This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk Energy use is the biggest cause of climate change, and it’s the first place to enact meaningful strategies to lower greenhouse emissions. It’s also a smart angle for talking about climate change, because it’s easy to find agreement on issues like improving energy efficiency, reducing pollution, cleaning up our energy supply, and reducing reliance on unstable foreign supplies. But energy can be a bit of a double-edged sword. The very reason that some people reject climate change is that they fear some of its solutions, such as regulations on carbon, or government subsidies for clean energy, pose risks to established fossil-fuel based ways of life. The good news is that it’s not hard to have positive...
Wow! It’s World Water Day, as observed by the United Nations. Pretty much everything AMS is about has to do with water—from raindrops to atmospheric rivers to thunderstorms and hurricanes on to ocean currents and groundwater. Which is why this concluding paragraph from the AMS Policy Program’s recently released study, “Toward an Integrated Approach to […]
Today is World Water Day, but with millions of people in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe struggling to cope in the aftermath of Cyclone Idai, the notion of water shortages may not be at the forefront of our minds right now. Even so, floods, like we see here, lead to real problems accessing clean water. Whether the problem is inundation or water scarcity, satellites can help monitor this precious resource.
A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below. This post has separate sections for: Climate Change, Climate Change Impacts, Climate Change Mitigation, and Other Papers. Climate change impacts Mankind Impact of ambient temperature on hospital admissions for cardiovascular disease in Hefei City, China Climate change impacts on socioeconomic damages from weather-related events in China Future changes in spring wheat yield in the European Russia as inferred from a large ensemble of high-resolution climate projections (open access) Impacts of climate change on bovine livestock production in Argentina The future potential for wine production in Scotland under high-end climate change (open access) Vulnerability assessment of...
Prof Stephen Belcher is chief scientist at the UK Met Office; Dr Olivier Boucher is... The post Guest post: Why results from the next generation of climate models matter appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Arctic sea ice has reached its maximum extent for the year, peaking at 14.78m square... The post Arctic sea ice winter peak in 2019 is seventh lowest on record appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Deforestation in the Amazon could have a similar local warming effect to decades of climate change-driven temperature rises
Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its annual maximum extent on March 13, tying with 2007 for seventh lowest in the 40-year satellite record. The 2019 maximum sea ice extent is the highest since 2014. NSIDC will post a … Continue reading →
As millions of people in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe struggle to cope with the aftermath of what could be the southern hemisphere’s worst storm, Copernicus Sentinel-1 is one of the satellite missions being used to map flooded areas to help relief efforts.
Haikola, S.; Hansson, A.; Anshelm, J. (2019): From polarization to reluctant acceptance–bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and the post-normalization of the climate debate. In: Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences 74, S. 1–25. DOI: 10.1080/1943815X.2019.1579740. "The paper covers the public debate on BECCS (bioenergy with carbon capture and storage) between 2008 and 2018. Through a qualitative analysis of around 800 feature articles, editorials, and opinion pieces published in English, German, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian in news media and debates sections of scientific media, we highlight conspicuous aspects of the debate and relate them to the theoretical concept of post-normal science. We find that the debate is characterized by an emphasis on values, scientific...
( Earth Institute at Columbia University ) In the Atlantic Ocean, a giant 'conveyor belt' carries warm waters from the tropics into the North Atlantic, where they cool and sink and then return southwards in the deep ocean. This circulation pattern is an important player in the global climate. Evidence increasingly suggests that this system is slowing down, and some scientists fear it could have major effects. A new study published in Nature Communications provides insight into how quickly such changes could take effect if the system continues weakening.
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Michael Svoboda Like journalists, opinion writers, and TV newscasters and commentators, political cartoonists were quick to respond to the Green New Deal (GND) climate change initiative put out in early February by two liberal northeastern Democrats in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. But there were striking differences in willingness to engage the issue, depending on the political leaning of the respondents and the mediums in which they were working. Written analyses and commentaries, left and right, were roughly equal in number. In pieces published in a range of outlets, from AP to Vice , liberal commentators praised the plan for its bold vision even as some questioned specific details...
Dr William F Lamb is a researcher at the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons... The post Guest post: What do we know about climate change mitigation in cities? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
“The insidious thing about climate change is there’s nowhere to hide from it,” says Prof Terry Hughes,... The post Interactive: Can the Great Barrier Reef survive climate change? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
"The United States joined Saudi Arabia to derail a U.N. resolution that sought to improve the world’s understanding of potential efforts to lace the sky with sunlight-reflecting aerosols or use carbon-catching fans." LINK
"New technologies that block solar radiation or suck CO2 out of the atmosphere could help tackle global warming. Switzerland is hoping for an international assessment of the opportunities and risks of so-called geo-engineering." LINK
"The United States and Saudi Arabia have hamstrung global efforts to scrutinise climate geoengineering in order to benefit their fossil fuel industries, according to multiple sources at the United Nations environment assembly, taking place this week in Nairobi." LINK
This is the new Basic rebutta l to the myth 'Holistic Management can reverse Climate Change'. There's also an Advanced rebuttal . The Myth: Holistic Management can reverse Climate Change “Holistic management as a planned grazing strategy is able to reverse desertification and sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide into soil, reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to pre-industrial levels in a period of forty years.” (Allan Savory, 2014) The Rebuttal: Holistic Management is a form of grazing management that has become popularised in recent years by Allan Savory, founder of the Savory Institute. The management technique has been subject of international attention, mainly due to the infamous TED...
Erans, M.; Nabavi, S.; Manović, V. (2019): Pilot-scale calcination of limestone in steam-rich gas for direct air capture. In: Energy Conversion and Management: X, S. 100007. DOI: 10.1016/j.ecmx.2019.100007. "A novel polygeneration concept, which has been proposed recently, comprises a fuel-cell calciner integrated system in order to produce electricity and lime which can be used for direct air capture (DAC) to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. [...] Moreover, increasing steam concentration during calcination affected the material performance and DAC capacity at ambient conditions positively. Therefore, these findings demonstrate that limestone calcined under typical SOFC afterburner exhaust conditions is suitable as a DAC sorbent." LINK
"The proposed geoengineering methods vary but for the most part would either remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or make the planet a bit more reflective. Some geoengineering methods have the potential to greatly reduce climate change but also pose physical risks and social challenges. Dedicated governance will eventually be warranted, and given the global stakes, some governance should be international." LINK
"This post provides some color commentary as an FAQ about “Halving warming with idealized solar geoengineering moderates key climate hazards”, published 11 March 2019 in Nature Climate Change. [...]This feels like the most important solar geoengineering (SG) study I have been lucky to be a part of. From my perspective, it’s more important and should get more attention than progress on our stratospheric experiment." LINK
"Engineering the climate to reflect away sunlight could halve global warming and offset the risk of increases in tropical storms, new research suggests." LINK
German article on CE LINK
"Climate change poses an unprecedented threat to humanity, one that appears increasingly likely to reduce global standards of living dramatically within our lifetime, and cause untold damage in the longer term. And, because addressing such a daunting planetary challenge requires radical approaches, there have been wide-ranging discussions about what the world must urgently do to limit the rise in global temperature to less than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels." LINK
Story of the Week... Editorial of the Week... El Niño/La Niña Update... Toon of the Week... SkS in the News... Reports of Note... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Here's a running list of all the ways climate change has altered Earth in 2019 Earth is now the warmest it's been in some 120,000 years . Eighteen of the last 19 years have been the warmest on record . And concentrations of carbon dioxide — a potent greenhouse gas — are likely the highest they've been in 15 million years . The consequences of such a globally-disrupted climate are many, and it's understandably difficult to keep track. To help, here's...
A new UN Environment report on the Arctic was released last week, which covered a... The post Factcheck: Is 3-5C of Arctic warming now ‘locked in’? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Students around the world are striking today in a major global day of action against climate change.
Energy Environ. Sci. , 2019, Advance Article DOI : 10.1039/C8EE03518K, Paper Davide Moia, Alexander Giovannitti, Anna A. Szumska, Iuliana P. Maria, Elham Rezasoltani, Michael Sachs, Martin Schnurr, Piers R. F. Barnes, Iain McCulloch, Jenny Nelson Solution processable p-type and n-type conjugated polymers with polar side chains enable fast charging in aqueous electrolytes and 1.4 V cell voltage. To cite this article before page numbers are assigned, use the DOI form of citation above. The content of this RSS Feed (c) The Royal Society of Chemistry
In the fifth article of a series explaining how large emitters are positioned to tackle... The post The Carbon Brief Profile: India appeared first on Carbon Brief.
The Bering Strait is usually covered by sea ice at this time of the year, but the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission shows a different story
The Copernicus Sentinel-1 radar mission shows how cracks cutting across Antarctica’s Brunt ice shelf are on course to truncate the shelf and release an iceberg about the size of Greater London – it’s just a matter of time.
Record-low sea ice in 2018 sent ripples through the Bering Sea’s entire ecosystem. Will this be the region’s new normal?
Earth's icy periods may owe their existence to tropical mountains.
As I'm writing this at 11:30 a.m. on March 13, 2019, winds are gusting above 45 miles per hour, snow is blowing horizontally outside my patio window, and the lights in my home are flickering. I hope manage to get this story posted before the electricity goes out... Winter Storm Ulmer is intensifying over the High Plains and going through a process known as "bombogenesis." You can see its evolution today in the animation above, consisting of infrared imagery from the GOES-16 weather satell
Energy Environ. Sci. , 2019, 12 ,841-864 DOI : 10.1039/C8EE01146J, Review Article Minmin Gao, Liangliang Zhu, Connor Kangnuo Peh, Ghim Wei Ho This comprehensive review provides a guide to design photothermal materials and systems for solar-driven water evaporation addressing the water–energy nexus. The content of this RSS Feed (c) The Royal Society of Chemistry
"Geoengineering technologies are not yet deployable globally, but support for them is advancing fast, thanks to backing by powerful advocates eager to start experiments. But no silver bullet for climate change exists, and we must not abandon proven methods for the sake of a promise that one will be found." LINK
"A new study contradicts fears that using solar geoengineering to fight climate change could dangerously alter rainfall and storm patterns in some parts of the world." LINK
"Research from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), in collaboration with MIT and Princeton University, finds that if solar geoengineering is used to cut global temperature increases in half, there could be worldwide benefits without exacerbating change in any large geographic area." LINK
"Although reducing greenhouse gas emissions must remain the highest priority, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says this is not enough. Some now suggest that we also need to remove huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the air. Others argue that we may also need to reflect sunlight back into space to buy the world more time to reduce and remove emissions." LINK
Irvine, P.; Emanuel, K.; He, J.; Horowitz, L.; Vecchi, G.; Keith, D. (2019): Halving warming with idealized solar geoengineering moderates key climate hazards. In: Nature Climate change. DOI: 10.1038/s41558-019-0398-8. "Solar geoengineering (SG) has the potential to restore average surface temperatures by increasing planetary albedo, but this could reduce precipitation. Thus, although SG might reduce globally aggregated risks, it may increase climate risks for some regions. Here, using the high-resolution forecast-oriented low ocean resolution (HiFLOR) model—which resolves tropical cyclones and has an improved representation of present-day precipitation extremes—alongside 12 models from the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP), we analyse the fraction of locations that see...
Just north of San Francisco, Bodega Bay cuts a crescent moon shoreline into the California coast. Toward the end of summer in 2014, the water temperature of the bay skyrocketed. In one of the most intense marine heatwaves on record, warm water persisted for nearly seven months. Now researchers say that the marine heatwaves that roasted Northern California’s coastline for two years also moved a record amount of marine life north. And these marine animal relocations forecast what California's
Energy Environ. Sci. , 2019, Accepted Manuscript DOI : 10.1039/C9EE00317G, Paper Jinfeng Dong, Fu-Hua Sun, Huaichao Tang, Jun Pei, Hua-Lu Zhuang, Hai-Hua Hu, Bo-Ping Zhang, Yu Pan, Jing-Feng Li GeTe is a promising thermoelectric material at medium temperature, but its carrier concentration tends to go beyond the optimal range for thermoelectrics. This work realized a significant ZT enhancement from... The content of this RSS Feed (c) The Royal Society of Chemistry
A study claims that air pollution causes 9 million "extra" deaths worldwide each year, including 800,000 in Europe - which is double previous estimates
Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir are less able to regenerate in the face of climate change, and some areas have already "crossed a critical climate threshold."
Heat has been accumulating to the Earth's climate system quite steadily for decades . This has not prevented the apparent slowdown of warming seen in global mean surface temperature (GMST) since 1998 to become one of the pet claims for climate misinformers . Recently, we discussed this issue in our two papers ( paper 1 , paper 2 ). There are many factors that affect the GMST at any time, which causes the GMST to show quite a lot of variability especially in short term. This variability means that even in the presence of overall long-term warming, almost at any time it is possible to claim that it hasn't warmed since the year X (like the escalator graph so neatly demonstrates). As time goes by, you have to update the X, because with long-term warming you get a new high peak...
Climate change is riddled with questions that have uncertain answers. How fast will Earth’s population grow? When will renewables become affordable enough to take over? How much carbon dioxide can the oceans suck up? But even with these uncertainties, researchers in a new study say it's clearer than ever that the actions society chooses to take today will dictate the climate for future generations. “They make clear our choices — in a world of uncertainties — our choices are the dominant [
"New technologies to combat global warming could complement reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions. But their potential impact is highly uncertain, and failure to govern their use properly could aggravate existing threats to international peace and security." LINK
Ice cores and tree rings reveal that Earth was blasted with a powerful solar storm 2,610 years ago.
"Climate philanthropy is in a unique position to accelerate progress on carbon removal and increase the odds that multiple removal approaches reach gigaton scale before 2050." LINK
A gigantic solar storm hit Earth about 2,600 years ago, one about 10 times stronger than any solar storm recorded in the modern day, a new study finds.
Wang, X.; Xie, J.; Ghausi, M.; Lv, Jiangquan; Huang, Y.; Wu, M. et al. (2019): Rechargeable Zn-CO2 Electrochemical Cells Mimicking Two-Step Photosynthesis. In: Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.), e1807807. DOI: 10.1002/adma.201807807. "Metal-CO2 batteries represent a promising priority for sustainable energy and the environment. However, CO2 utilization in nonaqueous electrolytes mostly involves difficult CO2 electrochemistry, leading to poor selectivity and limited cycle performance. " LINK
Daily briefing: Cuba acknowledges climate change threats in its constitutionDaily briefing: Cuba acknowledges climate change threats in its constitution, Published online: 11 March 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-00843-1Growing worldwide impetus — or lip service? Plus: how AI might give doctors more freedom to focus on patients and the month’s best science images.
"Technologies that aim to cool the planet by reflecting sunlight away from Earth or sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere will be on the agenda of the United Nations Environment Assembly next week, when it meets in Nairobi. The body is poised to debate a resolution on geoengineering approaches that could be used to fight climate change, elevating a controversial issue to its highest political forum yet." LINK
Biermann, F.; Möller, I. (2019): Rich man’s solution? Climate engineering discourses and the marginalization of the Global South. In: Int Environ Agreements 17 (1), S. 21. DOI: 10.1007/s10784-019-09431-0. "Numerous recent studies project that ‘climate engineering’ technologies might need to play a major role in the future. Such technologies may carry major risks for developing countries that are often especially vulnerable to, and lack adaptive capacity to deal with, the impacts of such new technologies. [...] The article concludes by sketching options that developing countries may have to influence the agenda on climate engineering, reflecting on earlier attempts to increase control over novel technologies and influence global agenda setting." LINK
Story of the Week... Editorial of the Week... Toon of the Week... John Cook in the News... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... Rain Is Triggering More Melting on the Greenland Ice Sheet — in Winter, Too Pulses of melting linked to rainfall doubled in summer and tripled in winter, a new climate change study found. That's a problem for sea level rise. The total precipitation over the Greenland Ice Sheet didn’t change over the study period, but more of it fell as rain. The scientists estimated that almost a third of the total runoff they observed was triggered by rainfall. Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images When a frozen snowflake falls on the Greenland Ice Sheet, it...
Publication date: 15 April 2019Source: Quaternary Science Reviews, Volume 210Author(s): Michael Klinge, Daniela SauerAbstractThe effective humidity, resulting from the balance between evapotranspiration and precipitation, largely controls the environmental conditions under the highly continental, semi-humid to arid climate of Mongolia. Minor variations of temperature and precipitation have resulted in considerable environmental changes over the Holocene, affecting vegetation composition and density, soil formation, geomorphological activity, desertification processes, lake level and glacier distribution. Thus, various paleoclimatic archives have been investigated in several studies over the last decades. Here, we present an overview of the existing reconstructions of climatic changes over the...
We all listen to weather forecasts and know they rely on satellite data. What may not be so obvious is that many other aspects of our lives depend on robust satellite data, from growing crops to tackling the major issue of climate change. The socio-economic benefits of Earth observation are huge, and increasing. In Europe, ESA, Eumetsat and the EU work closely together, in long-term partnerships, to make sure these benefits are delivered.
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Mar 17 through Sat, Mar 23, 2019 Editor's Pick Tim Flannery: people are shocked about climate change but they should be angry The author and scientist, who has returned to his roots at the Australian Museum, says the world is about to see a major shift towards climate action Tim Flannery: ‘We’re in a different world now, a world where people are living with climate change consequences’ Photograph: Carly Earl/The Guardian Tim Flannery laments that young Australians today will never be able to experience in the same way the natural wonders he enjoyed in his youth. He grew up in Melbourne on remnants of the sandplain flora...
A single thundercloud is more powerful than even the most potent nuclear plants on Earth. Scientists used cosmic rays to prove it.
A flat-Earthers conference promises a cruise to Antarctica.
A way of turning cellulose from plants into a superior jet fuel might help limit the growth in greenhouse gas emissions from flying
Energy Environ. Sci. , 2019, Accepted Manuscript DOI : 10.1039/C9EE00542K, Paper Peng Tao, Chao Chang, Zhen Tong, Hua Bao, Chengyi Song, Jianbo Wu, Wen Shang, Tao Deng Solar-thermal energy storage within phase change materials (PCMs) can overcome the solar radiation intermittency to enable continuous operation of many important heating-related processes. The energy harvesting performance of current storage... The content of this RSS Feed (c) The Royal Society of Chemistry
Until now, the focus has been on moving to greener means of transport, but some people are proposing that we need to cut back on travelling and stay in one place
Copernicus Sentinel-1 has imaged the oil spill from the Grande America ship that sank in the Atlantic, 300 km off the coast of France
Deadline: 30. April 2019 "The Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the UCLA School of Law, in partnership with the Forum for Climate Engineering Assessment, the Solar Radiation Management Governance Initiative, and the Harvard Solar Geoengineering Research Program, is pleased to announce the Sixth International Geoengineering Summer School. [...] We invite applications from post-graduate students and early-career researchers with interests in the societal, political, governance, and ethical issues posed by geoengineering, working in any relevant field. The Summer School is also suitable for NGO, government, or other professionals working in related areas who seek an intensive experience to develop expertise in geoengineering governance." LINK
"With the ongoing failure of emissions reduction to adequately address growing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), increasing attention has focused on the possibility of conducting CO2 removal (CDR) from the atmosphere (‘negative emissions’). Indeed, modelling suggests that hundreds to thousands of gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 will need to be removed over this century depending on global mean temperature goals and the success of emissions reduction." LINK
Flooding characterized by the National Weather Service as "major to historic and catastrophic" is continuing across parts of the central plains and Upper Midwest. The flooding has come in the wake of last week's "bomb cyclone," which dumped heavy rain atop snowpack with high water content. The resulting runoff has triggered record-setting flooding throughout the Missouri and Mississippi river basins. As I'm writing this on the afternoon of Tuesday, March 19, more than 8 million people
With the issue of climate change high on the global agenda, satellites provide key information to understand and to respond to environmental change
You don’t need to be green to embrace an electric car – their design and performance now rivals their gas-guzzling equivalents, says Jason Barlow
Title: Prescription Fish Oil Pill Lowers Heart Attack Risk in Those Already on Statins Category: Health News Created: 3/18/2019 12:00:00 AM Last Editorial Review: 3/18/2019 12:00:00 AM
"To prevent the impending doom that awaits Earth through global warming, three young geo-engineering enthusiasts have offered a simple and cost-effective solution -- freeze sea water to rebuild polar ice caps." LINK
"It sounds like a drastic course of action: inject stuff high into Earth’s atmosphere to reflect a little sunlight and help counteract global warming. Then again, injecting a bunch of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere and warming the planet was pretty drastic, too." LINK
"At the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi on Wednesday, delegates from the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil blocked a sweeping plan for investigating geoengineering, one of the most controversial tools in the fight against climate change." LINK
"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, as countries including the United States raised objections." LINK
Kaya, Y.; Yamaguchi, M.; Geden, O. (2019): Towards net zero CO2 emissions without relying on massive carbon dioxide removal. In: Sustain Sci 354 (5), S. 182. DOI: 10.1007/s11625-019-00680-1. "Current emission scenarios that allow keeping the global temperature increase below 2 °C or even 1.5 °C—as foreseen by the Paris Agreement—are based on very optimistic assumptions, including enormous volumes of carbon dioxide removal (CDR). A closer look at the globally most important emission sectors—power, transport and industry—shows manifold barriers for very ambitious mitigation." LINK
"These foreboding trends have led to an increasing focus on ways to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Among the methods being explored is the use of the ocean to absorb and/or store carbon by adding crushed rocks or other sources of alkalinity to react with CO2 in seawater, ultimately consuming atmospheric CO2." LINK
Belaia, M. (2019): Optimal Climate Strategy with Mitigation, Carbon Removal, and Solar Geoengineering. Online verfügbar unter http://arxiv.org/pdf/1903.02043v1. "Until recently, analysis of optimal global climate policy has focused on mitigation. Exploration of policies to meet the 1.5°C target have brought carbon dioxide removal (CDR), a second instrument, into the climate policy mainstream. [...] Here, I extend the Dynamic Integrated model of Climate and Economy (DICE) to include both CDR and SG to explore the temporal ordering of the three instruments. Contrary to implicit assumptions that SG would be employed only after mitigation and CDR are exhausted, I find that SG is introduced parallel to mitigation temporary reducing climate risks during the era of peak CO2 concentrations." LINK
GESAMP (2019): High level review of a wide range of proposed marine geoengineering techniques. GESAMP Working Group 41. (Boyd P. and Vivian C. eds.)(98). "This report comprehensively examines a wide range o marine geoengineering techniques to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or boost the reflection of incoming solar radiation to space (albedo modification) or in some cases both. Further, the report recommends a) that a coordinated framework for proposing marine geoengineering activities, submitting supporting evidence and integrating independent expert assessment must be developed and b) that a greater expertise on wider societal issues is sought with the aim to establish a knowledge base and provide a subsequent analysis of the major gaps in socio-economics and geopolitics." LINK
"The idea of cooling the climate with stratospheric sunshades that would shield the planet from the sun’s warming rays moved up the international agenda this week, with mixed results. On the one hand, new research suggested that it is theoretically possible to fine-tune such a shield without some of its potentially damaging consequences." LINK
"Now though, a majority are starting to accept that something in our environment is happening. Supporting this sentiment is the fact that a large number of scientists the world over agree that our world is rapidly changing – and not for the better. As more individuals subscribe to the scientific data points of a climate in peril, the debate is now turning to what we should do about it. In certain instances, those disagreements are far more intense than those concerning if there is a problem at all. One such climate remedy that continues to gain traction is equal parts radical and fantastical, brilliant and bonkers. That remedy is geoengineering." LINK
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Mar 10 through Sat, Mar 16, 2019 Editor's Pick Students globally protest warming, pleading for their future Students attend a protest rally of the 'Friday For Future Movement' in Berlin, Germany, Friday, March 15, 2019. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn) Thousands of New York City students protested at locations including Columbus Circle, City Hall, the American Museum of Natural History and a football field at the Bronx High School of Science. Police said 16 protesters were arrested on disorderly conduct charges for blocking traffic at the museum. The coordinated “school strikes” were inspired by 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg...
After more than 60 years, McMurdo Station, Antarctica’s main research center, is set to begin its first major infrastructure update. In February, the National Science Foundation got the green light to start construction on the so-called Antarctica Infrastructure Modernization for Science, or AIMS, project. As first reported by Antarctic Sun, the continent's NSF-funded newspaper, the project will consolidate the sprawling research station’s some 100 buildings into just six primary structur
In a warmer world, some aspects of weather forecasting will become easier, but figuring out when torrential rain and flash floods are coming will be harder
At geological time scales, what really controls the climate isn't the atmosphere, it's the ground. Most of Earth's carbon dioxide is held underground, in reservoirs of natural gas and oil, but also in the rocks themselves. As the planet's tectonic plates slide and churn against one another, they bury carbon deep beneath the surface while exposing fresh rock that will soak up more carbon over time. That carbon can be liberated in large volcanic events, causing mass extinctions. But the pro
A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below. This post has separate sections for: Climate Change, Climate Change Impacts, Climate Change Mitigation, and Other Papers. Climate change Estimates of Decadal Climate Predictability from an Interactive Ensemble Model Temperature, precipitation, wind Lyapunov exponents and temperature transitions in a warming Australia Recent Surface Air Temperature Change over Mainland China Based on an Urbanization-Bias Adjusted Dataset Spatial patterns of trends in seasonal extreme temperatures in India during 1980–2010 (open access) Predictability of North Atlantic Sea Surface Temperature and Upper Ocean Heat Content Human influence on winter precipitation trends (1921‐2015) over North...
Greta Thunberg, who has inspired schoolchildren around the world to go on strike in protest against climate change, has been nominated for the Nobel peace prize
On March 15, students are set to attend more than 1,000 events to demand that governments do more to rein in greenhouse gas emissions.
A handful of 28,0000-year-old woolly mammoth cell parts were recently "woken up" for a short time in a new experiment, but cloning the ice age beasts is still a long way off.
Though the community of Nikiski on the Kenai Peninsula only has about 6,500 residents, its fire department boasts a $5 million budget. Most of that hinges on the fact that it’s the seat of the oil industry on the Kenai Peninsula. The community has reaped the benefits of local property taxes levied on the oil and gas properties nearby to pay for services since the first oil boom in Cook Inlet in the 1960s. - PUB DATE: 3/13/2019 7:01:32 PM - SOURCE: Alaska Journal of Commerce
Swedish 16-year-old Greta Thunberg will lead a global school strike this week. Thousands of children are expected to walk-out to protest climate change inaction
"It has been almost a decade after the landmark moratorium on all climate-related geoengineering was passed by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 2010 and several years since the decision of parties to the London Protocol of the London Convention on marine dumping prohibiting ocean fertilization and potentially other marine geoengineering proposals. Today, geoengineering is on the agenda of another UN body: the UN Environment Assembly." LINK
"A bizarre plan to mitigate climate change by spraying chemicals into the atmosphere to "turn down the sun" could actually work." LINK
"As climate change accelerates, the United Nations Environment Assembly will this week consider whether to start assessing, and setting rules on, technologies that could pull carbon out of the atmosphere or block some of the sun's warmth to cool the Earth." LINK
"Artificially cooling Earth by injecting aerosols into the atmosphere could be a viable and safe option in combating global warming, despite fears it could cause huge monsoons around the world." LINK
Energy Environ. Sci. , 2019, Accepted Manuscript DOI : 10.1039/C8EE03727B, Review Article Tiefeng Liu, Yaping Zhang, Zhanguo Jiang, Xianqing Zeng, Jiapeng Ji, Zeheng Li, Xuehui Gao, Minghao Sun, Zhan Lin, Min Ling, Junchao Zheng, Chengdu Liang Owning to sodium reserve with excellent abundance and high availability, sodium ion batteries (NIBs) hold great promise to meet materials supply and cost demand for large-scale energy storage system (ESS)... The content of this RSS Feed (c) The Royal Society of Chemistry
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bud Ward Wally Broecker, photographed around 2010 (Credit: Bruce Gilbert, via Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory) The climate science community has lost one of the real titans of its field. Geochemist Wallace Broecker – known as “Wally” – passed away February 18 in New York at age 87 of congestive heart failure. A pioneer in identifying Earth’s warming as a result of human emissions of carbon dioxide, Broecker is widely credited with introducing in the 1970s the term “global warming.” A 1996 winner of the National Medal of Science, Broecker is credited also with being the first to identify (and name) the ocean conveyor belt. At Columbia University – where he earned his B.A...
Scientists say the rise in illnesses is due to a combination of government suppression of research, a lack of disease data and climate change -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
Scientists, help keep coal in the groundScientists, help keep coal in the ground, Published online: 12 March 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-00826-2Scientists, help keep coal in the ground
Climate change is causing forests around the world to lose their ability to recover from devastating wildfires
The National Academies of Science Engineering Medicine (2019): Negative Emissions Technologies and Reliable Sequestration. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press. DOI: 10.17226/25259 "To achieve goals for climate and economic growth, “negative emissions technologies” (NETs) that remove and sequester carbon dioxide from the air will need to play a significant role in mitigating climate change. Unlike carbon capture and storage technologies that remove carbon dioxide emissions directly from large point sources such as coal power plants, NETs remove carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere or enhance natural carbon sinks. Storing the carbon dioxide from NETs has the same impact on the atmosphere and climate as simultaneously preventing an equal amount of carbon dioxide from being emitted...
Engineering the climate to reflect away sunlight could halve global warming and offset the risk... The post Halving global warming with solar geoengineering could ‘offset tropical storm risk’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
No Deadline "Welcome to Carbon180! We're excited that you're considering working with us. You'll be joining a friendly and energetic group of experts. Our team members come to Carbon180 from a number of paths – we have backgrounds in business, chemistry, engineering, ants, literature, ecology, policy, design, and glassblowing, just to name a few. What unites us is a shared passion for carbon's history and effects on our planet. We are committed to building a healthy and inclusive work environment for people of all backgrounds and improving representation in the sciences and environmental advocacy. Operations Manager & Policy Associate" LINK
Rogers, K.; Kelleway, J.; Saintilan, N.; Megonigal, P.; Adams, J.; Holmquist, J. et al. (2019): Wetland carbon storage controlled by millennial-scale variation in relative sea-level rise. In: Nature 567 (7746), S. 91–95. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-0951-7. "Coastal wetlands (mangrove, tidal marsh and seagrass) sustain the highest rates of carbon sequestration per unit area of all natural systems, primarily because of their comparatively high productivity and preservation of organic carbon within sedimentary substrates. [...] Our results suggest that coastal wetlands characteristic of tectonically stable coastlines have lower carbon storage owing to a lack of accommodation space and that carbon sequestration increases according to the vertical and lateral accommodation space created by RSLR. Such...
Creutzig, F.; Breyer, C.; Hilaire, J.; Minx, J.; Peters, G.; Socolow, R. (2019): The mutual dependence of negative emission technologies and energy systems. In: Energy Environ. Sci. DOI: 10.1039/C8EE03682A. "While a rapid decommissioning of fossil fuel technologies deserves priority, most climate stabilization scenarios suggest that negative emission technologies (NETs) are required to keep global warming well below 2°C. Yet, current discussions on NETs are lacking a distinct energy perspective. Prominent NETs, such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS), will integrate differently into the future energy system, requiring a concerted research effort to determine adequate means of deployment. In this perspective, we discuss the...
"BHP today announced a US$6m equity investment in Carbon Engineering Ltd (CE), a Canadian-based company leading the development of Direct Air Capture, an innovative technology which has the potential to deliver large-scale negative emissions by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The investment will see BHP obtain a share of the company." LINK
Wanser, K.; Konar, M.; Bergeron, L. (2019). Ensuring a Safe Climate. A SilverLining Report. SilverLining. Online available: https://www.silverlining.ngo/ensuringasafeclimatereport. "This report discusses the near-term risks of climate change; possible techniques that can be used to directly reduce warming in the climate; possible risks, benefits, and costs of these techniques; on overview of governance cosiderations and mechanisms; the nature of research for these techniques; the current state of play; and recommendations for policymakers for exploring these approaches to expand options for ensuring safety." LINK
"The government of Switzerland with the support of 10 other countries has developed a resolution on “geoengineering and its governance.” The resolution is being considered at the 4th United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) in Nairobi, Kenya, in March 2019. UNEA is an intergovernmental forum created in 2012 to act as “the world’s highest-level decision-making body on the environment.”" LINK
Deadline: 29.03.2019 "Postdoc in political philosophy/climate ethics in the research project 'FAIR LIMITS: A philosophical analysis of limits on the distribution of economic and ecological resources'" LINK
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Mar 3 through Sat, Mar 9, 2019 Editor's Pick Adults won’t take climate change seriously. So we, the youth, are forced to strike. Editor’s note: The authors are the lead organizers of US Youth Climate Strike , part of a global student movement inspired by 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg’s weekly school strikes in Sweden and other European countries. Adults won’t take climate change seriously. So we, the youth, are forced to strike. by Maddy Fernands, Isra Hirsi, Haven Coleman & Alexandria Villaseñor, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Mar 7, 2019 Links...
A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below. This post has separate sections for: Climate Change, Climate Change Impacts, Climate Change Mitigation, and Other Papers. Climate change mitigation Climate Policy Institutional and environmental effectiveness: Will the Paris Agreement work? What are the implications of the Paris Agreement for inequality? Current and future struggles to eliminate coal Supply-Side Climate Policy: On the Role of Exploration and Asymmetric Information The politics of fossil fuel subsidies and their reform: Implications for climate change mitigation Governmentality and the climate-development nexus: The case of the EU Global Climate Change Alliance Energy production Natural Hazards special issue:...
Viewed from various angles, tiny droplets of water or oil glow different colors under white light.