020-major-report-warnsThis Lady Scientist Defined the Greenhouse Effect But Didn't Get the Credit, Because Sexism
Eunice Foote's career highlights the subtle forms of discrimination that have kept women on the sidelines of science.
"Three years later, the well-known Irish physicist John Tyndall published similar results demonstrating the greenhouse effects of certain gases... Presently, Tyndall's work is widely accepted as the foundation of modern climate science, while Foote's remains in obscurity."
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/lady-scientist-helped-revolutionize-climate-science-didnt-get-credit-180961291/Do the math! Because climate sensitivity is logarithmic, 1.5C target was already breached at 400 ppm
According to ‘conventional climate science’ the currently already emitted amount of CO2 (404 ppm) leads to a committed warming of 1.56 degrees Celsius. To keep ‘the promise of Paris’ – the CO2 concentration must go down, down to below 400 ppm on the decades timescale, and (yes, Hansen was right there too) closer to 350 ppm to also prevent ‘the slow climate catastrophe’ ... let’s just for a moment be very simplistic and say there are ‘two types of climate inertia’. Decades-timescale climate inertia (close to the definition of ‘Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity’) and the longer timescale climate inertia (‘Earth System Sensitivity’). Both add extra warming (ECS in the order of 0.5 degrees, ESS possibly an additional 1-2 degrees) to the currently observed temperatures, without requiring a further rise in CO2 ... at the 400 ppm CO2 level (official measurement during COP21 climate summit) we had already breached the 1.5 degrees target. To be more precise: 400 ppm equals 1.53 degrees, and at 404 we’re currently already at 1.56 degrees! This is if you stick to rather conventional estimates of climate sensitivity (3 degrees warming for a doubling of CO2) and still ignore other climate forcers we’re emitting.
http://www.bitsofscience.org/do-the-math-climate-sensitivity-logarithmic-1-5-degrees-400-ppm-7237/Climate change could cross key threshold in a decade: scientists
The planet could pass a key target on world temperature rise in about a decade, prompting accelerating loss of glaciers, steep declines in water availability, worsening land conflicts and deepening poverty, scientists said this week.
http://in.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-impacts-conference-idINKCN11S1FEObituary: Great Barrier Reef (25 Million BC-2016)
No one knows if a serious effort could have saved the reef, but it is clear that no such effort was made.
http://www.outsideonline.com/2112086/obituary-great-barrier-reef-25-million-bc-2016
more details at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/07/the-great-barrier-reef-a-catastrophe-laid-bareEmpty skies after 9/11 set the stage for an unlikely climate change experiment
On the morning of September 11 2001 [FAA ordered] every aircraft in U.S. airspace, about 4,000 of them, to land somewhere, anywhere, immediately ... About a year after the attacks [scientists] argued in a paper that thin clouds created by contrails reduce the range of temperatures. By contributing to cloud cover during the day, they reflect solar energy that would otherwise have reached the earth’s surface. At night, they trap warmth that would otherwise have escaped. Other studies have tended to back up the research. The effect during the three days that flights were grounded was strongest in populated regions where air traffic was normally densest. The increase in range came to about two degrees Celsius.
https://globalnews.ca/news/2934513/empty-skies-after-911-set-the-stage-for-an-unlikely-climate-change-experiment/Flooding of Coast, Caused by Global Warming, Has Already Begun
For decades, as the global warming created by human emissions caused land ice to melt and ocean water to expand, scientists warned that the accelerating rise of the sea would eventually imperil the United States' coastline. Now, those warnings are no longer theoretical. The inundation of the coast has begun.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/science/flooding-of-coast-caused-by-global-warming-has-already-begun.htmlGlobal Warming Rate 'Unprecedented'
The world has already experienced a peak temperature that is dangerously close to the 1.5 degree Celsius limit the international community agreed to in last year's landmark Paris climate accord... warming at a pace the world hasn't experienced in the past 1,000 years, NASA's top climate scientist warns. "Maintaining temperatures below the 1.5 degree Celsius guardrail requires significant and very rapid cuts in carbon dioxide emissions or co-ordinated geo-engineering," Schmidt said. "That is very unlikely."
http://www.ibtimes.com/global-warming-rate-unprecedented-nasa-scientist-warns-temperature-change-unlike-2409191Generation Anthropocene: How humans have altered the planet for ever
We are living in the Anthropocene age, in which human influence on the planet is so profound - and terrifying - it will leave its legacy for millennia.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/01/generation-anthropocene-altered-planet-for-everDangerous global warming will happen sooner than thought - study
Australian researchers say a global tracker monitoring energy use per person points to 2C warming by 2030
The world is on track to reach dangerous levels of global warming much sooner than expected...University of Queensland and Griffith University researchers have developed a "global energy tracker" which predicts average world temperatures could climb 1.5C above pre-industrial levels by 2020. That forecast, based on new modelling using long-term average projections on economic growth, population growth and energy use per person, points to a 2C rise by 2030.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/10/dangerous-global-warming-will-happen-sooner-than-thought-studyThe Crazy Scale of Human Carbon Emission
Want some perspective on how much carbon dioxide human activity produces? Here it is Between 1751 and 1987 fossil fuels put about 737 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. Between just 1987 and 2014 it was about the same mass: 743 billion tons. Total CO2 from industrialized humans in the past 263 years: 1,480 billion tons. A coniferous forest fire can release about 4.81 tons of carbon per acre [so] to release an equivalent CO2 mass to the past 263 years of human activity would require about 1.5 billion acres of forest to burn every year during that time. That's 6 million square kilometres of burning forest every year for more than two centuries. Except that is for an average output, spread across 263 years. Estimates of today's CO2 production go as high as about 40+ billion tons per year. That'd take something like 10 Billion acres of forest burning each year, which is about 42 million square kilometres. The entire continent of Africa is a mere 30 million square kilometres. So [Africa] plus another third, on fire, each year.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/life-unbounded/the-crazy-scale-of-human-carbon-emission/Only five years left before 1.5C carbon budget is blown
In 2014, IPCC laid out estimates of how much CO2 we can emit and still keep global average temperature rise to no more than 1.5C, 2C or 3C above pre-industrial levels. That same year, Carbon Brief used these estimates to calculate how many years of current emissions were left before blowing these budgets. Updating this analysis for 2016, our figures suggest that just five years of CO2 emissions at current levels would be enough to use up the carbon budget for a good chance - a 66% probability - of keeping global temperature rise below 1.5C.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-only-five-years-left-before-one-point-five-c-budget-is-blownA lower limit for future climate emissions
A comprehensive new study was published in the journal Nature Climate Change. In previous projections for the maximum carbon we can burn and still stay within a 2C rise we have been overestimating the available budget by 50% to more than 200%.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-02/iifa-all021816.phpLess than 2C warming by 2100 unlikely
IPCC projections to 2100 give likely ranges of global temperature increase ... However, these projections are not based on a fully statistical approach ... The likely range of global temperature increase is 2.0-4.9C, with median 3.2C and [only] a 5% (1%) chance that it will be less than 2C (1.5C)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3352.epdfTrees and plants reached 'peak carbon' 10 years ago
New data shows 'peak carbon', when vegetation consumed its largest carbon dioxide feast, occurred in 2006, and since then appetite has been decreasing ... the new data reveals that trees and plants are already 10 years beyond peak carbon. In 2014 alone, the shortfall in carbon absorption was equivalent to a year's worth of human-produced emissions from China. “By next year the shortfall might equate to the emissions of China plus Australia, for example,” Curran explains. “Every year it is getting a little bit worse.” ... as the plants' appetite continues to decline, the fight to tackle global warming will become even harder.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/climate/trees-and-plants-reached-peak-carbon-10-years-agoEven ExxonMobil says climate change is real. So why won't the GOP?
With no government action, Exxon experts told us during a visit to The Post last week, average temperatures are likely to rise by a catastrophic ... 5 degrees Celsius, with rises of 6, 7 or even more quite possible.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/even-exxonmobil-says-climate-change-is-real-so-why-wont-the-gop/2015/12/06/913e4b12-9aa6-11e5-b499-76cbec161973_story.htmlHere’s what happens when you try to replicate climate contrarian papers
[A] new paper published in the journal of Theoretical and Applied Climatology examines a selection of contrarian climate science research and attempts to replicate their results. The idea is that accurate scientific research should be replicable, and through replication we can also identify any methodological flaws in that research ... There is a 97% expert consensus on a cohesive theory that’s overwhelmingly supported by the scientific evidence, but the 2–3% of papers that reject that consensus are all over the map, even contradicting each other. The one thing they seem to have in common is methodological flaws like cherry picking, curve fitting, ignoring inconvenient data, and disregarding known physics ... these types of flaws were the norm, not the exception, among the contrarian papers that we examined.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/aug/25/heres-what-happens-when-you-try-to-replicate-climate-contrarian-papersNew study shows Arctic Ocean rapidly becoming more corrosive to marine species
New research by NOAA, University of Alaska, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the journal Oceanography shows that surface waters of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas could reach levels of acidity that threaten the ability of animals to build and maintain their shells by 2030, with the Bering Sea reaching this level of acidity by 2044. “Our research shows that within 15 years, the chemistry of these waters may no longer be saturated with enough calcium carbonate for a number of animals from tiny sea snails to Alaska King crabs to construct and maintain their shells at certain times of the year,” said Jeremy Mathis, an oceanographer at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and lead author. “This change due to ocean acidification would not only affect shell-building animals but could ripple through the marine ecosystem.”
https://research.noaa.gov/article/ArtMID/587/ArticleID/718/New-study-shows-Arctic-Ocean-rapidly-becoming-more-corrosive-to-marine-speciesWhere the River Runs Dry
The Colorado and America's water crisis.
The compact granted 7.5 million acre-feet per year to each basin. (An acre-foot is the amount of water that would cover an acre to a depth of a foot - roughly three hundred and twenty-five thousand gallons.) The total was based on estimates by hydrologists that the average annual flow of the Colorado was at least seventeen million acre-feet a year. Subsequent studies, including tree-ring analyses, have proved that the hydrologists were wrong. It's now known that the years on which the original estimates were based, in the early twentieth century, had been the wettest since the sixteen-hundreds, and that 1922, the year of the agreement, was one of the very wettest. Since then, there have been years when the total flow was less than a third of what the negotiators assumed, and scientists have identified ancient dry periods that lasted for many decades... The legal right to use every gallon is owned or claimed by someone - in fact, more than every gallon, since theoretical rights to the Colorado's flow (known as "paper water") vastly exceed its actual flow (known as "wet water"). That imbalance has been exacerbated by the drought in the Western United States, now in its sixteenth year, but even if the drought ended tomorrow problems would remain. The river has been "over-allocated" since the states in its drainage basin first began to divide the water among themselves, nearly a century ago, and scientists expect climate change to strain it further, in part by reducing precipitation in the mountains that feed it... The impact on human activity has been less obvious than it might have been, because the river's two huge reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, have acted like lower-basin credit cards. In 1998, both lakes were essentially full and, between them, stored more than fifty million acre-feet of water - roughly two and a half years' worth of the river's average total flow. Today, they contain less than half that much. In a paper published in 2008, two scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography wrote that "currently scheduled depletions are simply not sustainable."
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/25/the-disappearing-riverSmoldering Peat Megafires: The Largest Fires on Earth
Smoldering megafires are the largest and longest burning fires on Earth. They destroy essential peat land ecosystems and are responsible for 15% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions. This is the same amount attributed to all the combustion engine vehicles in the world, yet it is not accounted for in global carbon budgets ... the burning of deep peat affects older soil carbon that has not been part of the active carbon cycle for centuries to millennia, and thus creates a positive feedback to the climate system.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B978044459510200001XStudy finds more evidence for link between wavy jet stream and extreme weather
Rutgers University climate scientist Jennifer Francis and colleagues link that wavy jet stream to a warming Arctic, where climate changes near the top of the world are happening faster than in Earth's middle latitudes. A new study from Francis and University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist Stephen Vavrus, published in IOPscience, backs up that theory, with evidence linking regional and seasonal conditions in the Arctic to deeper north-south jet stream waves which will lead to more extreme weather across the country.
https://phys.org/news/2015-02-evidence-link-wavy-jet-stream.htmlThe Implications of the Drought in the Colorado River Basin on Arizona's Water Supply
Arizona can use up to 2.8 million acre-feet of water annually from the Colorado River when certain conditions are met. However, not all water rights along the Colorado River are equal. Arizona's rights to the Colorado River are junior to other states' rights in part due to the creation of the Central Arizona Project. The Colorado River Basin Project Act of 1968 created the Central Arizona Project, but it did not come without a cost. In exchange for California's congressional support for federal funding for the Central Arizona Project, Arizona guaranteed California's Colorado River entitlement as a priority over Arizona's. This agreement will continue to affect Arizona as water supplies in the Colorado River Basin get more constrained.
https://hydrowonk.com/blog/2015/01/06/the-implications-of-the-drought-in-the-colorado-river-basin-on-arizonas-water-supply/Freezing viruses in time
The 2014 outbreak of Ebola in West Africa has generated understandable interest in how long viruses can survive outside of a host. Is it a matter of minutes, several hours, a few days? How about 700 years? Remarkably, a new study in PNAS by Ng et al. shows that viruses can survive intact in ice patches for at least this period and retain their infectivity.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4250107/How Climate Change is Sinking Seabirds
In warming oceans, seabirds' food chains are headed straight to the bottom.
http://www.audubon.org/magazine/september-october-2014/how-climate-change-sinking-seabirdsThe Great Oxygenation Event: The Earth's first mass extinction
Earth has already seen six mass extinctions. The first was likely the worst.
Let me tell you about a catastrophe ... an apocalypse that was literally global in scale, and one of the most deadly disasters in Earth’s history. It began about 2.5 billion years ago. Although there may have been some bacterial life on land, it was the oceans that teemed with it, and even there life was far simpler than it is today. Most of the bacteria thriving on Earth were anaerobic, literally metabolizing their food without oxygen. But then an upstart appeared, and things changed. This new life came in the form of cyanobacteria, sometimes called blue-green algae. Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic. They convert sunlight into energy and produce oxygen as a waste product. Back then, the Earth’s atmosphere didn’t have free oxygen in it as it does today. It was locked up in water molecules, or bonded to iron in minerals. The cyanobacteria changed that. But not at first: For a while, as they produced free oxygen as their waste, iron would bond with it and the environment could keep up with the production. At some point, though, as cyanobacteria flourished, the minerals and other sinks became saturated. They could no longer absorb the oxygen being produced. It built up in the water, in the air. To the other bacteria living in the ocean—anaerobic bacteria, remember—oxygen was toxic. The cyanobacteria were literally respiring poison. A die-off began, a mass extinction killing countless species of bacteria. It was the Great Oxygenation Event. But there was worse to come. Up until this time, the atmosphere was devoid of the reactive molecule. But as oxygen abundances increased, some of it combined with methane to create carbon dioxide. Methane is a far more efficient greenhouse gas than CO2, and this methane was keeping the planet warm. As levels dropped, the Earth cooled. This triggered a massive glaciation event, a global ice age that locked the planet in its grip. Things got so bad the cyanobacteria themselves were threatened. Their own numbers dropped, along with nearly all other life on Earth. The mass extinction that followed was vast. But there was an exception: Some organisms could use that oxygen in their own metabolic processes. Combining oxygen with other molecules can release energy, a lot of it, and that energy is useful. It allowed these microscopic plants to grow faster, breed faster, live faster. The anaerobic species died off, falling to the oxygen-burning plants, which prospered in this new environment. Certainly, anaerobes didn’t vanish from the Earth, but they were vanquished to low-oxygen environments such as the bottom of the ocean. They were no longer the dominant form of life on Earth. It was perhaps the first of the mass extinctions life would face on our planet ... It’s an interesting tale, don’t you think? The dominant form of life on Earth, spread to the far reaches of the globe, blissfully and blithely pumping out vast amounts of pollution, changing the environment on a planetary scale, sealing their fate. They wouldn’t have been able to stop even if they knew what they were doing, even if they had been warned far, far in advance of the effects they were creating. If this is a cautionary tale, if there is some moral you can take away from this, you are free to extract it for yourself.
https://slate.com/technology/2014/07/the-great-oxygenation-event-the-earths-first-mass-extinction.htmlMeet the Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement
Nearly a billion dollars a year is flowing into the organized climate change counter-movement The overwhelming majority of climate scientists, international governmental bodies, relevant research institutes and scientific societies are in unison in saying that climate change is real, that it's a problem, and that we should probably do something about it now, not later. And yet, for some reason, the idea persists in some peoples' minds that climate change is up for debate, or that climate change is no big deal. Actually, it's not “for some reason” that people are confused. There's a very obvious reason. There is a very well-funded, well-orchestrated climate change-denial movement, one funded by powerful people with very deep pockets. In a new and incredibly thorough study, Drexel University sociologist Robert Brulle took a deep dive into the financial structure of the climate deniers, to see who is holding the purse strings ... “This is how wealthy individuals or corporations translate their economic power into political and cultural power,” he said. “They have their profits and they hire people to write books that say climate change is not real. They hire people to go on TV and say climate change is not real ... the tactics that this movement uses were developed and tested in the tobacco industry first, and now they’re being applied to the climate change movement, and in fact, some of the same people and some of the same organizations that were involved in the tobacco issue are also involved in climate change" ... The climate denial movement is a powerful political force, says Brulle. They've got to be, too, to outweigh in the public's mind the opinions of pretty much every relevant scientist.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/meet-the-money-behind-the-climate-denial-movement-180948204/New finding shows climate change can happen in a geological instant
"Rapid" and "instantaneous" are words geologists don't use very often. But Rutgers geologists use these exact terms to describe a climate shift that occurred 55 million years ago. In a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Morgan Schaller and James Wright contend that following a doubling in carbon dioxide levels, the surface of the ocean turned acidic over a period of weeks or months and global temperatures rose by 5 degrees centigrade - all in the space of about 13 years. Scientists previously thought this process happened over 10,000 years.
https://phys.org/news/2013-10-climate-geological-instant.htmlHuman infertility: are endocrine disruptors to blame?
Over recent decades, epidemiological studies have been reporting worrisome trends in the incidence of human infertility rates. Extensive detection of industrial chemicals in human serum, seminal plasma and follicular fluid has led the scientific community to hypothesise that these compounds may disrupt hormonal homoeostasis, leading to a vast array of physiological impairments ... They may disturb intrauterine development, resulting in irreversible effects and may also induce transgenerational effects ... Current data suggest that environmental levels of EDs may affect the development and functioning of the reproductive system in both sexes, particularly in foetuses, causing developmental and reproductive disorders, including infertility. EDs may be blamed for the rising incidence of human reproductive disorders. This constitutes a serious public health issue that should not be overlooked.
https://ec.bioscientifica.com/view/journals/ec/2/3/R15.xmlGlobal warming slows down world economy: report
The DARA and Climate Vulnerable Forum report, which was commissioned by 20 governments and is due to be presented on Wednesday in New York, paints a grim picture of the economic fallout of climate change. The "Climate Vulnerability Monitor" report finds "unprecedented harm to human society and current economic development that will increasingly hold back growth, on the basis of an important updating and revision of previous estimates of losses linked to climate change." However, according to the report, tackling climate change's causes would instead bring "significant economic benefits for world, major economies and poor nations alike."
http://phys.org/news/2012-09-global-world-economy.htmlGeologic methane seeps along boundaries of Arctic permafrost thaw and melting glaciers
Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, accumulates in subsurface hydrocarbon reservoirs, such as coal beds and natural gas deposits. In the Arctic, permafrost and glaciers form a `cryosphere cap' that traps gas leaking from these reservoirs, restricting flow to the atmosphere. With a carbon store of over 1,200Pg, the Arctic geologic methane reservoir is large when compared with the global atmospheric methane pool of around 5Pg. As such, the Earth's climate is sensitive to the escape of even a small fraction of this methane. Here, we document the release of 14C-depleted methane to the atmosphere [from] over 150,000 seeps.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo1480James Hansen: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought
In a new analysis of the past six decades of global temperatures, which will be published Monday, my colleagues and I have revealed a stunning increase in the frequency of extremely hot summers, with deeply troubling ramifications for not only our future but also for our present. This is not a climate model or a prediction but actual observations of weather events and temperatures that have happened. Our analysis shows that it is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be directly linked to climate change. To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change ... The odds that natural variability created these extremes are minuscule, vanishingly small. To count on those odds would be like quitting your job and playing the lottery every morning to pay the bills ... Our new peer-reviewed study, published by the National Academy of Sciences, makes clear that while average global temperature has been steadily rising due to a warming climate, the extremes are actually becoming much more frequent and more intense worldwide.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/climate-change-is-here--and-worse-than-we-thought/2012/08/03/6ae604c2-dd90-11e1-8e43-4a3c4375504a_story.htmlWhy Did the Mayan Civilization Collapse? A New Study Points to Deforestation and Climate Change
Why did the Maya, a remarkably sophisticated civilization made up of more than 19 million people, suddenly collapse sometime during the 8th or 9th centuries? Although the Mayan people never entirely disappeared—their descendants still live across Central America—dozens of core urban areas in the lowlands of the Yucatan peninsula, such as Tikal, went from bustling cities to abandoned ruins over the course of roughly a hundred years ... In his 2005 book Collapse, though, Jared Diamond [suggested] that a prolonged drought, exacerbated by ill-advised deforestation, forced Mayan populations to abandon their cities. That hypothesis has finally been put to the test with archaeological evidence and environmental data and the results published this week in a pair of studies ... Because cleared land absorbs less solar radiation, less water evaporates from its surface, making clouds and rainfall more scarce. As a result, the rapid deforestation exacerbated an already severe drought [that] was responsible for 60 percent of the total drying that occurred over the course of a century as the Mayan civilization collapsed. The lack of forest cover also contributed to erosion and soil depletion. In a time of unprecedented population density, this combination of factors was likely catastrophic. Crops failed, especially because the droughts occurred disproportionately during the summer growing season. Coincidentally, trade shifted from overland routes, which crossed the heart of the lowland, to sea-based voyages, moving around the perimeter of the peninsula. Since the traditional elite relied largely upon this trade—along with annual crop surpluses—to build wealth, they were sapped of much of their power. This forced peasants and craftsmen into making a critical choice, perhaps necessary to escape starvation: abandoning the lowlands. The results are the ornate ruins that stretch across the peninsula today ... the Maya were no fools. They knew their environment and how to survive within it—and still they continued deforesting at a rapid pace, until the local environment was unable to sustain their society.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-did-the-mayan-civilization-collapse-a-new-study-points-to-deforestation-and-climate-change-30863026/Updated Comparison of The Limits to Growth with Historical Data
The Limits to Growth standard run scenario produced 40 years ago continues to align well with historical data that has been updated in this paper, following a 30-year comparison by the author. The scenario results in collapse of the global economy and environment, and subsequently the population. Although the modelled fall in population occurs after about 2030 – with death rates reversing contemporary trends and rising from 2020 onward – the general onset of collapse first appears at about 2015 when per capita industrial output begins a sharp decline. Given this imminent timing, a further issue this paper raises is whether the current economic difficulties of the global financial crisis are potentially related to mechanisms of breakdown in the Limits to Growth standard run scenario.
https://doi.org/10.14512/gaia.21.2.10
see also 'Limits to Growth' entries elsewhere on this pageNo way out? The double-bind in seeking global prosperity alongside mitigated climate change
[Garrett, 2011] introduced a simple economic growth model designed to be consistent with general thermodynamic laws [with] a hypothesis that the global economy's current rate of primary energy consumption is tied through a constant to a very general representation of its historically accumulated wealth. Observations support this hypothesis [and] allows for treatment of seemingly complex economic systems as simple physical systems ... Extending the model to the future, the model suggests that the well-known IPCC SRES scenarios substantially underestimate how much CO2 levels will rise for a given level of future economic prosperity ... For atmospheric CO2 concentrations to remain below a "dangerous" level of 450 ppmv ... it appears that civilization may be in a double-bind. If civilization does not collapse quickly this century, then CO2 levels will likely end up exceeding 1000 ppmv; but, if CO2 levels rise by this much, then the risk is that civilization will gradually tend towards collapse.
https://www.earth-syst-dynam.net/3/1/2012/esd-3-1-2012.htmlClimate change scientists warn of 4C global temperature rise
A hellish vision of a world warmed by 4C within a lifetime has been set out by an international team of scientists, who say the agonisingly slow progress of the global climate change talks that restart in Mexico today makes the so-called safe limit of 2C impossible to keep. A 4C rise in the planet's temperature would see severe droughts across the world and millions of migrants seeking refuge as their food supplies collapse. "There is now little to no chance of maintaining the rise in global surface temperature at below 2C, despite repeated high-level statements to the contrary," said Kevin Anderson, from the University of Manchester ... A rise of 4C could be seen as soon as 2060 in a worst case scenario, according to research in the same journal, led by the Met Office's Richard Betts [who] accepts the scenario is extreme but argues it is also plausible given the rapidly rising trend in emissions ... Another Met Office study analyses how a 4C rise would differ from a 2C rise, concluding that threats to water supplies are far worse, in particular in southern Europe and north Africa, where regional temperatures would rise 6-8C. The 4C world would also see enhanced warming over most of the US, Canada and northern Asia.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/nov/29/climate-change-scientists-4c-temperaturePhytoplankton Population Drops 40 Percent Since 1950
The microscopic plants that form the foundation of the ocean's food web are declining, reports a study published July 29 in Nature. The tiny organisms, known as phytoplankton, also gobble up carbon dioxide to produce half the world's oxygen output—equaling that of trees and plants on land ... Researchers at Canada's Dalhousie University say the global population of phytoplankton has fallen about 40 percent since 1950. That translates to an annual drop of about 1 percent of the average plankton population between 1899 and 2008 ... [The researchers] believe that rising sea temperatures are driving the decline. As surface water warms, it tends to form a distinct layer that does not mix well with cooler, nutrient-rich water below, depriving phytoplankton of some of the materials they need to turn CO2 and sunlight into energy.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/phytoplankton-population/
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09268A Food Chain Crisis in the World's Oceans
Temperatures on the surface of our oceans are rising because of climate change, resulting in a reduction of the stock of phytoplankton ... Since 1899, the average global mass of phytoplankton has shrunk by 1 percent each year, an international research team reported in the latest issue of the journal Nature. Since 1950, phytoplankton has declined globally by about 40 percent ... If the trend continues and the phytoplankton mass continues to shrink at a rate of 1 percent per year, the "entire food chain will contract" ... the decline is happening in eight of the 10 regions studied. In one of the other two, the phytoplankton is disappearing even more quickly ... Half of the oxygen produced by plants comes from phytoplankton ... In addition, phytoplankton absorbs a huge amount of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide each year. The disappearance of the microscopic organisms could further accelerate warming.
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/phytoplankton-s-dramatic-decline-a-food-chain-crisis-in-the-world-s-oceans-a-709135.html
reporting on a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09268Humans will be extinct in 100 years says eminent scientist
Eminent Australian scientist Professor Frank Fenner, who helped to wipe out smallpox, predicts humans will probably be extinct within 100 years, because of overpopulation, environmental destruction and climate change. Fenner, who is emeritus professor of microbiology at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, said homo sapiens will not be able to survive the population explosion and “unbridled consumption,” and will become extinct, perhaps within a century, along with many other species. United Nations official figures from last year estimate the human population is 6.8 billion, and is predicted to pass seven billion next year ... While many scientists are also pessimistic, others are more optimistic. Among the latter is a colleague of Professor Fenner, retired professor Stephen Boyden, who said he still hopes awareness of the problems will rise and the required revolutionary changes will be made to achieve ecological sustainability.
https://phys.org/news/2010-06-humans-extinct-years-eminent-scientist.htmlIs Global Warming Unstoppable?
University of Utah scientist argues that rising carbon dioxide emissions - the major cause of global warming - cannot be stabilized unless the world's economy collapses ... "It looks unlikely that there will be any substantial near-term departure from recently observed acceleration in carbon dioxide emission rates," says the new paper by Tim Garrett, an associate professor of atmospheric sciences. ... "I'm not an economist, and I am approaching the economy as a physics problem" ... Garrett treats civilization like a "heat engine" that "consumes energy and does 'work' in the form of economic production, which then spurs it to consume more energy," he says. "If society consumed no energy, civilization would be worthless," he adds. "It is only by consuming energy that civilization is able to maintain the activities that give it economic value.
https://archive.unews.utah.edu/news_releases/is-global-warming-unstoppable/
also see https://physicsworld.com/a/modelling-civilization-as-heat-engine-could-improve-climate-predictions/
reporting on a paper at https://arxiv.org/abs/0811.1855Naomi Klein: Climate Change "Not Just About Things Getting Hotter... It's About Things Getting Meaner"
http://billmoyers.com/story/naomi-klein-climate-change-not-just-about-things-getting-hotter-its-about-things-getting-meaner/Melting permafrost could blow world's remaining carbon budget
http://indiaclimatedialogue.net/2015/12/10/melting-permafrost-could-blow-worlds-remaining-carbon-budget/Sea level rise will swallow Miami, New Orleans: study
Say goodbye to Miami and New Orleans. No matter what we do to curb global warming, these and other beloved US cities will sink below rising seas
http://www.afp.com/en/news/sea-level-rise-will-swallow-miami-new-orleans-studyClimate Change, Blue Water Cargo Shipping and Predicted Ocean Wave Activity
The effects of climate change increasing blue-water wave height and power will obsolete the entire global merchant fleet within a few decades making the sea-based shipping on which our entire global economy is based impossible in a warming world. "If the ships cannot handle the seas (NO ship is designed, or can cost effectively be designed, to handle anywhere near 100 tons per square meter of force on her hull), shipping itself will no longer be cost effective unless cargo ships morph into cargo submarines. The cost of doing that is staggering... CONCLUSIONS: Global Civilization is threatened within 25 years or less."
Part 1: http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/climate-change/global-warming-is-with-us/msg4045/#msg4045
Part 2: http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/climate-change/global-warming-is-with-us/msg4050/#msg4050
Part 3: http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/climate-change/future-earth/msg4074/#msg4074Maximum warming occurs about one decade after a carbon dioxide emission
Using conjoined results of carbon-cycle and physical-climate model intercomparison projects (Taylor et al 2012, Joos et al 2013), we find the median time between an emission and maximum warming is 10.1 years, with a 90% probability range of 6.6–30.7 years.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/9/12/124002/metaWhen The End Of Human Civilization Is Your Day Job
Among many climate scientists, gloom has set in. Things are worse than we think, but they can't really talk about it.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a36228/ballad-of-the-sad-climatologists-0815/Economist Magazine: Investors could lose $4.2 trillion due to impact of climate change
https://eiuperspectives.economist.com/sites/default/files/The%20cost%20of%20inaction_0.pdf
see also https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/24/investors-could-lose-42tn-due-to-impact-of-climate-change-report-warnsScientific American: Apocalypse Soon: Has Civilization Passed the Environmental Point of No Return?
Remember how Wile E. Coyote, in his obsessive pursuit of the Road Runner, would fall off a cliff? The hapless predator ran straight out off the edge, stopped in midair as only an animated character could, looked beneath him in an eye-popping moment of truth, and plummeted straight down into a puff of dust ... Jorgen Randers of the BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo, and one of the original World3 modelers, argues that the second half of the 21st century will bring us near apocalypse in the form of severe global warming. Dennis Meadows, professor emeritus of systems policy at the University of New Hampshire who headed the original M.I.T. team and revisited World3 in 1994 and 2004, has an even darker view. The 1970s program had yielded a variety of scenarios, in some of which humanity manages to control production and population to live within planetary limits (described as Limits to Growth). Meadows contends that the model's sustainable pathways are no longer within reach because humanity has failed to act accordingly. Instead, the latest global data are tracking one of the most alarming scenarios, in which these variables increase steadily to reach a peak and then suddenly drop in a process called collapse.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/apocalypse-soon-has-civilization-passed-the-environmental-point-of-no-return/
see also 'Limits to Growth' entries elsewhere on this pageGlobal warming: Four degree rise will end vegetation 'carbon sink', research suggests
New research suggests that a temperature increase of four degrees is likely to "saturate" areas of dense vegetation with carbon, preventing plants from helping to balance CO2 escalation -- and consequently accelerating climate change.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131216154851.htmGlobal megatrend #8: Resource stress
By 2030, significant changes in global production and consumption, along with the cumulative effects of climate change, are expected to create further stress on already limited global resources. Stress on the supply of these resources directly impacts the ability of governments to deliver on their core policy pillars of economic prosperity, security, social cohesion and environmental sustainability.
https://home.kpmg/xx/en/home/insights/2013/10/resource-stress.htmlFood, Energy, Water And The Climate: A Perfect Storm Of Global Events?
By John Beddington CMG FRS
Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government, Government Office for Science
There is an intrinsic link between the challenge we face to ensure food security through the 21st century and other global issues, most notably climate change, population growth and the need to sustainably manage the world’s rapidly growing demand for energy and water. It is predicted that by 2030 the world will need to produce 50 per cent more food and energy, together with 30 per cent more available fresh water, whilst mitigating and adapting to climate change. This threatens to create a ‘perfect storm’ of global events.
https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20121206120858/http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/goscience/docs/p/perfect-storm-paper.pdfFor Insurers, No Doubts on Climate Change
Most insurers, including the reinsurance companies that bear much of the ultimate risk in the industry, have little time for the arguments heard in some right-wing circles that climate change isn’t happening ... “Insurance is heavily dependent on scientific thought,” Frank Nutter, president of the Reinsurance Association of America, told me last week. “It is not as amenable to politicized scientific thought.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/15/business/insurers-stray-from-the-conservative-line-on-climate-change.htmlHow Climate Change Will Destroy Your Country's Credit Rating
S&P has yet to change any country’s credit rating based on its vulnerability to climate change, noting that the complexity of the phenomenon makes it difficult to assess the specific impact on any one nation. Yet clearly the rating agency is thinking about it. In the report, S&P scored a nation’s vulnerability to climate change-related credit risk according to what percentage of its population lives in coastal areas that are 16 feet or less above sea level; agriculture’s share of gross domestic product, given food production is highly dependent on climate; and its ranking on the Notre Dame University Global Adaptation Index, which measures a country’s ability to adapt to climate change.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/how-climate-change-will-devastate-your-countrys-credit-rating/371065/NCAR: Widespread Loss Of Ocean Oxygen To Become Noticeable In 2030s
A reduction in the amount of oxygen dissolved in the oceans due to climate change is already discernible in some parts of the world and should be evident across large regions of the oceans between 2030 and 2040, according to a new study led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research
https://www2.cgd.ucar.edu/loss-ocean-oxygen
reporting on a study at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/2015GB005310Hot, crowded, and running out of fuel: Earth of 2050 a scary place
A new report published by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development paints a grim picture of the world in 2050 based on current global trends. It predicts a world population of 9.2 billion people, generating a global GDP four times the size of today's, requiring 80 percent more energy. And with a worldwide energy mix still 85 percent reliant on fossil fuels by that time, it will be coal, oil, and gas that make up most of the difference, the OECD predicts. Should that prove the case, and without new policy, the report warns the result will be the "locking in" of global warming, with a rise of as much as 6 C (about 10.8 F) predicted by the end of the century.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2012/03/hot-crowded-and-running-out-of-fuel-earth-of-2050-a-scary-place/Global temperature to rise 3.5 degrees C. by 2035: International Energy Agency
Unless governments cut subsidies for fossil fuels and adopt new policies to support renewable energy sources, the Copenhagen Accord to hold global warming to less than a 2-degree increase will not be reached.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-Issues/2010/1111/Global-temperature-to-rise-3.5-degrees-C.-by-2035-International-Energy-AgencyClimate change taken seriously by insurance industry, study says
Paying out billions of dollars here and billions of dollars there has made the global insurance industry a believer in climate change, according to a new study that shows insurance companies are staunch advocates for reducing carbon emissions and minimizing the risk posed by increasingly severe weather events.
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/dec/14/science/la-sci-sn-climate-change-that-you-can-believe-in-20121213Climate change will be an economic disaster for rich and poor, new study says
will have devastating effects on the global economy, reducing average global incomes by nearly one-fourth relative to a world without climate change and widening the gap between rich and poor countries.
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-climate-change-economic-disaster-20151026-column.htmlHow long before the Great Plains runs out of water?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/12/how-long-before-the-midwest-runs-out-of-water/Continued Drought Means Another Big Drop for Ogallala Aquifer
The Ogallala Aquifer suffered its second-worst drop since at least 2000 in a 16-county swath of the Texas Panhandle, new measurements show. With the drought showing little sign of abating, farmers face another tough year.
http://www.texastribune.org/2013/05/22/ogallala-aquifer-texas-panhandle-suffers-big-drop/Washington state rain no cure for drought, due to bleak snowpack
“What we’re experiencing is essentially a snowpack drought,” Maia Bellon, director of the state Department of Ecology, told reporters Friday. “As of this very moment, the projected snowpack is 4% of normal in the Olympic Mountains.”
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-washington-state-drought-20150314-story.htmlRising seas threaten South Florida’s drinking water
[R]ising sea levels change things in unexpected ways, and seawater threatens to turn the drinking water salty. In some places, the ocean has already made good on that threat. And the problem is going to get worse ... One of this little barrier’s main jobs is actually to get rid of freshwater after heavy rains, to prevent flooding. The gate opens and rainwater building up behind the dam spills out to sea. There are dams like this all over the region. But for them to work – for the freshwater to spill – the seawater has to be lower than the gate. Which it won’t be for much longer. “By the middle of the century, or before, 82 percent of these structures will no longer function” ... Wanless has spent almost 20 years trying to warn his neighbors across South Florida: They’d better start planning. “If we get blindsided,” he says, “we’re a bunch of Okies.” As in: Dust Bowl refugees. No water, no viable anything. “It’s going to be ugly,” he says.
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/sustainability/water-high-price-cheap/rising-seas-threaten-south-floridas-drinking-waterCalifornia isn’t the only state with water problems
As drought, flooding, and climate change restrict America's water supply, demands from population growth and energy production look set to increase, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. These two changes squeeze our natural water reserves from both directions. The stress is becoming clear and will soon manifest as water scarcity problems all over our country.
http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-about-to-hit-a-water-crisis-2015-4Quirky Winds Fuel Brazil's Devastating Drought, Amazon's Flooding
Boom-and-bust water phenomenon could become a new normal in South America, scientists say.
The drought in South America's biggest city and the flooding in the Amazon are being triggered by the same wind-driven weather phenomenon that scientists say is probably a harbinger for more extreme water shortages and flooding across the continent. No one fully understands this boom-and-bust cycle, but meteorologist José Marengo says it has been triggered by a sprawling high-pressure system that settled stubbornly over southeastern Brazil ... Although this episode of flooding and drought is attributed to an isolated weather pattern, rather than climate change, "it could be a sign of what lies ahead if temperatures continue to rise as projected," Marengo said.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/02/150226-drought-floods-south-america-brazil-bolivia-flying-rivers-environment/
see also http://www.npr.org/2014/08/29/344193332/drought-conditions-wreak-havoc-on-latin-americaThe melting of Antarctica was already really bad. It just got worse.
The findings about East Antarctica emerge from a new paper just out in Nature Geoscience by an international team of scientists representing the United States, Britain, France and Australia. They flew a number of research flights over the Totten Glacier of East Antarctica — the fastest-thinning sector of the world’s largest ice sheet — and took a variety of measurements to try to figure out the reasons behind its retreat. And the news wasn’t good: It appears that Totten, too, is losing ice because warm ocean water is getting underneath it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/03/16/the-melting-of-antarctica-was-already-really-bad-it-just-got-worse/
reporting on a study at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150316121722.htmPine Island Glacier melting past 'the point of no return'
Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier could now be in a state of irreversible retreat, making it likely to become an even more significant contributor to the global sea level rise during the next two decades, scientists have warned. The research, published in Nature Climate Change, found that in recent years, the grounding line, which separates the grounded ice sheet from the floating ice shelf, has retreated by tens of kilometres.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/pine-island-glacier-melting-past-the-point-of-no-return-9059347.htmlThis Changes Everything book by Naomi Klein
http://thischangeseverything.org/
Also a documentary from the book http://thischangeseverything.org/the-documentary/A Runaway Greenhouse Event
The world is probably at the start of a runaway Greenhouse Event which will end most human life on Earth before 2040. This will occur because of a massive and rapid increase in the carbon dioxide concentration in the air which has just accelerated significantly.
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-runaway-greenhouse-event.htmlRoyal Society/Hansen 2013: Climate sensitivity, sea level and atmospheric carbon dioxide
We use a global model, simplified to essential processes, to investigate state dependence of climate sensitivity, finding an increased sensitivity towards warmer climates, as low cloud cover is diminished and increased water vapour elevates the tropopause. Burning all fossil fuels, we conclude, would make most of the planet uninhabitable by humans, thus calling into question strategies that emphasize adaptation to climate change.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsta.2012.0294What the World Would Look Like if All the Ice Melted
The maps here show the world as it is now, with only one difference: All the ice on land has melted and drained into the sea, raising it 216 feet and creating new shorelines for our continents and inland seas.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2013/09/rising-seas-ice-melt-new-shoreline-maps/Hansen 2011: Earth’s energy imbalance and implications
Most climate models mix heat too efficiently into the deep ocean and as a result underestimate the negative forcing by human-made aerosols ... If understated aerosol forcing is the correct explanation, producing a too-large net forcing that compensates for ocean models that mix heat too efficiently ... it means that aerosols have been counteracting half or more of the [greenhouse gas] forcing. In that event, humanity has made itself a Faustian bargain more dangerous than commonly supposed.
https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2011/2011_Hansen_ha06510a.pdfPhytoplankton's Dramatic Decline: A Food Chain Crisis in the World's Oceans
Since 1899, the average global mass of phytoplankton has shrunk by 1 percent each year, an international research team reported in the latest issue of the journal Nature. Since 1950, phytoplankton has declined globally by about 40 percent ... If the trend continues and the phytoplankton mass continues to shrink at a rate of 1 percent per year, the "entire food chain will contract" ... the decline is happening in eight of the 10 regions studied. In one of the other two, the phytoplankton is disappearing even more quickly ... Half of the oxygen produced by plants comes from phytoplankton. For a long time, scientists have been measuring an extremely small, but also constant decline in the oxygen content of the atmosphere. "So far, the use of fossil fuels has been discussed as a reason," said Worm. But it's possible that the loss of phytoplankton could also be a factor. In addition, phytoplankton absorbs a huge amount of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide each year. The disappearance of the microscopic organisms could further accelerate warming.
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/phytoplankton-s-dramatic-decline-a-food-chain-crisis-in-the-world-s-oceans-a-709135.htmlPNAS May 25 2010: An adaptability limit to climate change due to heat stress
Any exceedence of 35C [wet bulb temperature] for extended periods should induce hyperthermia in humans and other mammals, as dissipation of metabolic heat becomes impossible.
https://www.pnas.org/content/107/21/9552Glaciers In The Pyrenees Will Disappear In Less Than 50 Years, Study Finds
A Spanish research study has revealed, for the first time, that now only the Pyrenees has active glaciers. Furthermore, the steady increase in temperature, a total of 0.9°C since 1890, indicates that Pyrenean glaciers will disappear before 2050, according to experts ... There are currently only 21 glaciers in the Pyrenees (ten on the Spanish side and eleven on the French side) covering an area of 450 hectares. In just 15 years, since 1990, glaciological calculations have shown that rapid melting has caused the total regression of the smallest glaciers and 50%-60% of the surface area of the largest glaciers ...between 1880 and 1980, at least 94 glaciers disappeared in the Iberian Peninsular, and since the 1980s, the remaining 17 glaciers have disappeared.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080905164328.htmA comparison of The Limits to Growth with 30 years of reality
The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind ... presented some challenging scenarios for global sustainability ... This paper focuses on a comparison of recently collated historical data for 1970–2000 with scenarios presented in the Limits to Growth. The analysis shows that 30 years of historical data compare favorably with key features of [LTG's] business-as-usual scenario called the “standard run” scenario, which results in collapse of the global system midway through the 21st century.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959378008000435
see also 'Limits to Growth' entries elsewhere on this pageJames Lovelock: 'enjoy life while you can: in 20 years global warming will hit the fan'
Lovelock has been dispensing predictions from his one-man laboratory in an old mill in Cornwall since the mid-1960s, the consistent accuracy of which have earned him a reputation as one of Britain's most respected - if maverick - independent scientists ... by 2020 extreme weather will be the norm, causing global devastation; that by 2040 much of Europe will be Saharan; and parts of London will be underwater ... Most of the things we have been told to do might make us feel better, but they won't make any difference. Global warming has passed the tipping point, and catastrophe is unstoppable. "It's just too late for it," he says. "Perhaps if we'd gone along routes like that in 1967, it might have helped. But we don't have time." ... What would Lovelock do now, I ask, if he were me? He smiles and says: "Enjoy life while you can. Because if you're lucky it's going to be 20 years before it hits the fan."
https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2008/mar/01/scienceofclimatechange.climatechangeReducing emissions could speed global warming
A rapid cutback in greenhouse gas emissions could speed up global warming ... because current global warming is offset by global dimming - the 2-3ºC of cooling cause by industrial pollution, known to scientists as aerosol particles, in the atmosphere. "Any economic downturn or planned cutback in fossil fuel use, which lessened aerosol density, would intensify the heating. If there were a 100 per cent cut in fossil fuel combustion it might get hotter not cooler. We live in a fool's climate. We are damned if we continue to burn fuel and damned if we stop too suddenly."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthnews/3311975/James-Lovelock-Reducing-emissions-could-speed-global-warming.htmlTimes of London: From SIX DEGREES: What will climate change do to our planet?
A summary of each degree-related level in the Mark Lynas book SIX DEGREES which describes degree-by-degree what we can expect as the Earth's temperature rises.
copy at: http://www.adishakti.org/_/to_the_end_of_the_earth_six_degrees.htm
original at: http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/article60990.eceWhy the Sun seems to be 'dimming'
Paradoxically, the decline in sunlight may mean that global warming is a far greater threat to society than previously thought ... Dr Stanhill called it "global dimming", but his research, published in 2001, met a skeptical response from other scientists. It was only recently, when his conclusions were confirmed by Australian scientists using a completely different method to estimate solar radiation, that climate scientists at last woke up to the reality of global dimming ... perhaps the most alarming aspect of global dimming is that it may have led scientists to underestimate the true power of the greenhouse effect [as] it now appears the warming from greenhouse gases has been offset by a strong cooling effect from dimming ... this is bad news, according to Dr Peter Cox, one of the world's leading climate modellers. "[T]he cooling pollutant is dropping off while the warming pollutant is going up. That means we'll get reducing cooling and increased heating at the same time and that's a problem for us," says Dr Cox. Even the most pessimistic forecasts of global warming may now have to be drastically revised upwards.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4171591.stmClear skies end global dimming
Earth's air is cleaner, but this may worsen the greenhouse effect Reductions in industrial emissions [have] reduced the amount of dirt in the atmosphere and made the sky more transparent. That sounds like very good news. But the researchers say that more solar energy arriving on the ground will also make the surface warmer, and this may add to the problems of global warming ... results suggest that a downward trend in the amount of sunlight reaching the surface, which has been observed since measurements began in the late 1950s, is now over. The researchers argue that this trend, commonly called 'global dimming', reversed more than a decade ago, probably following the collapse of communist economies and the consequent decrease in industrial pollutants ... "It is clear that the greenhouse effect has been partly masked in the past by air pollution," says Andreas Macke, a meteorologist at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany.
https://www.nature.com/news/2005/050502/full/050502-8.htmlThe drowned world
By the summer of 2020, global warming will have had such devastating effect on the northern icecap that European ships may routinely cross the high latitudes to take the short routes to Asia and the Pacific. The Arctic Ocean, once frozen solid all winter and choked with hazardous floes for most of the summer, could be one of the friendlier seas ... one of the Arctic's great spectacles, the polar bear, will have taken a dive: they need the sea ice to survive [and] ursus maritimus will be on the road to extinction ... Over the past 40 years, the sheath of ice that covered the Arctic Ocean has thinned by 40%. The area covered by ice has also shrunk by more than 25% [and] the process is unstoppable ... In Europe, Alpine economies built on skiing and other mountain sports will have begun to fail. In south Asia, for at least part of the year, snow melt is the only source of water for millions of farmers ... half a billion people depend on the Indus and Ganges rivers, whose sources lie among melting snows of the the Hindu Kush, the Karakoram and the western Himalaya. But these great snowfields, too, are disappearing ... The Arctic regions are rimmed by permafrost [that] hold stores of ancient carbon and methane in the form of decaying vegetation imprisoned for 10,000 years or more. Once the permafrost starts to melt, awesome quantities of carbon dioxide and methane - two potent greenhouse gases - will be released from thawing peat bogs to accelerate the warming process yet further. This climate phenomenon is known as "positive feedback". By 2020, then, the Arctic will have begun to change for ever ... global warming means permanent heating, and the living corals that support life in the Pacific and Indian Oceans are expected to perish on a massive scale ... oceans will seep into the bedrock, polluting the subterranean fresh water. Agriculture will become impossible, supplies of drinking water will be minimal and as the waters rise the islands will start to drown in seawater ... cyclones are controlled by sea temperatures [and] with each rise of the mercury they become more frequent and more ferocious. Savage storms, and the sea surges they bring, will pose huge threats ... If two billion people are at risk of dramatic inundation in 2020, around 2.3 billion others living in the world's water-poor nations could face an even more wretched future. They will see increasingly parched landscapes, empty wells, polluted lakes and rivers that run dry ... As temperatures rise, more water will evaporate, but rainfall will remain capricious. Countries in the monsoon belt will face more severe droughts in the dry season but could also have to deal with more catastrophic flooding ... We are starting to see the effects of carbon emissions of a few decades ago ... Every cook who knows a bit about science understands a concept called thermal inertia: the gas is on full, but the kettle takes a few minutes to boil, and though the gas is off, it takes a while to cool down. We're still waiting for the earth to start simmering, but by 2020 the bubbles will be appearing, whatever we do today.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2004/sep/11/meteorology.scienceofclimatechange1990: U.N. Predicts Disaster if Global Warming Not Checked
A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of ″eco-refugees,′ threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP. He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control ... ″Ecological refugees will become a major concern, and what’s worse is you may find that people can move to drier ground, but the soils and the natural resources may not support life" ... Excess carbon dioxide is pouring into the atmosphere because of humanity’s use of fossil fuels and burning of rain forests, the study says. The atmosphere is retaining more heat than it radiates, much like a greenhouse. The most conservative scientific estimate that the Earth’s temperature will rise 1 to 7 degrees in the next 30 years, said Brown ... He said even the most conservative scientists ″already tell us there’s nothing we can do now to stop a change″ of about 3 degrees. ″Anything beyond that, and we have to start thinking about the significant rise of the sea levels ... we can expect more ferocious storms, hurricanes, wind shear, dust erosion.″ UNEP is working toward forming a scientific plan of action by the end of 1990, and the adoption of a global climate treaty by 1992.
https://apnews.com/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd01988: Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate
Until now, scientists have been cautious about attributing rising global temperatures of recent years to the predicted global warming caused by pollutants in the atmosphere, known as the "greenhouse effect." But today Dr. James E. Hansen of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration told a Congressional committee that it was 99 percent certain that the warming trend was not a natural variation but was caused by a buildup of carbon dioxide and other artificial gases in the atmosphere ... Mathematical models have predicted for some years now that a buildup of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil and other gases emitted by human activities into the atmosphere would cause the earth's surface to warm by trapping infrared radiation from the sun, turning the entire earth into a kind of greenhouse. If the current pace of the buildup of these gases continues, the effect is likely to be a warming of 3 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit from the year 2025 to 2050, according to these projections. This rise in temperature is not expected to be uniform around the globe but to be greater in the higher latitudes, reaching as much as 20 degrees, and lower at the Equator. (Hansen's statement is here.)
https://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/24/us/global-warming-has-begun-expert-tells-senate.html1983: Forty Years Ago, EPA Scientists Warned About Climate Change
A look back at an early government reckoning with 'greenhouse warming' shows just how long the world has been dragging its heels
In 1983, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was about 343 parts per million. The global average temperature was around 0.3 degrees Celsius higher than before the Industrial Revolution. And the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was sounding an alarm about global warming. “Temperature increases are likely to be accompanied by dramatic changes in precipitation and storm patterns and a rise in global average sea level,” wrote the authors of a report titled “Can We Delay a Greenhouse Warming?” ... That warning from four decades ago rings startlingly true today, as tropical storms and hurricanes drench both the Southeast and California, heat waves deemed to be “virtually impossible” without climate change’s influence scorch Europe and the U.S., and other catastrophes seem to cascade across the globe ... four decades later, with carbon dioxide eclipsing 420 ppm this year and average warming up to around 1.2 degrees Celsius, it's worth looking back to see just how well some of the EPA’s projections hold up.
• 1. “Current estimates suggest that a 2°C (3.6°F) increase could occur by the middle of the next century, and a 5°C (9°F) increase by 2100.” - Verdict: Pretty darn close ... At present, the 1.5-degree threshold will likely be breached in the early 2030s (though individual years may climb past it even before that), and without rapid intervention, by mid-century that 2-degree prediction could be on target ... above 4 degrees [by 2100] is not impossible if countries continue to drag their heels on radical emissions reduction.
• 2. The report’s “best guess of future energy patterns” has carbon dioxide levels reaching 590 ppm by 2060. - Verdict: On target ... higher-end emissions scenarios [the 'business as usual' track we've been consistently following for decades] have carbon dioxide levels hitting that point by 2060 ... the 40-year-old projection is well within the ballpark.
• 3. "Scrubbing CO2 emissions from power plants is of limited effectiveness and prohibitively expensive.” - Verdict: May as well have been written yesterday ... virtually no carbon is actually being captured from power plant smokestacks—in the U.S. or anywhere—and some countries are warning that relying on the technology is folly. What was true then is still true today.
• 4. “In theory, adding [sulfur dioxide] to the stratosphere might counterbalance the greenhouse warming effect, but at great cost. Moreover, the effectiveness and potential adverse environmental consequences of this proposal require much additional research.” - Verdict: Needs some financial updates [but] the second concern remains true today ... Many critics say solar radiation modification has too many potential downsides, including ones we can’t firmly predict, to even consider it.
• 5. Taxes and fossil fuel bans: global taxes on carbon would have very little effect. The only policy that really could take a chunk out of the projected warming was a ban on coal and shale oil. - Verdict: hard to assess since the world has not [attempted] that level of strict fossil fuel-targeted policy ... Shale oil and gas continue to be enormous industries.
• 6. "[P]olicymakers seek a clear signal that increases in CO2 and other gases are directly responsible for warmer temperatures. Simply detecting a future warming trend will not be enough. It must be convincingly attributed to the greenhouse effect.” - Verdict: Again, this feels prescient ... The report’s authors predict one of the primary ways that climate change deniers have fueled the delay that has plagued the globe to this point.
• 7. “Changes by the end of the 21st century could be catastrophic taken in the context of today’s world. A soberness and sense of urgency should underlie our response to a greenhouse warming.” - Verdict: they couldn't have been more right ... With the oil industry still thriving and coal stubbornly hanging on after those very decades in question, many scientists in 2023 still agree with the EPA authors’ conclusion in 1983: “Our findings call for an expeditious response.”
https://themessenger.com/tech/forty-years-ago-scientists-warned-about-climate-change-how-accurate-were-their-predictions
see also https://www.sciencealert.com/40-years-ago-the-epa-made-a-grim-prediction-it-came-true1980: American Petroleum Institute CO2 and Climate Task Force
Presentation title: “The CO2 Problem; Addressing Research Agenda Development”
On February 29, 1980 the American Petroleum Institute CO2 and Climate Task Force hosted a meeting with representatives from Exxon, Texaco, and Standard Oil (SOHIO). Here are some points presented, as recorded in the minutes of this meeting.
• The physical facts agree on the probability of large effects 50 years away
• Present atmospheric CO2 concentration 335 ppm, pre-industrial (1860) 290 ppm
• Current growth rate 4.3% p.a. of increase since 1860
• Strong empirical evidence that rise caused by anthropogenic release of CO2, mainly from fossil fuel burning
• Average growth rate 3-4% p.a for next fifty years
• Projected CO2 release increase [will be] close to 3% p.a. until mid-21st century; subject to error of about ± 1% p.a.
• CO2 "doubling" date is 2038 at a 3% p.a. growth of atmospheric release rate
• Error in this estimate is small compared with other sources of error
• Global averaged 2.5ºC rise expected by 2038 at a 3% p.a. growth rate of atmospheric CO2 concentration
• Likely impacts:
1ºC rise (2005): barely noticable
2.5ºC rise (2038): major economic consequences, strong regional dependence
5ºC rise (2067): globally catastrophic effects
• At a 3% per annum growth rate of CO2, a 2.5ºC rise brings world economic growth to a halt in about 2025
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/3483045/AQ-9-Task-Force-Meeting-1980.pdf1980: Walter Cronkite on Climate Change
This segment was broadcast on the CBS Evening News in the United States. CBS was (and still is) one of the biggest broadcast networks in the world, and at this time Walter Cronkite was perhaps its most widely known news reporter. He was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll. This segment includes such topics as the increase in atmospheric CO2, the greenhouse effect, polar ice melt leading to sea level rise, and "possibly disruptive changes in the earth's climate" by 2030-2050.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU9s0XyEctI1977: White House climate memo that should have changed the world
Years before the climate crisis was part of national discourse, this memo outlined what was known – and feared – about the crisis at the time. It was prescient in many ways. [But] when Press’s memo made it to the president’s desk, Jim Schlesinger, America’s first secretary of energy, also attached his own note in response: "My view is that the policy implications of this issue are still too uncertain to warrant Presidential involvement and policy initiatives." Carter seems to have heeded this warning.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/14/1977-us-presidential-memo-predicted-climate-change
memo at https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2022/06/02/SSO_148878_031_07.pdf1972: Man-made Carbon Dioxide and the “Greenhouse” Effect
"Thirty-five years ago this week, Nature published a paper titled 'Man-made carbon dioxide and the “greenhouse” effect' by the eminent atmospheric scientist J. S. Sawyer. In four pages Sawyer summarized what was known about the role of carbon dioxide in enhancing the natural greenhouse effect, and made a remarkable prediction of the warming expected at the end of the twentieth century. He concluded that the 25% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide predicted to occur by 2000 corresponded to an increase of 0.6°C in world temperature. In fact the global surface temperature rose about 0.5°C between the early 1970s and 2000. Considering that global temperatures had, if anything, been falling in the decades leading up to the early 1970s, Sawyer's prediction of a reversal of this trend, and of the correct magnitude of the warming, is perhaps the most remarkable long-range forecast ever made." (Nature, 2007) ... the paper discussed some of the key concepts involved in human-caused global warming and makes one of the first predictions of future global warming (Carbon Brief) ... Sawyer was president of the World Meteorological Organisation’s Commission for Atmospheric Sciences and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1962. He was also a fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society and served as its president from 1963 to 1965.
Sawyer's 1972 paper is at https://www.nature.com/articles/239023a0 and https://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/warming_papers/sawyer.1972.warm2000.pdf1972: The Limits to Growth
"A pioneering report, The Limits to Growth, published in 1972, marked a turning point in thinking about the environment, selling some 30 million copies in 30 languages. The two-year study behind the report took place at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the request of the Club of Rome, an international group of distinguished business people, state officials, and scientists ... The report’s argument that the biosphere has a limited ability to absorb human population growth, production, pollution, and economic growth in general stirred considerable debate ... a cohort of critics managed to derail the debate, apparently because they simply could not imagine that two centuries of impressive growth in Western economic production and consumption could ever run into any limits." (Solutions Journal) When first published half a century ago, The Limits to Growth received broadly negative reviews which typically rejected the basic premise out of hand, finding it impossible to believe humanity could ever be so stupid as to allow such a catastrophe to happen. For one example, "the authors assume that the world is utterly incapable of adjusting to problems of scarcity ... pollution is ignored, even as it chokes millions to death ... best summarized not as a rediscovery of the laws of nature but as a rediscovery of the oldest maxim of computer science: Garbage In, Garbage Out." (New York Times). Unfortunately those reviewers were wrong, and more recent re-evaluations have documented the book's "depressingly prescient" (Popular Science) accuracy. Some examples:
• An early 1970s computer model has proved remarkably accurate (European Union: Commission for Policy on the Environment)
• The World3 model runs are valid (World Resources Forum)
• Recent research supports the conclusions of a controversial environmental study released 40 years ago (Smithsonian)
• Four decades after the book was published, Limit to Growth’s forecasts have been vindicated (Guardian)
Says Dartmouth University, "More than 40 years later ... this "little book with powerful ideas" endures as a touchstone for anyone seeking to understand the complex relationships underlying today's global environmental and economic trends." Dartmouth also provides an authorized full-text version of the 1972 first edition of The Limits To Growth (public access is available via their Ebook Online link).
see also 'Limits to Growth' entries elsewhere on this page1970: An Open Letter to the People of a Dying Planet
1970 poster made by Friends of the Earth for the first Earth DayFor years, experts have pleaded with you to conserve your resources. Ecologists have warned that your fumes and bulldozers and wastes and chemicals have already tipped the balance of nature against you. And still, the vast majority of you can't, or won't comprehend. Don't you realize that most of your food is hazardous to your health? That you eat the pesticides they spray on crops, you eat the drugs they feed your cattle, you eat the chemicals they use to preserve and flavor your food. Don't you realize that most of your "disposables," such as plastic containers, aluminum cans and wax cartons, are just as dangerous as auto exhaust? (A city incinerator just changes them into poisonous smoke.) Don't you realize that an entire ocean can be polluted? (Navigators actually include great seas of sewage in their charts.) That nature actually needs the millions of animals you slaughter each year for clothing? (Remember, your sealskin coat was once a seal.) That rampant and unlimited consumption eventually consumes you? On April 22nd, thousands of students will be holding an environmental teach-in at their schools and colleges. Their purpose is to discuss the ecological facts of death. And suggest alternatives. Whether you're a student or not, you can still commemorate this day by taking a long look at what you're doing to destroy yourself. At what you wear, what you eat, what you waste and what you put up with. Only your own living and buying habits will reclaim this planet. Only your letters and votes will force politicians to place life over lobbies. Only your buying power will convince industry that a dead planet is bad for business. Set aside April 22 as the day you start to save yourself. There may be no time but the present.
http://collection-politicalgraphics.org/detail.php?type=browse&id=1&term=Ecology&page=1&kv=6256&record=30&module=objects1969: Nixon Administration memorandum
Written by White House staff member (and later, US Senator) Daniel Patrick Moynihan
"Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has the effect of a pane of glass in a greenhouse. The C02 content is normally in a stable cycle, but recently man has begun to introduce instability through the burning of fossil fuels. At the turn of the century several persons raised the question whether this would change the temperature of the atmosphere. Over the years the hypothesis has been refined, and more evidence has come along to support it. It is now pretty clearly agreed that the C02 content will rise 25% by 2000. This could increase the average temperature near the earth's surface by 7 degrees Fahrenheit. This in turn could raise the level of the sea by 10 feet. Goodbye New York. Goodbye Washington, for that matter ... this is a subject that the Administration ought to get involved with. It is a natural for NATO ... The Environmental Pollution Panel of the President's Science Advisory Committee reported at length on the subject in 1965. I attach their conclusions."
https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/virtuallibrary/documents/jul10/56.pdf1968: How an Early Oil Industry Study Became Key in Climate Lawsuits
A 1968 paper commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute, the powerful fossil fuel trade group, [was] written by Elmer Robinson and Bob Robbins, scientists at the Stanford Research Institute ... The paper had been delivered privately to the petroleum institute, not published like typical academic work, and only a few copies had spilled into the public realm ... This was the earliest, most detailed and most direct evidence Muffett had yet seen that the industry’s own experts had warned its largest trade organization, not just an individual company, “that the science around climate change was clear, it was abundant, and that the best indications were that the risks were really substantial.” The paper’s delivery date put it well before Exxon’s extensive 1970s research into climate risks. In stark terms, the decades-old paper explained that the world’s use of fossil fuels was releasing carbon that had been buried for millennia, and “it is likely that noticeable increases in temperature could occur,” if that burning continued. That would mean warming oceans, melting ice caps, and sea levels that could rise by as much as four feet per decade, the report predicted. “There seems to be no doubt that the potential damage to our environment could be severe,” the authors concluded. “The prospect for the future must be of serious concern” ... the industry has long understood emissions from oil and gas combustion would drive warming — and create a host of major global risks — but carried out a decades-long misinformation campaign to confuse the public and prevent a shift to cleaner fuels.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/climate-lawsuits-oil-industry-research
Excerpts from the report at https://www.smokeandfumes.org/documents/document161966: Air Pollution and the Coal Industry
August 1966 article titled “Air Pollution and the Coal Industry” in the Mining Congress Journal, by James Garvey, then President of Bituminous Coal Research Inc.
There is evidence that the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere is increasing rapidly as a result of the combustion of fossil fuels. If the future rate of increase continues as it is at the present, it has been predicted that, because the CO2 envelope reduces radiation, the temperature of the earth’s atmosphere will increase and that vast changes in the climates of the earth will result. Such changes in temperature will cause melting of the polar icecaps, which, in turn, would result in the inundation of many coastal cities, including New York and London.
http://www.climatefiles.com/coal/mining-congress-journal-august-1965-air-pollution-and-the-coal-industry/1965: US President's Science Advisory Committee: Restoring the Quality of Our Environment: Report of the Environmental Pollution Panel
From a 2015 Physics Today report “Climate Science, 50 Years Later”
In 1965, when the President’s Science Advisory Committee formed a panel to address environmental issues, it included a subpanel of leading climate experts. They reported that greenhouse warming was a matter of real concern. There could be “marked changes in climate,” they reported, “not controllable through local or even national efforts” ... [it] declared (page 113) that the burning of fossil fuels was “measurably increasing the atmospheric carbon dioxide [which] may have a significant effect on climate” ... The subsection “Conclusions and findings” opened with an assertion calculated to be striking: “Through his worldwide industrial civilization, Man is unwittingly conducting a vast geophysical experiment ... By the year 2000 the increase in atmospheric CO2 will be close to 25%. This may be sufficient to produce measurable and perhaps marked changes in climate, and will almost certainly cause significant changes in the temperature and other properties of the stratosphere" ... the summarizing subsection asserted, as McNutt and others have emphasized, that the “climatic changes that may be produced by the increased CO2 content could be deleterious from the point of view of human beings.”
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.5.8153/full/
see also https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/nov/05/scientists-warned-the-president-about-global-warming-50-years-ago-today
full 1965 PSAC report at https://www-legacy.dge.carnegiescience.edu/labs/caldeiralab/Caldeira%20downloads/PSAC,%201965,%20Restoring%20the%20Quality%20of%20Our%20Environment.pdf1958: A Review of the Air Pollution Research Program of the Smoke and Fumes Committee of the American Petroleum Institute
This document is a 1958 report by the Executive Secretary of API’s Smoke and Fumes Committee entitled “A Review of the Air Pollution Research Program of the Smoke and Fumes Committee of the American Petroleum Institute.” The report shows that the oil industry was conducting studies to determine the effect of fossil fuel sources on carbon emissions no later than 1958. The article reveals that the Smoke and Fumes Committee was organized to combat growing concerns over the oil’s industry’s role in air pollution.
http://www.climatefiles.com/trade-group/american-petroleum-institute/1958-air-pollution-research-program-smoke-fumes/
see also Assessing ExxonMobil’s climate change communications: A timeline of climate denial 1954-2019 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/162144/Presentation%20Geoffrey%20Supran.pdf1954: Fossil fuel industry knew of climate danger as early as 1954, documents show
Documents show industry-backed Air Pollution Foundation uncovered the severe harm climate change would wreak
The fossil fuel industry funded some of the world’s most foundational climate science as early as 1954, newly unearthed documents have shown, including the early research of Charles Keeling, famous for the so-called “Keeling curve” that has charted the upward march of the Earth’s carbon dioxide levels ... the documents show the fossil fuel industry had intimate involvement in the inception of modern climate science, along with its warnings of the severe harm climate change will wreak, only to then publicly deny this science for decades and fund ongoing efforts to delay action on the climate crisis ... Previous investigations of public and private records have found that major oil companies spent decades conducting their own research into the consequences of burning their product, often to an uncannily accurate degree ... “These documents talk about CO2 emissions having planetary implications, meaning this industry understood extraordinarily early on that fossil fuel combustion was profound on a planetary scale ... overwhelming evidence the oil and gas industry has been misleading the public and regulators around the climate risks of their product for 70 years.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/30/fossil-fuel-industry-air-pollution-fund-research-caltech-climate-change-denial1938: Guy Stewart Callendar linked global warming to CO2 emissions
[In 1938] an amateur scientist made a breakthrough discovery in the field of climate change. Guy Stewart Callendar linked global warming to CO2 emissions ... the anniversary of his discovery has been commemorated by two leading climate scientists. Prof Phil Jones, from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, and Dr Ed Hawkins, from the University of Reading, have published a paper looking at Callendar's legacy. Prof Jones said the steam engineer's work was "groundbreaking" ... his research first appeared in the quarterly journal of the Royal Meteorological Society in April 1938 ... "Callendar was the first to discover that the planet had warmed," said Prof Jones. "He collected world temperature measurements and suggested that this warming was related to carbon dioxide emissions." This became known for a time as the "Callendar Effect" ... "his contribution was fundamental to climate science today," said Prof Jones.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-norfolk-222833721911: Remarkable Weather of 1911: The Effect of the Combustion of Coal on the Climate — What Scientists Predict for the Future
from March 1912 issue of Popular Mechanics
The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries.
https://books.google.nl/books?id=Tt4DAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA339&dq=Remarkable+Weather+of+1911&pg=PA3391896: On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground
In 1896, Svante August Arrhenius (1859-1927) published a landmark paper that examined the effect of different levels of atmospheric CO2 (carbonic acid) concentration on the temperature of the planet. His energy budget model, the first of its kind, took into account solar and terrestrial radiation, including the fourth-power relationship between temperature and radiation, and contained estimates of the absorption of terrestrial radiation by water vapor and carbon dioxide based upon the work of John Tyndall, Samuel P. Langley, Knut Ånsgström, and others. Arrhenius used his model to calculate the change of temperature that would follow if the quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was two-thirds, double, or even triple its present value. He reported that a doubling of CO2 would raise global temperatures by about 3 to 3.5 °C [which is] within the range of current estimates even though Arrhenius ignored the possible effects of changes of horizontal advection and cloud cover and worked with very limited spectroscopic data.
https://archive.ph/5OLVK#selection-111.0-121.762
Arrhenius 1896 paper at https://www.rsc.org/images/Arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf1864: Man and Nature, Or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action
Widely praised book by American polymath, scholar, and diplomat George Perkins Marsh [which] warned that man could destroy himself and the Earth if we don't restore and sustain global resources and raise awareness about our actions ... one of the first works to document the effects of human action on the environment and it helped to launch the modern conservation movement ... challenges the myth of the inexhaustibility of the earth [and] was one of the most influential books of its time, next to Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species ... Gifford Pinchot, first Chief of the United States Forest Service, called it "epoch making" and Stewart Udall wrote that it was "the beginning of land wisdom in this country."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_and_Nature
full text available online at http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/consrvbib:@FIELD(NUMBER(vg07))
still in print, see https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295983165/man-and-nature/
see also https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2011/jun/20/george-perkins-marsh-climate-speech1856: Circumstances Affecting the Heat of the Sun’s Rays
Eunice Foote was the first scientist to document the heat-trapping effects of CO2 in the atmosphere. "On 23 August 1856, Eunice Newton Foote sat in the audience at an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Albany, New York, to attend a talk about her own work. She did not present her research. Instead, surrounded by America’s elite scientists, she listened as Joseph Henry, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, presented — and failed to recognize the implications of — her research on the heat-absorbing properties of carbon dioxide and water vapor. The work had led Foote to conclude that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would lead to global warming ... Perhaps because of Henry’s missteps, perhaps because of her gender, Foote’s groundbreaking conclusions fell into obscurity. For a century and a half, the world has instead remembered John Tyndall, an Irish physicist, as the person who discovered the warming potential of carbon dioxide and water vapor — even though he published his findings three years after Foote." https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.4.20210823a/full/ "Foote's paper was published in 1856 under her name in the American Journal of Science and Arts, immediately following a paper by her husband, Elisha. It was not however included by the AAAS in their annual publication of the association's meetings. Summaries of Foote's work were included in the 1857 edition of the Anneal of Scientific Discovery, the New York Daily Tribune, the Canadian Journal of Industry, Science and Art, Scientific American (1856), Jahresbericht (1856) and the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal (1857). Both European summaries omitted her direct conclusions about the impact of carbon dioxide on climate, and the summary written in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal named Foote's husband Elisha as the author." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunice_Newton_Foote Smithsonian Magazine noted in an overview of Foote's work that "Foote’s paper anticipated the revolution in climate science by experimentally demonstrating the effects of the sun on certain gases and theorizing how those gases would interact with Earth’s atmosphere for the first time. In a column of the September 1856 issue of Scientific American titled “Scientific Ladies,” Foote is praised for supporting her opinions with “practical experiments.” The writers noted: “this we are happy to say has been done by a lady” ... Looking back on Earth’s history, Foote explains that “an atmosphere of that gas would give to our earth a high temperature” ... Foote was years ahead of her time. What she described and theorized was the gradual warming of the Earth’s atmosphere — what today we call the greenhouse effect ... Three years later, the well-known Irish physicist John Tyndall published similar results demonstrating the greenhouse effects of certain gases, including carbonic acid ... Tyndall’s work is widely accepted as the foundation of modern climate science, while Foote’s remains in obscurity." This Smithsonian Magazine article also describes the social dynamics of the time which contributed to the discounting of Foote's work. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/lady-scientist-helped-revolutionize-climate-science-didnt-get-credit-180961291/
further information and a link to Foote's 1856 paper at https://www.davidmorrow.net/eunice-foote
see also https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/first-paper-to-link-co2-and-global-warming-by-eunice-foote-18561822-1838: Warming the world: How Joseph Fourier discovered the greenhouse effect
Joseph Fourier is generally credited with the discovery of the greenhouse effect, whereby the presence of an atmosphere acts to increase a planet's surface temperature. Written in 1827, nearly three-quarters of a century before science advanced to the point where Arrhenius could quantify the phenomenon [he] established the framework of energy balance still in use today: a planet obtains energy at a certain rate from various sources, and warms up until it loses heat at the same rate ... Fourier got the essence of the greenhouse effect right — the principle of energy balance and the asymmetric effect of the atmosphere on incoming light versus outgoing infrared. The remaining physics took almost two more centuries to sort out. https://www.nature.com/articles/432677a The existence of the greenhouse effect, while not named as such, was proposed as early as 1824 by Joseph Fourier in his paper Remarques Generales sur les Temperatures Du Globe Terrestre et des Espaces Planetaires. The argument and the evidence were further strengthened by Claude Pouillet in 1827 and 1838. Svante Arrhenius in 1896 cited a great deal of Pouillet's work. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Pouillet Fourier published his work on heat flow in 1822 [and] was the first person to study the Earth’s temperature from a mathematical perspective ... and concluded that the planet was much warmer than a simple analysis might suggest. Fourier calculated that it would be much colder than it is if the incoming radiation from the sun were the only warming effect. His idea that the Earth's atmosphere acts like an insulator is the first formulation of what we now call the greenhouse effect. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/how-joseph-fourier-discovered-the-greenhouse-effect-1.3824189
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