Researchers also calculated the carbon footprints for online and in-person shopping -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
Energy Environ. Sci. , 2020, Advance Article DOI : 10.1039/C9EE03634B, Review Article Tianpei Zhou, Nan Zhang, Changzheng Wu, Yi Xie Surface/interface nanoengineering of electrocatalysts and air electrodes will promote the rapid development of high-performance rechargeable Zn–air batteries. 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
Everyone seems to agree trees are a major solution to climate change, but there is a danger that mass reforestation could see us to continue pumping carbon into the atmosphere
( Norwegian University of Science and Technology ) As nations prepare to mitigate climate change, decision makers need to understand how land use fits into the climate equation. A new study looked at land use changes over two decades and found a major shift from cropland to forests. That change made western Europe cooler.
The use of streaming video is growing exponentially around the world. These services are associated... The post Factcheck: What is the carbon footprint of streaming video on Netflix? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Durian fruits, famous for their bad smell, could be used to make electrodes in ultra-fast chargers for electric cars and gadgets
Story of the Week... Opinion of the Week... El Niño/La Niña Update... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... Climate change leads to more violence against women, girls Rape, domestic violence, forced marriages: A new study shows the effects of climate change are leading to an increase in violence against girls and women in many corners of the world. Woman waiting for food distribution in Kenya Ntoya Sande was 13 years old when she got married — against her will. "I was sent to be married because of a shortage of food in the house," she said. Her parents used to have a small piece of land, but floods wiped out their harvest. "I tried to negotiate, to tell my parents...
Energy Environ. Sci. , 2020, Accepted Manuscript DOI : 10.1039/C9EE03977E, Paper Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. Amir Hajiahmadi Farmahini, Daniel Friedrich, Stefano Brandani, Lev Sarkisov Performance-based screening of porous materials for CO2 capture and gas separation requires development of multiscale simulation workflows where physiochemical characteristics of adsorbents are obtained from molecular simulations, while separation performance... The content of this RSS Feed (c) The Royal Society of Chemistry
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bruce Lieberman CARLSBAD, CA. – When it comes to paying the electric bill, most people don’t give it a second thought – it’s something that in effect is “baked in.” But across California and several other states, local governments increasingly are thinking anew about how their residents get their power – with big potential implications for Americans’ impact on climate change. In the San Diego area this fall, several cities have moved toward community choice aggregation (CCA) – an arrangement in which local governments take over the job of buying electricity for their residents. Many cities and counties that run CCAs hire third parties with expertise in navigating energy markets...
( American Museum of Natural History ) New work shows how using next-generation DNA sequencing on ancient packrat middens--nests made out of plant material, fragments of insects, bones, fecal matter, and urine--could provide ecological snapshots of Earth's past. Published today in the journal Ecology and Evolution, the study may pave the way for scientists to better understand how plant communities--and possibly animals, bacteria, and fungi as well--will respond to human-caused climate change.
Human-caused emissions of methane from the extraction and use of fossil fuels may have been... The post Methane emissions from fossil fuels ‘severely underestimated’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Electric cars depend on cobalt as a key ingredient in their batteries, but a new analysis reveals we may run out by 2030, while car firm Tesla is moving to other types of battery in China
Abstract Despite their limited spatial extent, freshwater ecosystems host remarkable biodiversity, including one-third of all vertebrate species. This biodiversity is declining dramatically: Globally, wetlands are vanishing three times faster than forests, and freshwater vertebrate populations have fallen more than twice as steeply as terrestrial or marine populations. Threats to freshwater biodiversity are well documented but coordinated action to reverse the decline is lacking. We present an Emergency Recovery Plan to bend the curve of freshwater biodiversity loss. Priority actions include accelerating implementation of environmental flows; improving water quality; protecting and restoring critical habitats; managing the exploitation of freshwater ecosystem resources, especially species and...
Eagle Island Ice Cap, Antarctica in Landsat images from Feb. 4, 2020 and Feb. 13, 2020. Point E indicates an are area of snow/firn that is saturated with meltwater. Point A and B indicate locations where the amount of bare rock/ground and hence albedo have changed dramatically. The impact of period of record warm weather over the Antarctic Peninsula has been the rapid development of melt features on some of … The post Record Antarctic Temperatures in Feb. 2020 Impact on Eagle Island Ice Cap appeared first on From a Glacier's Perspective.
A spacecraft designed to study re-entry into Earth's atmosphere has a nose coated in cork, a cheap and lightweight alternative to other materials
Energy Environ. Sci. , 2020, Accepted Manuscript DOI : 10.1039/C9EE03736E, Communication Kwanghee Lee, Hyungcheol Back, Geunjin Kim, Heejoo Kim, Chang-Yong Nam, Jinhyun Kim, Yong Ryun Kim, Taejin Kim, Byoungwook Park, James Durrant Despite the promise of a simple manufacturing via entire solution process at low temperature (< 100 °C), the planar-type inverted perovskite solar cells (PeSCs) based on methylammonium lead tri-iodide (MAPbI3)... The content of this RSS Feed (c) The Royal Society of Chemistry
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Iceberg twice the size of Washington, D.C., breaks off Pine Island glacier in Antarctica Story Highlights: The Pine Island glacier "is one the fastest-retreating glaciers in Antarctica." Over the past 8 years, the Pine Island glacier is losing about 58 billion tons of ice per year. This "reveals the dramatic pace at which climate is redefining the face of Antarctica." Global Warming: Pine Island loses 58 billion tons of ice every year by Doyle Rice, World, USA Today, Feb 13, 2020 Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Australia's...
Stars generate energy through nuclear fusion. Here’s an easy explanation into how the process works.
Between its east and west ice sheets and its peninsula, Antarctica holds enough ice to... The post Guest post: How close is the West Antarctic ice sheet to a ‘tipping point’? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
( Frontiers ) Researchers from the school of Geographical Sciences at Guangzhou University have revealed the stark decline of China's intertidal wetlands by studying archives of satellite imaging data. The area of these wetlands reduced by 37.62% between the 1970s and 2015, placing these vulnerable yet valuable ecosystems and the species they support under increased pressure from anthropogenic development and future sea level rise.
When natural global warming raised seas by 120 metres starting around 18,000 years ago, people tried to protect themselves by building walls or rolling fiery boulders into the sea
Last summer, the Amazon rainforest was in the news again for all the wrong reasons.... The post Guest post: Could climate change and deforestation spark Amazon ‘dieback’? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
An analysis suggests that the extent of the US's worst ever oil spill may have been 30 per cent greater than satellite images previously suggested
BP says it will transform its business to meet a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050, but green campaigners have criticised the firm for a lack of detailed plans
94 Articles Physical science of global warming & effects Energy budget constraints on historical radiative forcing Increased subglacial sediment discharge in a warming climate: consideration of ice dynamics, glacial erosion and fluvial sediment transport The empirical basis for modelling glacial erosion rates (open access) The effect of melt pond geometry on the distribution of solar energy under first‐year sea ice Sensitivity of the latitude of the westerly jet stream to climate forcing Diagnosing the sensitivity of grounding line flux to changes in sub-ice shelf melting (open access) Source attribution of Arctic aerosols and associated Arctic warming trend during 1980–2018 (open access) Observations & observational methods...
Building more disconnected thoroughfares might lock cities into a dependence on greenhouse-gas emitting cars -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
Across vast swaths of the northern hemisphere’s higher reaches, frozen ground holds billions of tonnes... The post Guest post: The irreversible emissions of a permafrost ‘tipping point’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
More frequent and intense rainfall events due to climate change could cause more landslides in the High Mountain Asia region of China, Tibet and Nepal, according to the first quantitative study of the link between precipitation and landslides in the region. The post Climate change could trigger more landslides in High Mountain Asia appeared first on GeoSpace.
Even if we limit warming due to climate change, the number of extremely hot days followed by intensely hot nights could jump four times to 32 days in northern hemisphere summers by 2100
Thursday and Friday will see spells of heavy rain, strong winds and further snow for parts of the UK with several severe weather warnings in force, before Storm Dennis brings further very wet and windy weather this weekend.
Generally, we think of climate change as a gradual process: the more greenhouse gases that... The post Guest post: Could the Atlantic Overturning Circulation ‘shut down’? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Moo-mentous research on using seaweed to fight climate change.
( Dartmouth College ) Study of an 'extremophile' found in the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park can be used to help researchers understand climate change.
An interview with Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, a Danish ice-core scientist who recently won a prestigious award for Arctic research
Climate change could nearly double new cases of Lyme disease by the end of the century in the US, even if the world manages to limit warming to levels agreed under the Paris climate deal
The rate of population decline is outpacing the ability of the bees to find a new habitat.
Abstract Natural history collections (NHCs) are the foundation of historical baselines for assessing anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity. Along these lines, the online mobilization of specimens via digitization—the conversion of specimen data into accessible digital content—has greatly expanded the use of NHC collections across a diversity of disciplines. We broaden the current vision of digitization (Digitization 1.0)—whereby specimens are digitized within NHCs—to include new approaches that rely on digitized products rather than the physical specimen (Digitization 2.0). Digitization 2.0 builds on the data, workflows, and infrastructure produced by Digitization 1.0 to create digital-only workflows that facilitate digitization, curation, and data links, thus returning value to physical specimens...
Climate change has significantly increased the likelihood of bumblebees being driven to extinction in certain regions across North America and Europe
Scott Glacier, Alberta in 1987 and 2019 Landsat images. Yellow arrow indicates the 2019 terminus location and Point A and B are areas of bedrock expansion amidst the glacier. Scott Glacier is the largest outlet glacier of the Hooker Icefield the drains into the Whirpool River and then the Athabasca River. The icefield straddles the BC/Alberta border. Jiskoot et al (2009) examined the behavior of the Clemenceau-Chaba Icefield, 25 km … The post Scott Glacier, Alberta Retreat 1987-2019 appeared first on From a Glacier's Perspective.
The next 10 years are crucial for tackling climate change, with widespread recognition that CO2... The post Analysis: Why coal use must plummet this decade to keep global warming below 1.5C appeared first on Carbon Brief.
More countries are setting targets to reach net zero carbon emissions. Though it has its problems, this approach shows promising signs of sparking serious action, writes Graham Lawton
The rise of renewable energy means nuclear power is on the decline, despite many people thinking it still has an important role in the fight against climate change
Image: Sunstorm, ESA’s latest technology CubeSat, seen undergoing a tabletop test deployment of its power-giving solar arrays, in preparation for its space weather detection missionCubeSats are miniaturised satellites based on standardised 10 cm boxes. This ‘2-unit’ CubeSat will fly an innovative solar X-ray spectrometer to detect the X-ray pulses produced by coronal mass ejections – massive eruptions of many millions of tons of material from the Sun’s surface. These give rise in turn to solar storms, threatening potentially harmful effects on satellites and terrestrial power and communications networks, even aircraft on polar flights.The Finnish-led instrument was developed by ISAWARE, Aboa Space Research Oy, Oxford Instruments Technologies and Talvioja Consulting. Its host CubeSat has been...
Helping us to see beautiful — but also unsettling — patterns of tiny aerosols, the visualization also shows swirling, pulsing patterns of desert dust, pollution particles, and even sea salt, blowing through the atmosphere
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah Wesseler As one result of modern farming practices that strip organic matter from the ground, between 20 and 60% of the carbon once stored in the world’s agricultural soils has been lost. Putting it back – a process known as carbon farming or regenerative agriculture – has been hailed as a promising climate mitigation solution . According to Rattan Lal , PhD, a leading expert on soil carbon, agricultural land could capture the equivalent of around 20% of annual global emissions. But Lal stresses that the benefits of carbon-rich soil go beyond climate – it’s also vital for food security, water quality, and biodiversity. Failure to replenish soil carbon is not an option, he said...
Story of the Week... Opinion of the Week... El Niño/La Niña Update... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... Scientists alarmed to discover warm water at "vital point" beneath Antarctica's "doomsday glacier" Scientists have found warm water beneath Antarctica's "doomsday glacier," a nickname used because it is one of Antarctica's fastest melting glaciers. 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 – found at a "vital point" beneath the glacier. A news release on the findings called it an alarming discovery. "The fact that such warm...
Title: Even Low Levels of Air Pollution Add to Risk of Cardiac Arrest Category: Health News Created: 1/30/2020 12:00:00 AM Last Editorial Review: 1/31/2020 12:00:00 AM
The world is likely to break a new record for the hottest year before 2025, according to the UK Met Office, which says there is an outside chance temperatures briefly overshoot the toughest target of the Paris climate deal
( Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology ) Yury Vasiliev gives a speech at Arctic Frontiers about a year-round fully autonomous International Arctic Station (IAS) in the Land of Hope, in the foothills of the Polar Urals. The station will have a modular structure and be powered by renewable energy sources and hydrogen fuel, and will not use diesel fuel. The station is scheduled to begin operation in 2022.
Suggested suitable pairings The US EPA has just announced revised regulations for wetlands maintenance. Among other backward effects the freshly degraded rules will allow land developers and others to pretend that the world ends at their own property line, which is of course a fallacy. Homeowners are not permitted to truncate sanitary sewer lines at their property lines, and the commonsense concepts and rationales behind this intelligent convention scale at all levels. A tactical mechanism employed by the current presidential administration of the US in fostering such regulatory degeneracy is that of attacking scientific input to policy formulation at all levels, annoyingly often under the cosmetic guise of "improvements." Several articles in this week's GHG sources & sinks, flux and...
( American Society of Agronomy ) Research shows fungi may slow climate change by storing more carbon.
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 28 January 2020; doi:10.1038/s41558-020-0711-6Addendum: Substantial twentieth-century Arctic warming caused by ozone-depleting substances
Ice loss from Pine Island Glacier has contributed more to sea-level rise over the past four decades than any other glacier in Antarctica. However, the way this huge glacier is thinning is complex, leading to uncertainty about how it is likely to raise sea level in the future. Thanks to ESA’s CryoSat mission, scientists have now been able to shed new light on these complex patterns of ice loss.
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Killer hurricanes, devastating wildfires, melting glaciers, and sunny-day flooding in more and more coastal areas around the world have birthed a fatalistic view cleverly dubbed by Mary Annaïse Heglar of the Natural Resources Defense Council as “ de-nihilism “. One manifestation: An increasing number of people appear to have grown doubtful about the possibility of staving-off climate disaster. However, a new interactive tool from a climate think tank and MIT shows that humanity could still meet the goals of the Paris accord and limit global warming. By itself, a carbon tax rising to around $200 per ton of emissions would bring the world about halfway to the Paris goal, according to the En-ROADS interactive tool...
( Lancaster University ) A combination of climate change, extreme weather and pressure from local human activity is causing a collapse in global biodiversity and ecosystems across the tropics, new research shows. The study, published today, mapped over 100 locations where tropical forests and coral reefs have been affected by climate extremes such as hurricanes, floods, heatwaves, droughts and fires.
Video: 00:03:15 This week's edition of the Earth from Space programme features a Copernicus Sentinel-2 image over an area in the Santa Cruz Department of Bolivia, where part of the tropical dry forest has been cleared for agricultural use.See also Deforestation in Bolivia to download the image.
A forecast of the atmospheric concentration of carbon-dioxide shows that 2020 will witness one of the largest annual rises in concentration since measurements began at Mauna Loa, in Hawaii, 1958.
An “urgent” overhaul of the UK’s land and agricultural sector will be essential to meet... The post CCC: One fifth of UK farmland must be used to tackle climate change appeared first on Carbon Brief.
The UK government’s approval for a third runway to be built at Heathrow is illegal because it doesn't consider the Paris climate deal, the Court of Appeal has ruled
Nature, Published online: 27 February 2020; doi:10.1038/d41586-020-00520-8The vast, wild depths between light and shadow face increasing threats from climate change and overfishing.
BAM S survey of 2018 extreme weather The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society has published a collection of articles examining unusually extreme weather events of 2018 and connections of those to climate change. These investigations are listed separately below but thanks to the generosity of AMS appear free for public access as a single PDF, Explaining Extreme Weather Events of 2018 from a Climate Perspective . It's a fascinating collation. 84 Articles Physical science of global warming & effects Defining Southern Ocean fronts and their influence on biological and physical processes in a changing climate Observational evidence that a feedback control system with proportional-integral-derivative characteristics is operating on atmospheric surface...
Permafrost plays an important role in the global climate and is also one of the components of the Earth system that is most sensitive to global warming. Maps, produced by ESA’s Climate Change Initiative, are providing new insights into thawing permafrost in the Arctic.
Energy Environ. Sci. , 2020, Accepted Manuscript DOI : 10.1039/C9EE02627D, Paper Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. Iñigo Capellán-Pérez, Ignacio de Blas, Jaime Nieto, Carlos de Castro, Luis Javier Miguel, Óscar Carpintero, Margarita Mediavilla, Luis Fernando Lobejón, Noelia Ferreras-Alonso, Paula Rodrigo, Fernando Frechoso, David Álvarez-Antelo A diversity of integrated assessment models (IAMs) coexists due to the different approaches developed to deal with the complex interactions, high uncertainties and knowledge gaps within the environment and human... The content of this RSS Feed (c) The Royal Society of Chemistry
Nature, Published online: 24 February 2020; doi:10.1038/d41586-020-00512-8Marine biologist Jamie Craggs studies coral reproduction in a tight, dark space as he prepares to reseed reefs damaged by climate change.
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Feb 16, 2020 through Sat, Feb 22, 2020 Editor's Pick JP Morgan economists warn climate crisis is threat to human race Leaked report for world’s major fossil fuel financier says Earth is on unsustainable trajectory The JP Morgan paper said ‘catastrophic outcomes’ could not be ruled out. Photograph: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images The world’s largest financier of fossil fuels has warned clients that the climate crisis threatens the survival of humanity and that the planet is on an unsustainable trajectory, according to a leaked document. The JP Morgan report on the economic risks of human-caused global heating...
Once again, lives have been turned upside down by flooding across large parts of the... The post Guest post: Are UK floods becoming worse due to climate change? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
In the latest article in a series on how some of the world’s key emitters... The post The Carbon Brief Profile: Iran appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Figuring out where methane comes from is tricky. But a new analysis suggests that human-released methane emissions are higher than we thought.
Artificial intelligence is helping optimise the recharging batteries in electric vehicles, balancing speed while maximising lifespan
Boydell Glacier terminates at the island adjacent to Point A. The accumulation zone between Point A, B and C is on January 12, 2020 has limited gray area indicating bare firn. By Feb. 13 there is considerable cobalt blue snow/firn areas saturated with melt water. The yellow dots mark the margin of the ice sheet and pink dots the margin of the ablation zone on Feb. 13, 2020. The Boydell … The post Boydell Glacier Accumulation Zone Rapid Melt Feature Development February 2020 appeared first on From a Glacier's Perspective.
As China battles one of the most serious virus epidemics of the century, the impacts... The post Analysis: Coronavirus has temporarily reduced China’s CO2 emissions by a quarter appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Energy Environ. Sci. , 2020, Accepted Manuscript DOI : 10.1039/C9EE03626A, Paper Yagya Narayan Regmi, Xiong Peng, Julie C Fornaciari, Max Wei, Deborah J. Myers, Adam Z Weber, Nemanja Danilovic Unitized regenerative fuel cells (URFC) convert electrical energy to and from chemical bonds in hydrogen. URFCs have the potential to provide economical means for efficient long-term, seasonal, energy storage and... The content of this RSS Feed (c) The Royal Society of Chemistry
Although the severe weather associated with Storm Dennis has passed, there is further wet and windy weather to come this week.
The latest supercomputing technology will unleash the full potential of weather and climate data for the UK
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Feb 9, 2020 through Sat, Feb 15, 2020 Editor's Pick ANALYSIS-Climate change opens up 'frontier' farmland, but at what cost to the planet? Climate change could expand farmland globally by almost a third but would also bring significant environmental threats, including a risk of increased emissions from soils Kenya's livestock herders planting chilli peppers, Pakistan's mountain farmers rearing fish and tropical fruits in Sicily - farmers around the world are already shifting what they grow and breed to cope with rising temperatures and erratic weather. In a few more decades, potatoes from the Russian tundra and corn from once-frigid areas of...
Storm Dennis will bring very heavy rain and strong winds to the UK this weekend, with a risk of flooding and travel disruption in some areas.
Research on past climates is showing how we can help plants that are running out of places to go as their habitats warm..
If carbon emissions go largely unchecked until 2100, Antarctic ice melt could result in three times as much sea level rise as we saw from all sources in the 20th century
The dense, bristly hairs on the skins shed by tarantulas when they moult are naturally efficient sponges and could be used to soak up ocean oil spills
Image: The Pine Island Glacier recently spawned an iceberg over 300 sq km that very quickly shattered into pieces. This almost cloud-free image, captured on 11 February by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, shows the freshly broken bergs in detail.A recent animation using 57 radar images captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission shows just how quickly the emerging cracks from the glacier grew – leading to this historic calving event.Thanks to the combination of both optical and radar images from the Copernicus Sentinel satellite missions, growing cracks were spotted in the Pine Island Glacier last year, and since then, scientists have been keeping a close eye on how quick the cracks were growing.The Pine Island Glacier, along with its neighbour Thwaites glacier, connect the centre of...
Energy Environ. Sci. , 2020, Accepted Manuscript DOI : 10.1039/C9EE03256H, Paper Alessandro Alabastri, Pratiksha Dongare, Oara Neumann, Jordin Metz, Ifeoluwa Adebiyi, Peter J.A. Nordlander, Naomi J Halas Evaporation-based solar thermal distillation is a promising approach for purifying high-salinity water, but the liquid-vapor phase transition inherent to this process makes it intrinsically energy intensive. Here we show that... The content of this RSS Feed (c) The Royal Society of Chemistry
Energy Environ. Sci. , 2020, Accepted Manuscript DOI : 10.1039/D0EE00047G, Paper Ming Ma, Ezra L. Clark, Sebastian Dalsgaard, Kasper Tipsmark Therkildsen, Ib Chorkendorff, Brian Joseph Seger In this work, the carbon balance during high-rate CO2 reduction in flow electrolyzers is rigorously analyzed. The CO2 consumption at gas-diffusion electrodes due to electrochemical reduction and reaction with OH-... The content of this RSS Feed (c) The Royal Society of Chemistry
( Frontiers ) Researchers suggest that climate change may hurt the survival chances of an Australian marsupial. A new paper demonstrates that at least one species of marsupial 'mice' may struggle to adapt to a warming world. The study found that changes in ambient temperatures experienced during the development and growth of yellow-footed antechinus (Antechinus flavipes) can influence their behavioral and physiological traits, making them less resilient in a hotter Australia.
Deadly “day-night hot extremes” are increasing across the northern hemisphere due to climate change, a... The post Climate change driving surge in ‘day-night hot extremes’ in northern hemisphere appeared first on Carbon Brief.
From REMA Landsat images from Feb. 2016 and Oct. 2019 indicating the front of the Cugnot Ice Piedmont (CP) and Broad Valley (BV) ice fronts in Eyrie Bay. Point A, B, and C indicate specific bedrock knobs near the ice front. Point D is just south of a side glacier entering the bay. Eyrie Bay is near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula and is rimmed by tidewater glaciers including … The post Eyrie Bay, Antarctic Peninsula Retreat 2000-2020 appeared first on From a Glacier's Perspective.
Video: 00:00:11 As anticipated, Pine Island Glacier, known as PIG for short, in Antarctica has just spawned a huge iceberg. At over 300 sq km, about the size of Malta, this huge berg very quickly broke into many ‘piglet’ pieces the largest of which is dubbed B-49. Thanks to images from the Copernicus Sentinel satellite missions, two large rifts in the glacier were spotted last year and scientists have been keeping a close eye on how quickly these cracks were growing. This animation uses 57 radar images captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission between February 2019 and February 2020 (the last frame is from 10 February 2020) and shows just how quickly the emerging cracks grew and led to this calving event.Pine Island Glacier, along with its neighbour Thwaites Glacier, connect the centre...
Lately there has been a great deal of misinformation regarding the origins and purpose of Skeptical Science. As John Cook wrote nearly a decade ago , Skeptical Science is primarily a website that debunks climate misinformation with peer-reviewed science. Despite the ever-worsening impacts from climate change, with record after record being broken in our warming climate, misinformation casting doubt on climate science is rampant and showing no signs of going away. Sadly, a resource that shines disinfecting daylight on climate misinformation is needed more than ever. When we find ourselves frequently debunking myths from the same sources, we collect that information in our ' Misinformation by Source ' database. There are several reasons why we created that particular...
The persistent march of a warming climate is seen across a multitude of continuous, incremental... The post Explainer: Nine ‘tipping points’ that could be triggered by climate change appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Story of the Week... Editorial of the Week... Toon of the Week... Quote of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Reviews... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... Australian smoke plume sets records The recent wildfires in Australia sent one of the largest plumes of smoke higher into the stratosphere than satellites have ever before observed. January 26, 2020. Image via NASA Earth Observatory. Bushfires have raged in Victoria and New South Wales since November 2019, yielding startling satellite images of smoke plumes streaming from southeastern Australia on a near daily basis. The images got even more eye-popping in January 2020 when unusually hot weather and strong winds supercharged the fires. Narrow streams...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Feb 2, 2020 through Sat, Feb 8, 2020 Editor's Pick New Report Details How Fossil Fuel Industry's Climate Destruction Also Exacerbates Human Rights Abuses "Even in the face of the clearest scientific evidence that burning fossil fuels is literally setting the planet on fire, this sector continues to invest in the same old model and often misinforms society about the climate crisis and its causes." Claimant Eric Dooh shows the crude oil that has damaged the banks of the creek through his village of Goi (Ogoniland). Multiple leaks in a Shell pipeline have heavily contaminated the creek over many miles, eliminating fish, and other life from the tidal area...
Energy Environ. Sci. , 2020, Accepted Manuscript DOI : 10.1039/C9EE03848E, Review Article Xiaoyin Zhang, Ke Chen, Zhenhua Sun, Guangjian Hu, Ru Xiao, Hui-Ming Cheng, Feng Li Lithium-sulfur batteries (Li-S batteries) are promising next-generation energy storage devices due to their high theoretical energy density, low cost, and environmental compatibility. When trying to convert experiment into practice, one... The content of this RSS Feed (c) The Royal Society of Chemistry
Image: The Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission takes us over part of the Dutch province of Flevoland – the newest province in the Netherlands and one of the largest land reclamation projects in the world.With almost a third of the country lying below sea level, the Netherlands is famously known as a ‘low country,’ and has a long history of land reclamation.One reclamation project resulted in Flevoland. After a major flood it was decided to tame the Zuiderzee, a large, shallow inlet of the North Sea, to improve flood protection and also create additional land for agricultural use.The project entailed the creation of land known as polders. The ‘Noordoostpolder,’ or the Northeast polder is the focus of this image. Over the years, the region has developed to become a home to a modern and innovative...
The chances of spotting a bumblebee have dropped by almost half across North America and... The post Climate change driving ‘rapid and widespread’ decline of bumblebees appeared first on Carbon Brief.
This is a re-post from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists The heat absorbed in Earth’s oceans reached a new record in 2019, found a recent study published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences . Despite the fact that this has been the case for almost every year over the past decade, this information dominated the news cycle, with some particularly viral headlines noting that the amount of energy accumulating in the oceans is equivalent to detonating five Hiroshima atomic bombs per second , every second over the past 25 years. While stunning, this isn’t a new analogy. After we published a paper about Earth’s energy accumulation in 2012, my colleagues and I at Skeptical Science created a website...
( Newcastle University ) As Chile becomes drier due to climate change, new research has found ranchers are coming into conflict with guanacos who compete for pasture with livestock.
The movements of water within the ocean basins has been increasing in speed over the last 20 years, a new study shows, conflicting with prior models of climate change.
The vast region may stay wet—or dry up and burn—depending on whether indigenous people want to continue to work the land -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
More Thwaites This past week we heard disturbing news about Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier. Helping to fill in the longer term history of Thwaites' behavior and especially helpful in interpreting results of the recent drilling project and what it may say about the future of this unstable mass of ice is Revealing the former bed of Thwaites Glacier using sea-floor bathymetry , by a heavy duty multi-institutional team of authors. Happily this work is open access. Abstract excerpts: The geometry of the sea floor beyond Thwaites Glacier (TG) is a major control on the routing of warm ocean waters towards the ice stream’s grounding zone, which has led to increased mass loss through sub-ice-shelf melting and resulting accelerated ice flow. Nearshore topographic highs act...
Sea ice extent for January 2020 tracked well below average, with the monthly average ranking as ninth lowest in the satellite record. While air temperatures were above average across much of the Arctic Ocean, it was colder than average over … Continue reading →
( University of Plymouth ) New research led by the University of Plymouth suggests the impact of rising sea levels and the increased frequency and intensity of extreme storm events on coastal plants needs to be placed in greater focus.
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Jan 26, 2020 through Sat, Feb 1, 2020 Editor's Pick Social tipping points are the only hope for the climate A new paper explores how to trigger them. Egg on the edge. Fine balance, tipping point etc. Risk, danger concept or metaphor. by Sarah2, Shutterstock At this point, the targets enshrined in the Paris climate agreement — holding the rise in global average temperature to a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius, with efforts to limit to 1.5°C — are beyond the reach of incrementalism. If the world’s large economies had begun a slow, steady reduction in greenhouse gas emissions ...
Energy Environ. Sci. , 2020, Accepted Manuscript DOI : 10.1039/C9EE03637G, Review Article Ranjusha Rajagopalan, Yougen Tang, Chuankun Jia, Xiaobo Ji, Hai-Yan Wang Organic electrode materials offer new opportunity to develop high energy/power density, low cost, environmentally benign sodium ion batteries (SIBs). For many years this category of materials has not been considered... The content of this RSS Feed (c) The Royal Society of Chemistry
Latest predictions suggest that Earth’s global average temperature is likely to reach record warmth during the five-year period 2020-2024.
Water flowing into the oceans from Greenland and Antarctica is pushing the seabed down 0.1 millimetres a year, but don’t get your hopes up – it won’t stop sea level rise
Energy Environ. Sci. , 2020, Advance Article DOI : 10.1039/C9EE03154E, Paper Tae Hwa Jeon, Hyejin Kim, Hyoung-il Kim, Wonyong Choi A phosphate (P)- and Mo-modified BiVO 4 photoanode and AQ-modified carbon cathode achieve efficient and durable photoelectrochemical production of H 2 O 2 through dual processes. 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
Energy Environ. Sci. , 2020, Advance Article DOI : 10.1039/D0EE90006K, Correction Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. Stefan Ringe, Ezra L. Clark, Joaquin Resasco, Amber Walton, Brian Seger, Alexis T. Bell, Karen Chan 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
Reqiang Glacier (R) and Jicongpu Glacier (J) in 1993 and 2019 Landsat images. M=Moraine, red arrow is the 1993 terminus location, yellow arrow the 2019 terminus location and purple dots the snowline. Requiang Glacier, Tibet is just east of Shishapangma Mountain one of planets 14 peaks that exceed 8000 m and terminates in the rapidly expanding proglacial lake Gangxico at 5200 m. Jicongpu Glacier drains south from Shishapangma terminating in … The post Reqiang and Jicongpu Glacier Retreat, Lake Expansion and Moraine Stability Increase appeared first on From a Glacier's Perspective.
The world’s tropical forests are losing their ability to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, while... The post Tropical forests losing ability to absorb CO2, study says appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 27 January 2020; doi:10.1038/s41558-020-0708-1Publisher Correction: Firing up ambition
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Jan 19, 2020 through Sat, Jan 25, 2020 Editor's Pick The companies that have contributed most to climate change Thought-provoking readings on those most responsible for the pollution. Sometimes, in our struggle to address climate change, we need to see ourselves as facing not an incredibly complex (or “wicked”) problem (and one to which most of us contribute) but a clear-cut adversary. The world’s biggest fossil fuel companies inevitably make good candidates for that role, partly because they have done so much to delay political action, but also because they are literally the biggest source of the problem. To learn more, an excellent...
The UK’s Met Office is forecasting a big increase in CO2 levels in 2020, due in part to the extreme wildfires that have been burning for months in Australia
By 2100, millions could flood into cities and communities around the country to escape rising waters.
North Sea oil firms and airlines should fund a colossal tree-planting drive to fight climate change as soon as next year, the UK’s government’s climate advisers have urged