Page 267 of 272 FirstFirst ... 167217257259260261262263264265266267268269270271272 LastLast
Results 6,651 to 6,675 of 6789
  1. #6651
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    left of center
    Posts
    20,590
    NOAA – December 2022 was the 8th warmest December recorded.




    NOAA – 2022 was the 6th warmest year recorded




    NOAA

    __________



    Northern and central Greenland were warmer in the early 21st century compared to any period in at least the past 1,000 years, a new study found.

    Why it matters: The new research offers the first conclusive evidence of human-induced long-term warming and increased meltwater runoff in the northern and central parts of Greenland, typically the coldest parts of the ice sheet.


    • How much and how fast the ice sheet melts will help determine the fate of coastal residents worldwide, given its contribution to sea level rise.


    The big picture: The study, published in the journal Nature, finds that the warming during 2000-2011 exceeded the peak from swings in temperatures during pre-industrial times “with virtual certainty," and is about 1.5°C warmer than it was during the twentieth century.


    • The likelihood that such temperatures would occur during the period from 1000-1800 is “close to zero,” the paper states.
    • The researchers worked to overcome a large amount of natural climate variability in the region by obtaining as many high quality ice core and other climate records as possible.


    Threat level: “Global warming is now detectable in one of the most remote regions of the world,” the study states.


    • The reconstructed history of meltwater flowing off the ice sheet shows a spike during the 2000-2011 period that is unprecedented for the past millennium, a trend it predicts will continue, though with less certainty than the temperature conclusions.


    What they’re saying: “I hope this is a reminder for everyone that we should be worried, very worried about the Greenland ice sheet melting away,” Eric Rignot of UC Irvine and a senior researcher at NASA, who was not involved in the study, told Axios via email.


    • Ian Joughin, a climate scientist at the University of Washington, who also not involved in the new work, said the study offers valuable new data. “Greenland is warming with a clear linear trend, which likely will steepen with time,” he said.


    Yes, but: Joughin cautioned that natural variability in the region means future decades could see lower amounts of warming and melting, at least temporarily.

    __________


    • Insurance-covered losses from natural catastrophes worldwide totaled $120B in 2022


    Natural disasters resulted in about $120 billion in insurance-covered losses around the world last year, according to a new report released on Tuesday.

    The heavy losses in 2022 — driven by Hurricane Ian in the U.S. and several devastating floods in Asia and Australia — follow a “recent run of years with high losses,” the world’s largest reinsurer, Munich Re, said in Tuesday’s report.

    “Climate change is taking an increasing toll,” Thomas Blunck, a member of Munich Re’s Board of Management, warned in a press release. “The natural disaster figures for 2022 are dominated by events that, according to the latest research findings, are more intense or are occurring more frequently.”

    Hurricane Ian, which pummeled Florida in late September, was the costliest disaster of the year by far, resulting in about $100 billion in overall losses and $60 billion in insured losses.

    Flooding in Pakistan was the second costliest natural catastrophe overall of 2022, with losses of about $15 billion. However, almost nothing was insured in the devastating floods that claimed more than 1,700 lives.

    Australia’s floods were the second costliest disaster for insurers last year, with about $4.7 billion in insured losses between the flooding in February and March, as well as October.

    The U.S. alone was hit by 18 separate weather- and climate-related disasters that cost more than $1 billion in 2022, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Tuesday.

    https://thehill.com/policy/energy-en...n-2022-report/

    __________


    • Compound extreme heat and drought will hit 90% of world population – Oxford study


    More than 90% of the world’s population is projected to face increased risks from the compound impacts of extreme heat and drought, potentially widening social inequalities as well as undermining the natural world’s ability to reduce CO2 emissions in the atmosphere - according to a study from Oxford’s School of Geography

    Warming is projected to intensify these hazards ten-fold globally under the highest emission pathway, says the report, published in Nature Sustainability.

    In the wake of record temperatures in 2022, from London to Shanghai, continuing rising temperatures are projected around the world. When assessed together, the linked threats of heat and drought represent a significantly higher risk to society and ecosystems than when either threat is considered independently, according to the paper by Dr Jiabo Yin, a visiting researcher from Wuhan University and Oxford Professor Louise Slater.

    These joint threats may have severe socio-economic and ecological impacts which could aggravate socio inequalities, as they are projected to have more severe impacts on poorer people and rural areas.

    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.’

    Dr Yin says, ‘By using simulations from a large model…and a new machine-learning generated carbon budget dataset, we quantify the response of ecosystem productivity to heat and water stressors at the global scale.’

    He maintains this shows the devastating impact of the compound threat on the natural world – and international economies. He says, limited water availability will hit the ability of ‘carbon sinks’ – natural biodiverse regions – to take in carbon emissions and emit oxygen.

    Professor Slater says, ‘Understanding compounding hazards in a warming Earth is essential for the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular SDG13 that aims to combat climate change and its impacts. By combining atmospheric dynamics and hydrology, we explore the role of water and energy budgets in causing these extremes.’

    limited water availability will hit the ability of ‘carbon sinks’ – natural biodiverse regions – to take in carbon emissions and emit oxygen

    https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2023-01-06-compound-extreme-heat-and-drought-will-hit-90-world-population-oxford-study# - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-022-01024-1

    __________

    Extra.


    • Exxon's climate research accurately projected global warming, study finds


    ExxonMobil's own climate science research, which began in the 1970s, accurately predicted the pace and severity of global warming, a new study finds.

    Why it matters: The study is the first to examine the performance of Exxon's internal climate modeling as well as its scientists' collaborations with outside researchers. It provides a quantitative assessment of how much the company's executives may have known about the risks of burning oil and gas and when.


    • The study provides more evidence that Exxon's communication to investors and the public through the 21st century, which has played down the threats posed by climate change and cast computer models as uncertain, did not match what executives were told internally.
    • The research, dismissed by Exxon, may play a role in ongoing legal action against the company for allegedly misleading investors and the public about the dangers of global warming.


    The big picture: Exxon scientists have been at the forefront of climate change research using computer models, the study published in the journal Science shows. According to the study, between 63% and 83% of the climate projections reported by Exxon scientists were accurate in predicting subsequent global warming.


    • The Exxon scientists' projections showed the world would warm at a rate of about 0.20°C per decade, which was in line with independent academic and government studies in the 1970s through the early 2000s.
    • According to the study, Exxon's research also led to an accurate estimate of how much carbon dioxide could be emitted before the world would warm by more than 2°C.
    • This implied that some of the company's oil and gas holdings could become stranded assets, but such risks were not communicated to the company's investors or the public, the study notes.


    Of note: The study assessed the skill scores of projections from Exxon's in-house climate modeling were more accurate than what then-NASA scientist James Hansen famously provided to Congress in his 1988 testimony warning human-caused global warming had started.

    How they did it: The study examined 32 internal documents containing scientific research produced by in-house Exxon scientists between 1977 and 2002, and 72 peer-reviewed studies authored or co-authored by company scientists between 1982 and 2014.


    • The internal documents had previously been analyzed for their text as part of a series of investigative journalism projects that have come to be known as #ExxonKnew, but the recent work breaks new ground by assessing the accuracy of modeling projections shown in these papers.
    • To analyze Exxon scientists' predictions, the researchers took every global warming projection they could find, extracted and digitized the graphs, and quantitatively tested the predictions using established methods.


    The intrigue: The new study involves researchers Naomi Oreskes and Geoffrey Supran, who have published multiple studies that qualitatively examined what Exxon knew internally and told the public about climate change.


    • Both researchers have been vocal critics of Exxon's criticism of climate science as uncertain and unreliable, having extensively researched the company's public-facing advertisements and statements on the issue.


    • Another coauthor is Stefan Rahmstorf, a well-known climate scientist and director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.


    What they're saying: "Our findings demonstrate that ExxonMobil didn't just know 'something' about global warming decades ago — they knew as much as academic and government scientists knew," the study states.


    • "We now have airtight, unimpeachable evidence that ExxonMobil accurately predicted global warming years before it turned around and publicly attacked climate science and scientists," said lead author Geoffrey Supran of the University of Miami, via email.
    • "In essence, Exxon didn’t just know, they knew precisely," said Supran, who is starting the Climate Accountability Lab at the University of Miami, which "Will investigate climate disinformation & propaganda by fossil fuel interests," he stated via Twitter.


    The other side: Exxon dismissed the study's findings while touting its climate research in a statement to Axios.


    • "This issue has come up several times in recent years and, in each case, our answer is the same: those who talk about how 'Exxon Knew' are wrong in their conclusions," said Exxon spokesperson Todd Spitler.
    • "Some have sought to misrepresent facts and ExxonMobil’s position on climate science, and its support for effective policy solutions, by recasting well intended, internal policy debates as an attempted company disinformation campaign," he said.
    • "ExxonMobil’s understanding of climate science has developed along with that of the broader scientific community," he said.


    https://www.axios.com/2023/01/12/exx...global-warming
    Last edited by S Landreth; 22-01-2023 at 06:51 PM.
    Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

  2. #6652
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    left of center
    Posts
    20,590
    NASA – December 2022 was the 8th warmest December record




    NASA – 2022 was the 6th warmest year recorded



    NASA

    __________




    Here, Carbon Brief examines the latest data across the oceans, atmosphere, cryosphere and surface temperature of the planet. This 2022 review reveals:


    • Ocean heat content: It was the warmest year on record for ocean heat content, which increased notably between 2021 and 2022.
    • Surface temperature: It was between the fifth and sixth warmest year on record for surface temperature for the world as a whole, at between 1.1C and 1.3C above pre-industrial levels across different temperature datasets. The last eight years have been the eight warmest years since records began in the mid-1800s.
    • A persistent triple-dip La Niña: The year ended up cooler than it would otherwise be due to persistent La Niña conditions in the tropical Pacific. Carbon Brief finds that 2022 would have been the second warmest year on record after 2020 in the absence of short-term variability from El Niño and La Niña events.
    • Warming over land: It was the warmest year on record in 28 countries – including China, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain and the Uk – and in areas where 850 million people live.
    • Extreme weather: 2022 saw extreme heatwaves over Europe, China, India, Pakistan and South America, as well as catastrophic flooding in Pakistan, Brazil, West Africa and South Africa. Climate change played a clear role in increasing the severity of all of these events.
    • Comparison with climate model data: Observations for 2022 are close to the central estimate of climate models featured in the IPCC fifth assessment report.
    • Warming of the atmosphere: It was the seventh or eighth warmest year in the lower troposphere – the lowest part of the atmosphere – depending on which dataset is used. The stratosphere – in the upper atmosphere – is cooling, due in part to heat trapped in the lower atmosphere by greenhouse gases.
    • Sea level rise: Sea levels reached new record-highs, with notable acceleration over the past three decades.
    • Greenhouse gases: Concentrations reached record levels for CO2, methane and nitrous oxide.
    • Sea ice extent: Arctic sea ice saw its 10th lowest minimum extent on record, and was generally at the low end of the historical range for the year. Antarctic sea ice saw a new record low extent for much of 2022.
    • Looking ahead to 2022: Carbon Brief predicts that global average surface temperatures in 2023 are most likely to be slightly warmer than 2022, but are unlikely to set a new all-time record given lingering La Niña conditions in the first half of the year.


    ________

    • Loss of tiny organisms hurts ocean, fishing, scientists say


    The warming of the waters off the East Coast has come at an invisible, but very steep cost — the loss of microscopic organisms that make up the base of the ocean’s food chain.

    The growing warmth and saltiness of the Gulf of Maine off New England is causing a dramatic decrease in the production of phytoplankton, according to Maine-based scientists who recently reported results of a yearslong, NASA-funded study. Phytoplankton, sometimes described as an “invisible forest,” are tiny plant-like organisms that serve as food for marine life.

    The scientists found that phytoplankton are about 65% less productive in the Gulf of Maine, part of the Atlantic Ocean bounded by New England and Canada, than they were two decades ago. The Gulf of Maine has emerged as one of the fastest warming sections of the world’s oceans.

    Potential loss of phytoplankton has emerged as a serious concern in recent years in other places, such as the Bering Sea off Alaska. The loss of the tiny organisms has the ability to disrupt valuable fishing industries for species such as lobsters and scallops, and it could further jeopardize imperiled animals such as North Atlantic right whales and Atlantic puffins, scientists said.

    “The drop in the productivity over these 20 years is profound,” said William Balch, a senior research scientist with Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay, Maine, who led the study. “And that has large ramifications to what can grow here. The health of the ecosystem, the productivity of the ecosystem.”

    The scientists did the study using data gathered since 1998 by tracking chemical changes in the Gulf of Maine. The samples used to perform the work were gathered via commercial ferries and research vessels that run the same routes over and over.

    The data showed changes between the gulf and the broader Atlantic, Balch said. Intrusions of warm water from the North Atlantic since 2008 have created a gulf that is hotter, saltier and less hospitable to the phytoplankton, the study states. The scientists published their findings last June in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences.

    Phytoplankton are eaten by larger zooplankton, small fish and crustaceans, and they are critically important to sustaining larger marine life up the food chain such as sharks and whales. Loss of phytoplankton “will likely have negative impacts on the overall productivity” of larger animals and commercial fisheries, the study states.

    Decline of fish stocks in the Gulf of Maine would be especially disruptive to American fishermen because it’s a key ground for the U.S. lobster industry. Other important species such as haddock, flounder and pollock are also harvested there.

    Researchers have tracked similar warming trends in the Bering Sea, Southern Ocean and northern Barents Sea in recent years. Warming’s impact on plankton is an ongoing subject of scientific inquiry. A 2020 article in the journal Nature Communications found that climate change “is predicted to trigger major shifts in the geographic distribution of marine plankton species.”

    Cyclical ocean conditions also have placed more stress on phytoplankton. An El Niño climate pattern, when surface water in the equatorial Pacific becomes warmer, can reduce phytoplankton production, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said. The impacts include lack of anchovies off South America, fewer squid off California and less salmon in the Pacific, NOAA said.

    The Maine scientists say loss of phytoplankton is also significant because the organisms absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, much like plants do on land.

    It’s part of the toll climate change is taking on ecosystems all over the world, said Jeff Runge, a professor in the University of Maine School of Marine Sciences, who was not involved in the study.

    “There’s mounting evidence that it’s linked to climate change,” Runge said. “It’s having all kinds of effects on the system that we’re beginning to see.”

    https://apnews.com/article/science-m...8ca6adecb69d7f

    _________


    • Zeke Hausfather - Four different groups have now made projections for what global surface temperatures will be in 2023.


    While the Met Office, Berkeley Earth and Carbon Brief estimates all have 2023 as similar (albeit a tad warmer) to 2022, @ClimateOfGavin sees a higher chance of a new record.: https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1616156039619178498




    ________


    • UN head accuses fossil fuel firms of business models ‘inconsistent with human survival’


    The head of the United Nations has accused the world’s biggest fossil fuel companies of refusing to abandon a business model at odds with human survival despite knowingly putting the world on course for a climate meltdown decades ago.

    Speaking at the Davos summit of business and political leaders, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, launched a strong attack on the world’s leading oil companies, many of which are represented at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting at the Swiss resort.

    Guterres said recent revelations that ExxonMobil knew back in the 1970s that its core product was “baking our planet”, made “big oil” similar to the tobacco companies that knew smoking led to cancer.

    “Just like the tobacco industry, they rode roughshod over their own science. Big Oil peddled the big lie … And like the tobacco industry, those responsible must be held to account,” he said.

    “Today, fossil fuel producers and their enablers are still racing to expand production, knowing full well that their business model is inconsistent with human survival. This insanity belongs in science fiction, yet we know the ecosystem meltdown is cold, hard scientific fact.”

    The need to step up progress in the global battle to prevent a rise in temperature of more than 1.5C has been one of the themes of the Davos meeting but the head of the UN said many of the pledges made by companies to achieve net zero carbon amounted to greenwashing.

    Guterres said achieving the climate goals agreed by the international community required the full engagement of the private sector, and acknowledged that more and more businesses were making net zero commitments.

    “But benchmarks and criteria are often dubious or murky. This misleads consumers, investors and regulators with false narratives. It feeds a culture of climate misinformation and confusion. And it leaves the door wide open to greenwashing.”

    Corporate leaders should put forward credible and transparent plans to achieve net zero by the end of the year, the UN head said, adding that reliance on carbon credits did not amount to “real” emission cuts.

    Soaring energy prices caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have led to some countries stepping up the use of coal as a substitute for expensive gas but Guterres warned that the world was in a race against time to curb carbon emissions.

    “The battle to keep the 1.5-degree limit alive will be won or lost in this decade. On our watch. My friends, right now it is being lost.

    Get set for the working day – we'll point you to the all the business news and analysis you need every morning

    “We must act together to close the emissions gap. To phase out coal and supercharge the renewable revolution. To end the addiction to fossil fuels. And to stop our self-defeating war on nature.”

    Guterres said restoring trust meant “meaningful climate action”, as he urged rich countries to fulfil their $100bn climate finance commitment to help developing nations – facing the brunt of the climate emergency – to cope with the crisis.

    “Adaptation finance must be doubled. And the biggest emitters – namely G20 countries – must unite around a climate solidarity pact in which they make extra efforts in the 2020s to keep the 1.5-degree limit alive.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business...human-survival

  3. #6653
    Member

    Join Date
    Jun 2010
    Last Online
    02-02-2023 @ 12:30 PM
    Posts
    165
    What a load of garbage.

  4. #6654
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    left of center
    Posts
    20,590
    Another reminder. No it’s not the sun

    Zeke Hausfather - Here is a useful figure from the recent IPCC 6th Assessment Report showing the estimated climate impact of each different "forcing" including solar, volcanoes, greenhouse gases, aerosols, etc. since 1750: https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1610367362225799168



  5. #6655
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    96,555
    Aaah those republicans. Always caring about future generations.

    “Republicans in the House of Delegates passed legislation Wednesday [Jan. 25] to repeal a law tying Virginia to California vehicle emissions standards that are set to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars in 2035.”

  6. #6656
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    left of center
    Posts
    20,590

  7. #6657
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    96,555
    Any doubts about Climate Change?-328996648_5797947550301759_8160942892993282841_n-jpg

  8. #6658
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    left of center
    Posts
    20,590
    more cartoons from TD's school girl, 2nd place winner of TD's 2022 bellend award and TD's PB of speakers corner

  9. #6659
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    left of center
    Posts
    20,590
    JMA – December 2022 was the 9th warmest year recorded





    And 2022 was the 6th warmest year recorded





    Tokyo Climate Center Home Page

    ___________




    Carbon-dioxide will continue to build up in the atmosphere in 2023 due to ongoing emissions.

    However, the Met Office predicts a slower build-up than usual this year because of a temporary increase in natural carbon sinks – processes which absorb more carbon-dioxide.

    This effect will not be permanent, and will need to be replaced by rapid cuts in emissions if global warming is to be limited to 1.5°C.

    To achieve that goal, the build-up of CO₂ needs to become slower and ultimately stop in about a decade’s time. By chance, temporary planetary cooling – as a result of La Niña in the tropical Pacific – is currently slowing the CO₂ build-up by encouraging tropical forests and other vegetation to soak up more carbon-dioxide than usual for the third year running.

    So, while CO₂ levels in the atmosphere continue to increase due to emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation, this increase is smaller than it would have been without the extra carbon uptake by remaining forests.

    To follow the 1.5°C scenario, the increase needs to keep becoming smaller year-on-year. This would only be possible through rapid and deep cuts in global emissions.




    Professor Richard Betts MBE - who leads the team behind the CO₂ forecast – said: “Although our forecast is for a slower build-up again this year, this is not because humanity is emitting less carbon. Instead, we are getting a free ‘helping hand’ from nature – but only for now. Once La Niña weather patterns have ceased, more of our emissions will remain in the atmosphere. We cannot rely on nature to do our job for us.”

    The Met Office forecast calculates the annual average CO₂ concentration at Mauna Loa, in Hawaii, to be 1.97 ± 0.52 parts per million (ppm) higher in 2023 than in 2022. Without the masking effect of La Niña, the rise would have been 2.3ppm parts per million.

    Prof Betts added: “At first sight, this year’s CO₂ rise might appear to be in line with a scenario for limiting global warming to 1.5°C, but actually this is a false impression. It is happening only temporarily, and not for the right reasons. Once the current La Niña abates, its ability to draw down carbon-dioxide will be lost, allowing CO₂ in the atmosphere to grow faster.

    “The 1.5°C scenario requires a determined year-by-year decline in the rate of atmospheric CO₂ rise, starting immediately and reaching zero in the 2030s.

    “Rapid, large-scale cuts in global emissions are needed to achieve this. These are not reflected in current global pledges and policies, as reported in the IPCC WG3 report.”




    The forecast predicts that the average concentration of carbon-dioxide this year will reach above 420 ± 0.5 ppm (parts per million) at the observing station in Mauna Loa in 2023. This will be the first time that these levels have been reached in the ‘Keeling Curve’ record, which dates back to 1958. When the record began, CO₂ levels were around 316ppm and increasing at less than one part per million per year.

    __________



    The largest glacier between the high peaks of Mount Rainier and Glacier Peak has melted away after a long battle with global warming.

    For thousands of years, the Hinman Glacier graced the crest of the Washington Cascades in what is now King County.

    Fifty miles due east of downtown Seattle, Mount Hinman sits deep in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, midway between Snoqualmie Pass and Stevens Pass.

    Nichols College glaciologist Mauri Pelto led a team to Mount Hinman in August 2022, as he has most summers since 1984. This time, they found its namesake glacier was no more.

    In its place were just a few stranded patches of snow and ice.

    “This is the biggest North Cascade glacier to completely disappear,” Pelto said. “I've seen a bunch of small glaciers disappear, and to see one of the larger glaciers disappear is more striking.”

    Until recently, the Hinman was one of four named glaciers that provided cool water to the Skykomish River in the hottest, driest time of the year.

    The glaciers of the Skykomish basin have lost 55% of their surface area since the 1950s, according to Pelto.

    “What that means is, you have 55% less of an ice cube there to melt all summer long,” Pelto said.

    As the Hinman dwindled to almost nothing in recent decades, late-summer flows got lower in the Skykomish River, bad news for salmon and farmers.

    The Hinman Glacier was ancient, though how ancient is unknown. It might date from the retreat of the Cordilleran ice sheet, which left glaciers atop the Cascades and Olympics 14,000 years ago. Pelto said there is strong evidence that the Hinman was older than the explosion of Mount Mazama, which created Oregon’s Crater Lake, 7,000 years ago.

    In the 1950s, the Hinman Glacier flowed a mile and a half from the broad top of 7,492-foot Mount Hinman to the valley floor nearly 2,000 feet below.

    Mount Hinman and its neighbors gained protection from direct human disturbance in 1976 when they were designated part of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. But that designation couldn’t protect Hinman’s snow and ice from a warming climate: They were no match for the rising temperatures of the fossil fuel era.

    “Once the largest glacier between Mount Rainier and Glacier Peak,” mountain climber and guidebook author Fred Beckey wrote in the 2000 edition of his Cascade Alpine Guide, “the Hinman Glacier has separated into three masses, with a greatly diminished area.”

    In 1958, the Hinman Glacier covered 320 acres, about half the size of Seattle’s Lake Union. In August 2022, the biggest patch of ice Pelto’s team found was about 10 acres—too small and too thin to flow, the defining characteristic of the moving ice masses called glaciers.

    Glaciers are rivers of ice. They flow from year to year, as their own weight compresses snow into ice, and generate striking features like deep crevasses and deep-blue ice, sculpting the land beneath them as they go.

    Another glacier on Mount Hinman, the Lower Foss, preceded the Hinman into oblivion, while one other, the Foss, remains, though it has shrunken by 70% since the 1950s.

    The rounded peak and the glacier on its northwest side were named for Everett dentist and mountain climber Harry B. Hinman in 1934. He started the Everett branch of the Mountaineers in 1911.

    Few people ever touched the Hinman Glacier, reachable only by off-trail scrambling and mountaineering deep inside the rugged Alpine Lakes Wilderness.

    But the Hinman touched many people by keeping the Skykomish River cool and flowing each summer and providing water for fish and farmers when they needed it most.

  10. #6660
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    left of center
    Posts
    20,590
    Copernicus – January 2023 tied with January 2018 and 2021 to be the 7th warmest January recorded




    Copernicus


    ____________



    The January 2023 average Arctic sea ice extent was 13.35 million square kilometers (5.15 million square miles), the third lowest January in the satellite record (Figure 1a). January extent was 1.07 million square kilometers (413,000 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 average of 14.42 million square kilometers (5.57 million square miles), but 270,000 square kilometers (104,000 square miles) above the record low set in January 2018.




    Antarctic sea ice extent maintained record lows for this time of year. On February 1, 2023, the extent was 2.26 million square kilometers (873,000 square miles). This is 270,000 square kilometers (104,000 square miles) below the previous February 1 record low in 2017, and 310,000 square kilometers (120,000 square miles) above the record seasonal minimum in extent that occurred on February 25, 2022.

    National Snow and Ice Data Center

    ____________








    NOAAGlobalTemp has been used by multiple science organizations such as the World Meteorological Organization and in assessments, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS) State of the Climate reports. It is also usually compared to other respected global surface temperature datasets such as those produced by NASA and the UK Met Office, among others.

    Through the years, the main data sources for the NOAAGlobalTemp dataset have been the Global Historical Climatology Network - Monthly (GHCNm), which uses weather stations across the land surfaces, as well as the Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST), which uses ships, buoys, surface drifters, profiling floats, and recently other uncrewed automatic systems, over the ocean surfaces. This allowed for great global coverage; however, the polar regions were excluded in previous versions.

    As technology improves and additional data sources become available, it is essential to update these datasets in order to provide the most accurate depiction of the Earth’s environmental conditions—updated datasets help support informed decision-making, as well as educating the public on climate change.




    NCEI will switch to an updated version of NOAAGlobalTemp on February 14, 2023, with the release of the January 2023 Global Climate ReportNCEI will switch to an updated version of NOAAGlobalTemp on February 14, 2023, with the release of the January 2023 Global Climate Report. This new version includes complete global coverage. The two main improvements include improved scientific methods for infilling areas with little to no data as well as the addition of air temperature data in the Arctic Ocean from the International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS) and the International Arctic Buoy Program (IABP) to improve spatial coverage, especially across the Arctic. The second improvement is that the data record now begins with January 1850, extending the record back in time an additional 30 years.

    The Arctic is the fastest-warming region in the world, warming at least three times faster than any other region on Earth. The exclusion of this region in previous versions of NOAAGlobalTemp resulted in a very slight cold bias in the global average, particularly in recent years.

    The new version of NOAAGlobalTemp corrects this and, while ranks and anomalies may change slightly, the main conclusions regarding global climate change are very similar to the previous version:

    Global trends over decadal and longer time scales are consistent.

    The top-10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2010 and the last nine years (2014-2022) are the nine-warmest years on record.




    However, the new version shows significantly more warming in the Arctic since 1980, which is mainly a result from complete coverage in the polar region.

    __________




    Deep in the DNA of an Antarctic octopus, scientists may have uncovered a major clue about the future fate of the continent’s ice sheet – raising fears global heating could soon set off runaway melting.

    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 ice sheet holds enough water to raise sea levels by 3 to 4 metres with fears that global heating could soon push it towards runaway melting that would lock-in rising sea levels over centuries.

    In an ingenious approach, a team of 11 scientists – including biologists, geneticists, glaciologists, computer scientists and ice-sheet modellers – looked at the genetics of Turquet’s octopus – a species that has been living around the Antarctic continent for about 4m years.

    Genetic samples were taken from 96 octopuses collected over three decades from around the continent.

    The octopus DNA carries a memory of its past, including how and when different populations were moving and mixing together, exchanging genetic material.

    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.

    The research is undergoing peer review at a journal but it has been made public, Lau said, because she wanted the scientific community to have early access and because of the urgent nature of the findings.

    She said information on the changes in the DNA of the octopus can be used like a clock, allowing her to pinpoint the period when octopuses in the south Weddell Sea and the Ross Sea were mixing.

    Prof Nick Golledge, a co-author of the research from Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, said a major concern was that once the ice sheet reaches a tipping point, the melting becomes “self-sustaining” and would continue for centuries or longer.

    He said the route the octopuses are thought to have used is about 1,500 to 2,000 metres below the top of the current ice sheet. That channel would have been about 1,000 metres deep, but shallower nearer the edge.

    “It’s a sizeable ocean segment and a significant seaway for organisms to traverse,” he said.

    He said over the past two decades, the rate of ice loss from west Antarctica had been increasing.

    According to the most recent UN climate assessment, temperatures during the last interglacial were between 0.5C and 1.5C warmer than the period just before the industrial revolution. Sea levels were between 5 and 10 metres higher than today.

    _________



  11. #6661
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    left of center
    Posts
    20,590
    NOAA – January 2023 was the 7th warmest January recorded




    NOAA

    __________




    Natural disasters worsened by a changing climate are displacing millions of people in the U.S.

    That’s according to a new Census Bureau report, which found that more than 3 million adults were forced to evacuate their homes in the past year because of hurricanes, floods and other events, writes POLITICO’s E&E News reporter Thomas Frank. That amounted to 1.4 percent of the U.S. adult population — and included 11 percent of adults in Louisiana.

    The tally marks a rare federal effort to assess the uprooting caused by the climate emergency. The Census Bureau estimate far exceeds other counts of U.S. evacuees, suggesting that previous data and reporting on internally displaced persons underestimate this ongoing crisis.

    For example, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, which tracks people displaced within their own country for any reason, estimated that disasters displaced an average of 800,000 U.S. residents a year from 2008 through 2021.

    That includes the center’s estimate that 1.7 million were displaced in 2017 — the year of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, three of the most destructive storms in U.S. history.

    While most displacements documented by the Census Bureau were short-term, roughly 16 percent of the displaced adults never returned home, and 12 percent were out of their homes for more than six months. Evacuation rates were highest for the poorest households, those earning less than $25,000 a year.

    Globally, 20 million people are displaced every year by climate-fueled events, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. And that number is only expected to grow.

    The Institute for Economics & Peace, an international think tank, predicted that climate disruptions — such as sea-level rise, water shortages and crop failure — could displace as many as 1.2 billion people by midcentury.

    ________


    • Drastic emissions cuts needed to avert multi-century sea level rise, study finds


    Only by limiting human-caused global warming to 1.5°C or less, which many scientists don't consider feasible, can a multi-century melting of the globe's ice sheets and increase in sea levels be averted, a new study finds.

    Why it matters: Along with extreme weather events, sea level rise is a climate change impact that is already being felt in coastal communities.


    • This comes in the form of so-called sunny day or nuisance flooding during astronomical high tides, as well as greater coastal flooding during storm events.


    Driving the news: The new study shows that even if emissions are curtailed in line with a moderate emissions scenario, sea levels will keep rising through at least 2150 and beyond due to the delayed response of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets.


    • Only the most stringent emissions cuts, which are a course the world is not currently on, would help slow ice melt and related sea level rise, the study shows.


    Threat level: The study, published Tuesday in Nature Communications, utilizes multiple simulations from what are known as "coupled" computer models in which the interactions between the atmosphere, ocean, ice sheets and ice shelves are included and capable of influencing one another over time.


    • The study projects sea level rise through 2150 of between 8 inches and 4.6 feet, and notes that these are likely conservative numbers due to the way the model simulates how sensitive the climate is to increased greenhouse gas concentrations.
    • "According to our simulations, the 2°C warming (above the pre-industrial level) target emphasized by the Paris Agreement is insufficient to prevent accelerated sea level rise over the next century," the study states.
    • Currently, assuming countries' voluntary emissions pledges are all met, the world is headed for about 2.4°C (4.32°F) of warming through 2100 compared to preindustrial levels, according to the Climate Action Tracker.


    Of note: The new research drives home the point that even if global warming slows near or just after 2100, as would be the case in moderate to high emissions scenarios, ice sheet contributions to sea level rise would keep accelerating well beyond that.


    • Once widespread melting of the Greenland ice sheet and large parts of Antarctica are triggered, the melting is similar to a runaway train — it is extremely difficult to stop.


    What they're saying: "Our study adds to the large body of research that suggests with increasing confidence that if we do not rapidly and substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions sea-level rise will continue to accelerate over the next decades and continue for centuries with catastrophic consequences for coastal communities," study coauthor Fabian Schloesser of the University of Hawaii told Axios via email.


    • "However, our simulations suggest that the worst consequences can still be avoided if we do sufficiently reduce emissions within the next decades," he said.


    Eric Rignot, a climate scientist at UC Irvine and NASA who was not involved in the new study, told Axios the main findings are worth emphasizing.


    • "As in most simulations, the biggest factor remains our ongoing/future emissions of greenhouse gas; and only an aggressive reduction in our emissions will prevent substantial loss of ice mass. This sort of conclusion is worth documenting, hearing and repeating over and over," he said via email.
    • He called for more robust observing of networks in, around and in some cases underneath ice sheets in order to improve the accuracy of model projections.


    https://www.axios.com/2023/02/14/car...sea-level-rise

    _________

    • Climate change contributing to spread of antibiotic-resistant ‘superbugs’: UN report


    Climate change is heightening the risk posed by antibiotic-resistant viruses, according to research published Tuesday by the United Nations Environment Program.

    The report found so-called superbugs have been exacerbated by climate change due to increased bacterial growth caused by warmer temperatures and pollutants that have increased the spread of antibiotic-resistance genes.

    The analysis notes that overuse of antimicrobials and pollutants can spread resistance, while contact with resistant microorganisms can create resistance in bacteria already present in air, water and soil. Pollution associated with wastewater, particularly from hospitals, is a major factor, as well as runoff from pharmaceutical production and agriculture, according to the report.

    The risk is particularly great for historically polluted waterways, which are more likely to provide shelter for microorganisms that foster antibiotic resistance. A combination of increased pollution and decreased resources for pollutant management has made the problem worse in combination with resistance in health care and agriculture settings.

    Meanwhile, 2021 research published in the journal Sci Total Environ suggests urban flooding is also increasing the threat from antibiotic resistance due to disruptions of soil, with the risk possibly lingering for up to five months after major floods or hurricanes.

    “While the relationship between environmental pollution and AMR [antimicrobial resistance] and the reservoir of resistance genes in the environment has been established, the significance and its contribution to AMR globally is still unclear,” researchers wrote. “Even so, there is enough knowledge to implement measures to reduce the factors that influence AMR from an environmental perspective; this will also address the triple planetary crisis by addressing sources, sinks and waste.”

    The report calls for stronger regulatory frameworks to address the spread of AMR, as well as increased incorporation of environmental factors into National Action Plans for antimicrobial resistance and international standards for signs of antimicrobial resistance.

    https://thehill.com/policy/energy-en...ugs-un-report/

  12. #6662
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    96,555
    Cue loads of trumpanzees posting pictures of snow with captions about "global warming"....

    A massive storm is set to bring a wintry mix of snow, rain and strong winds to more than 20 states across the country this week.
    Millions of residents in 22 states from coast to coast are under winter weather alerts, with at least six of those states also under blizzard warnings. The storm — named Winter Storm Olive — may also bring record-high levels of snowfall to the Upper Midwest, where “this event could very well break top five snowfalls in the Twin Cities dating back to 1884,” according to the local National Weather Service.
    The Twin Cities region may see up to two feet of snow, the NWS said.
    “A major winter storm will affect a large portion of the country this week. Heavy snow, sleet, and freezing rain is likely across the western and northern tier portions of the United States. Extreme impacts are likely, and historic snowfall is possible near Minneapolis, MN,” the NWS tweeted on Tuesday.

    Residents in 22 states preparing for potentially record-breaking winter storm | The Hill

  13. #6663
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    left of center
    Posts
    20,590


    Declining plant health could mean increased food prices for already constrained American consumers, experts tell Axios.

    Driving the news: It might not be obvious why the health of plants is a contributing factor to food shortages in developed countries. But there's a direct connection — when they're diseased, there's less food to go around, and food prices rise accordingly.


    • A heady cocktail of climate impacts mixed with conservation failures is contributing to the problem.


    What they're saying: "Plant health can impact our food supply, our food security," Tim Widmer, a national program leader for plant health in the crop production and protection program at the USDA's Agricultural Research Service, tells Axios.


    • If enough staple crops are devoured by insects or become diseased, Widmer says U.S. consumer food prices — which are already substantially higher than average — could climb in response.
    • "Now with climate change, that too, is putting an extra pressure on our food supply, in terms of plant health."


    How it works: Warming temperatures fueled by climate change are increasing the risk of plant pathogens and pests spreading into new ecosystems.




    The intrigue: The relationship between crop production and food security in developing countries has been well established, but the impacts on wealthier nations, where food insecurity is more of a social problem, have been less clear.


    • The U.S. isn't “immune” to the impacts of declining food production, per the CDC.
    • According to the agency, food insecurity rises as the cost of food increases, and so do rates of micronutrient malnutrition, which occurs when healthy foods are inaccessible or people go hungry.
    • "Here in the U.S., I think we have taken food for granted, because we've always had a good supply," says Widmer, noting that the COVID pandemic exposed supply chain vulnerabilities, such as nationwide grocery shortages.


    What we're watching: A 2022 report by the Environmental Defense Fund forecasts that under a moderate emissions scenario, the U.S. will see "significant climate burdens" on crop production in the Midwest as soon as 2030.


    • The report looks at projected changes in seasonal temperatures, but does not assess the impacts of pests and diseases, which are responsible for anywhere between 20% to 40% of losses to global crop production, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.


    Of note: "There are diseases out there that we know that if they would come into the U.S., that we would have some serious issues," says Widmer.


    • A fast-acting fungal disease known as "wheat blast" — which under certain conditions can cause yield loss up to 100% — is one example.
    • Wheat is the principal food grain produced in the U.S., according to the USDA’s Economic Research Service.
    • The key to avoiding diseases like wheat blast is through exclusion, or keeping them from entering a place, which gets harder to do when you consider corresponding climate impacts, Widmer says.


    But, but, but: While some insect species pose significant threats to agricultural crops, others help boost plant growth.


    • Shawan Chowdhury, conservation biologist at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research, tells Axios in an email that insects are a major source of pollinators — so if insect populations decline it will hamper crop yields.
    • “If there are not enough insects, many other species will decline too due to food scarcity,” says Chowdhury.
    • And a 2022 study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives found that insect population declines, brought about because of climate change and expansion of agriculture, has led to inadequate pollination, resulting in 3%-5% fruit, vegetable and nut production being lost worldwide.
    • Researchers also linked the impact of crop declines on healthy food production to roughly 500,000 annual nutrition-related early deaths.


    The bottom line: "Plants get sick too," USDA's Widmer tells Axios. "If we can have healthy plants, we can have a healthy environment, and a healthy human and animal population."
    Last edited by S Landreth; 22-02-2023 at 11:59 AM.

  14. #6664
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    left of center
    Posts
    20,590
    NASA – January 2023 was the 7th warmest January recorded.




    NASA

    ____________

    The climate change real estate bubble risks billions




    A climate housing bubble threatens to erode real estate prices in much of the U.S. in the coming years, posing particular challenges for low-income residents, a new study finds.

    Why it matters: With more severe and frequent extreme weather events, the resilience of homeowners and communities is on the line.


    • How lenders, insurance companies and others incorporate escalating flood risks into property prices is a key question facing at-risk communities.


    Zoom in: The study, published Thursday in Nature Climate Change, finds that nationally, property prices are currently overvalued by between $121 billion and $237 billion, when compared to their actual flood risk.


    • The current prices mask the true danger that these properties are exposed to, because of factors such as outdated FEMA flood maps, incentives in the National Flood Insurance Program and home buyers who lack climate change information.
    • The paper is the result of a collaboration between experts at the Environmental Defense Fund, First Street Foundation, Resources for the Future, the Federal Reserve and two universities.
    • Scientists relied on First Street’s updated modeling that simulates rainfall-induced, or pluvial flooding, as well as coastal flood events.


    Between the lines: The authors found that right now, 14.6 million properties face at least a 1% annual probability of flooding, putting them in the so-called 100-year flood zone.


    • However, this is expected to increase by 11% in a mid-range emissions scenario, with average annual losses spiking by at least 26% by 2050.
    • In dollar terms, the areas with the greatest property overvaluations are along the coasts, where there is overlap between rising seas, fewer flood disclosure laws, and a high number of residents who may not view climate change as a near-term threat.
    • Much of the overvaluation comes from vulnerable properties located outside of FEMA's 100-year flood zone.


    • Once the higher flood risks become evident, homeowners will lose equity in their property, which is a particular threat to lower-income homeowners.


    The big picture: The pattern of the total overvaluation of at-risk properties in the Lower 48 states reveals hot spots of risk.


    • Specifically, coastal areas show high amounts of overvaluation.
    • Spikes also show up in West Virginia and other parts of Appalachia.
    • In Texas, it is clear that the biggest cities, including Houston and Dallas, have a significant amount of overvaluation.
    • Florida tops the list, accounting for about $50.2 billion based on the actual threat, the study found.


    What they're saying: "There is a significant amount of 'unknown' flood risk across the country based solely on the differences in the publicly available federal flood maps and the reality of actual flood risk," Jeremy Porter, head of climate implications at First Street Foundation, said in a statement.

    __________

    • International group blasts fossil fuel industry for increased methane emissions


    The International Energy Agency (IEA), a group of oil-consuming nations, criticized the fossil fuel industry after the sector’s emissions of planet-warming methane rose last year.

    The IEA found that in 2022, the global energy sector was responsible for 135 million metric tons of methane emissions. This is a slight increase over the industry’s 2021 measurement of releases of the greenhouse gas.

    According to the organization, 75 percent of emissions from the oil and gas sector could be cut through technologies that are already on the market and would cost less than 3 percent of the industry’s income to install.

    An IEA statement said that the fact that this has not yet been done highlights “a lack of industry action on an issue that is often very cheap to address.”

    “Our new Global Methane Tracker shows that some progress is being made but that emissions are still far too high and not falling fast enough – especially as methane cuts are among the cheapest options to limit near-term global warming. There is just no excuse,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol in the press release.

    Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that is more than 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide, but it spends less time in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is still the biggest contributor to planetary warming, but methane is also responsible for about 30 percent of the temperature increase, according to the IEA.

    The energy industry is responsible for about 40 percent of human-caused methane emissions, according to the report, making it the second-largest emission source behind only agriculture.

    https://thehill.com/policy/energy-en...ane-emissions/

  15. #6665
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    left of center
    Posts
    20,590
    JMA – January 2023 was the 5th warmest January recorded




    Japan Meteorological Agency

    ___________




    Carbon dioxide emissions related to energy production globally rose at a slower pace by 0.9 percent in 2022, reaching more than 36.8 billion metric tons.

    The International Energy Agency (IEA) released the report as climate experts emphasize the importance of global CO2 emissions, implying that they should be reduced in order to ensure that the latest climate targets set by the World Resources Institute in the United States are met. The IEA said that “emissions still remain on an unsustainable growth trajectory.”

    “The apparent slowdown in carbon emissions last year is no cause for celebration,” said Antoine Halff, a founding partner of Kayrros, an energy consulting firm that makes extensive use of satellite imagery. “This is not a positive achievement flowing from virtuous climate policies, but rather a byproduct of Russian aggression and its adverse effect on European energy-intensive industries on the one hand, and on the other hand the nefarious effect of China’s public health policies on its economy.”

    While emissions remain at a rate of growth that is unsustainable, the carbon dioxide rate in 2022 was significantly slower than in 2021, when it grew more than 6 percent. That slower rate of energy usage was a rebound from the pandemic, the agency said.

    But last year’s disruptions, from the war in Ukraine to work restrictions related to the pandemic in China, meant the “increase of global emissions was not as fast as the agency had feared it would be,” the IEA said.

    “Two major events contributed to reducing emissions last year,” said Halff. “China’s zero-covid policy and the war in Ukraine took a big bite off of world carbon emissions last year, but that was partly offset by a resurgence of coal as a substitute for scarce or pricey natural gas.”

    As a result, emissions in the U.S. grew by 0.8 percent due to a significant increase of extreme temperatures in the building sector as cutbacks in emissions came from other areas, such as solar and wind energy. While other countries reduce their natural gas usage, the United States increased its fuel usage by 89 million metric tons.

    “A smaller increase than ‘initially feared’ is a far cry from the rapid emission reductions the world needs to see to avoid the worst impacts of global warming,” said Daniel Lashof, the director of the World Resources Institute in the United States.

    However, global emissions need to be reduced by more than 40 percent by 2030, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in order to keep up with the rise of the global temperature.

    “So, any increase in emissions, even a small one, means we are getting further and further off course,” he said.

    As any increase to emissions could change the course, the resurgence of coal could significantly affect emissions as the war in Ukraine continues, with China approving the largest expansion of a coal-fired power plant as of last year.

    __________




    Scientists are keeping a close eye on the Antarctic ice shelf as recent activity could soon cause rapid melting and rising sea levels.

    The sea ice in Antarctica has likely met its minimum extent for 2023, furthering expectations from researchers that continued melting will occur at a record-fast pace, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

    On Feb. 21, at the peak of the region's summer, the Antarctic sea ice reached its annual minimum extent of 1.79 million square kilometers, or 691,000 square miles -- the lowest sea ice extent on record for the second year in a row, according to the center.

    This year's minimum extent was about 52,000 square miles lower than in 2022, the researchers said.

    Walt Meier, senior research scientist at the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center, told ABC News. Calving events on Pine Island and Thwaites could "could trigger a dramatic increase in sea level rise rates before the end of this century," Scambos said.

    "They help to pin back the glaciers and keep the ice from flying off the land," Meier said of the sea ice. "But when the ocean is exposed, the ocean heats up, you get waves, that makes those [glaciers] less stable without the sea ice there."

    As global temperatures continue to rise, the melting in Antarctica has not been as rapid as in the Arctic, which has been the "place of action," Meier said.

    "It's been on a long-term, pretty steep decline," he said. "We've had record lows or near record lows for the last 10 to 15 years."

    The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, amplifying sea level rise and further warming, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But the current downtrend in sea ice on the South Pole could be a signal that climate change is "finally affecting" the floating ice surrounding Antarctica, Scambos said.




    National Snow and Ice Center

    __________


    Abstract

    Tropical forests play a critical role in the hydrological cycle and can influence local and regional precipitation1. Previous work has assessed the impacts of tropical deforestation on precipitation, but these efforts have been largely limited to case studies2. A wider analysis of interactions between deforestation and precipitation—and especially how any such interactions might vary across spatial scales—is lacking. Here we show reduced precipitation over deforested regions across the tropics. Our results arise from a pan-tropical assessment of the impacts of 2003–2017 forest loss on precipitation using satellite, station-based and reanalysis datasets. The effect of deforestation on precipitation increased at larger scales, with satellite datasets showing that forest loss caused robust reductions in precipitation at scales greater than 50 km. The greatest declines in precipitation occurred at 200 km, the largest scale we explored, for which 1 percentage point of forest loss reduced precipitation by 0.25 ± 0.1 mm per month. Reanalysis and station-based products disagree on the direction of precipitation responses to forest loss, which we attribute to sparse in situ tropical measurements. We estimate that future deforestation in the Congo will reduce local precipitation by 8–10% in 2100. Our findings provide a compelling argument for tropical forest conservation to support regional climate resilience.

    Main (partial)

    Rapid loss of forests is occurring across the tropics10. Tropical deforestation warms the climate at local-to-global scales by changing the surface energy balance and through emissions of carbon dioxide. The impact of tropical deforestation on precipitation is less certain with a range of processes operating at different scales. Small-scale deforestation over the southern Amazon has been shown to increase precipitation frequency owing to thermally and dynamically induced circulations. At larger scales, deforestation reduces precipitation recycling leading to a reduction in precipitation. Over Indonesia, deforestation has been linked to declining precipitation, and exacerbation of El Niño impacts16. Global and regional climate models predict annual precipitation declines of 8.1 ± 1.4% for large-scale Amazonian deforestation by 2050, but an observational study of the impacts of tropical deforestation on precipitation across spatial scales is lacking.

    __________

    • Amazons least deforested areas are due to vital role of indigenous-peoples


    Only 5% of net forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon occurs in Indigenous territories and protected areas – even though these areas contain more than half of the region’s forest.

    That is a key finding from a recent study, published in Nature Sustainability, which looks at data over the period 2000 to 2021. It analyses satellite images to estimate annual forest area and then overlays that information with national datasets on different governance and management systems.

    The findings reveal the “vital role” of Indigenous territories and protected areas in forest conservation in the Amazon, the authors write.

    However, over 2018-21, the percentage of annual forest loss in those areas was twice as large as the one in non-designated areas, the study finds. The authors warn that this change highlights the effect of the “weakening” of environmental protections under former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro.

    The great Amazon

    The Amazon is the largest tropical rainforest in the world, spanning nine South American countries. The majority of the rainforest is found in Brazil, making the Brazilian Amazon a biodiversity hotspot.

    In 2000, the total forested area in this region covered 394m hectares.

    This biologically rich zone is partitioned into protected areas, Indigenous territories and non-designated areas. Protected areas are then split into two categories: strict protection (areas designated for biodiversity conservation, which subsequently have more forest cover and less deforestation pressure) and sustainable use (which allows people to sustainably manage nature and use its resources, such as by sustainable agriculture).

    The authors write that Indigenous territories and protected areas “are covered by forests” and their contribution “strengthens forest conservation substantially”.

    The Brazilian Amazon is also home to nearly 400 Indigenous groups and holds nearly 330 protected areas.

    Amanda Kayabi, an 18-year-old Indigenous leader in Samauma Village in the Xingu Indigenous Territory, tells Carbon Brief that “we, as Indigenous people, have a duty to protect the Amazon”. She adds:

    “Our territory, our forest, is everything that we have: where we live, feed, plant traditional foods, [obtain] medicines [and] crops, where we pray, the air we breathe.”

    The contribution that Kayabi and other Indigenous peoples make towards conserving the Brazilian Amazon is reflected in the amount of rainforest they are responsible for. In 2018, Indigenous territories and other protected areas held 206m hectares of forests – this is 52% of the total forested area measured in 2000, the baseline year that the authors used for comparison.

    Much more in the article: https://www.carbonbrief.org/amazons-...enous-peoples/

  16. #6666
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    left of center
    Posts
    20,590
    Copernicus – February 2023 was the 5th warmest February recorded





    Copernicus

    __________

    • Zeke Hausfather - After three years of work, our massive review of climate tipping elements led by @wang_seaver is finally out in Reviews of Geophysics.


    With 12 co-authors and clocking in at 81 pages, it provides a comprehensive review of 10 different tipping elements:

    Mechanisms and Impacts of Earth System Tipping Elements

    https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1630707415443451904


    _________








    Average winter temperatures across the United States have increased by 3.2°F since 1970, according to an analysis from Climate Central, a nonpartisan research and communications group.




    Why it matters: Warm winters can exacerbate drought (because there's less snowmelt in the spring), wreak havoc on crops and gardens, and spell disaster for towns built around skiing, snowboarding, and similar pursuits.

    The big picture: Winter is the fastest-warming season for much of the continental U.S.


    • About 80% of the country now has at least seven more winter days with above-normal temperatures compared to 1970, per Climate Central.
    • Seasonal snowfall is declining in many cities — although heavy snowstorms can still happen when temperatures are cold enough.
    • In fact, precipitation extremes are happening more frequently and getting more intense, which can lead to feast or famine snowfall.


    Driving the news: Not only are winters warming overall, but cold snaps are becoming less severe and shorter in duration, the latest research shows.


    • That's partly because the Arctic is warming at three to four times the rate of the rest of the world.
    • In other words, our global refrigerator is warming up, making it harder to get record-breaking cold for days on end when weather patterns transport Arctic air southward.


    Zoom out: This past winter was especially mild across areas east of the Mississippi River. But across the West, it was colder than average. This is reflected in the balance of daily record highs to daily record lows.


    • Preliminary NOAA data processed by Climate Central shows there were 4,857 daily record highs set or tied in the lower 48 states this past winter, and 4,421 daily record lows set or tied.


    • A combination of La Niña, a strong polar vortex, and a stubborn area of high pressure in the far western Atlantic Ocean favored a weather pattern that kept the East Coast on the warm side of winter storms, delivering snow across the Great Lakes northward into Ontario and Quebec.
    • This was the 17th-warmest winter on record across the U.S., as colder conditions in the West balanced out milder temperatures in the East.


    The bottom line: Over the coming years, most of us can expect to feel climate change's effects more acutely during the winter months.


    _________

    Extra

    • UK emissions fall 3.4% in 2022 as coal use drops to lowest level since 1757


    The UK’s greenhouse gas emissions fell by 3.4% in 2022, according to new Carbon Brief analysis, ending a post-Covid rebound.

    Emissions from coal and gas fell in 2022, due to strong growth in clean energy, above-average temperatures and record-high fossil fuel prices suppressing demand.

    The 15% reduction in coal use means UK demand for the fuel is now the lowest it has been for 266 years. The last time coal demand was this low was in 1757, when George II was king.

    Emissions from oil increased, as road traffic returned to pre-Covid levels and air traffic doubled from a year earlier. However, this was outweighed by the reductions from coal and gas.

    UK emissions have now fallen in nine of the past 10 years, even as the economy has grown. The drop in 2022 puts UK emissions 49% below 1990 levels, while the economy has grown 75% over the same period.





    https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis...el-since-1757/

  17. #6667
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    left of center
    Posts
    20,590
    NOAA – February 2023 was 4th warmest February recorded




    NOAA

    _________




    An area of mountain forest larger than the state of Texas has been lost since 2001, with the amount disappearing each year accelerating at an “alarming” rate, a study warns.

    Scientists found 78m hectares (193m acres) of mountain forest have been lost across the world in the past two decades, which is more than 7% of all that exists. The main drivers of loss were logging, the expansion of agriculture and wildfires.

    Mountains are home to more than 85% of the world’s birds, mammals and amphibians. These habitats were once more protected than their lowland equivalents because their rugged terrain made them less accessible, the paper notes. Today, they are increasingly threatened as humans exploit harder-to-reach areas of the planet, and lowland forests are given greater protection.

    “Our global analysis of mountain forest loss identifies an alarming acceleration over the past two decades,” the researchers, led by scientists from the University of Leeds and the Southern University of Science and Technology in China, wrote in the paper, published in the journal One Earth.

    They found that logging was responsible for 42% of mountain forest loss, wildfires for 29%, slash-and-burn cultivation 15% and semi-permanent or permanent agriculture 10%.

    The researchers tracked changes in forests between 2001 and 2018, documenting both increases and decreases in tree cover, and working out possible impacts on biodiversity. They found that Asia, South America, Africa, Europe and Australia were all badly affected. Much of the loss in northern Asia was due to wildfires, especially in large parts of Russia. Droughts and bushfires led to significant losses in Australia.

    The annual rate of loss rose sharply after 2010, increasing by 50% in 2010-2018 compared with 2001-2009. Expansion of agriculture and logging in the highland areas of south-east Asia was found to be a key driver. During the period of study, more than half of global forest loss happened in Asia.

    The climate crisis is putting pressure on specialist – and often sensitive – mountain wildlife, as warmer temperatures force species to move to higher ground. At some point, they are likely to run out of suitable habitats, a process known as the “escalator to extinction”.

    Previous studies have shown that alpine plants are not keeping up with climate breakdown, with invasive species colonising the tops of mountains faster. Botanists working in the Scottish Highlands also found Britain’s rarest mountain plants were retreating higher.

    In this latest paper, researchers warned: “Mountain forests are undergoing dramatic changes in many regions due to their sensitivity to climate change and anthropogenic pressures, which will become a major threat to mountain species.”

    More than 40% of the total loss was in tropical mountain forests, which are considered biodiversity hotspots, putting even more pressure on threatened species. Zhenzhong Zeng from Southern University of Science and Technology, one of the paper’s authors, said: “What needs our attention is that mountain forest loss has encroached on areas of known high conservation value to terrestrial biodiversity, especially in the tropics. Various types of agriculture expansion and forestry activities are key drivers there.”

    The paper found that creating protected areas within biodiversity hotspots lowered the rate of loss. “Increasing the area of protection in mountains should be central to preserving montane forests and biodiversity in the future,” it said.

    Dr Marco Mina, a researcher at the Institute for Alpine Environment, Eurac Research, in Italy, who was not involved in the study, said: “My overall opinion is that the use of large-scale data such as remote-sensing satellite products are a great tool to monitor forest change in almost real time. However, we should be cautious to draw global conclusions based solely on remote-sensing products.

    “A forest that is well managed through a careful planning process can still provide high levels of habitat for plants and animal species.”

    __________

    Further proof it’s dangerous and one of the most expensive ways to generate power.




    Minnesota agencies said this week that they are monitoring the cleanup of a 400,000-gallon radioactive water leak from a nuclear power plant outside Minneapolis from last November.

    Driving the news: The leak was contained to the plant site in Monticello and it poses no health or safety risks to the community or nearby environment, according to Xcel Energy, a Minneapolis-based utility company.


    • The plant leak was not revealed to the public until now because it "poses no health and safety risk to the local community or the environment," the company said in a statement.
    • The plant in Monticello is about 35 miles northwest of Minneapolis and upstream from the Mississippi River, per AP.


    Minnesota nuclear plant leak details

    The leak, which occurred at the Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant, was first reported to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the state of Minnesota on Nov. 22, 2022, Xcel said.


    • The leak never reached the threshold that would have required a public announcement, the company said.
    • Xcel said it has since worked with state and federal regulators, as well as local officials, to monitor the cleanup. The company added that it "has been pumping, storing, and processing the water for reuse."


    What they're saying: "We have taken comprehensive measures to address this situation on-site at the plant," Chris Clark, president of Xcel Energy–Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, said in a statement.


    • "While this leak does not pose a risk to the public or the environment, we take this very seriously and are working to safely address the situation," he added.
    • Victoria Mitlyng, a spokesperson with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told KARE 11 that "the public in Minnesota, the people, the community near the plant, was not and is not in danger.”


    What we know about the leaked water

    The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency said in a statement Thursday that the leak was "stopped and has not reached the Mississippi River or contaminated drinking water sources."


    • "There is no evidence at this time to indicate a risk to any drinking water wells in the vicinity of the plant," the MPCA said.


    The leaked water contained levels of tritium, a compound that "is naturally present in the environment and is commonly created in the operation of nuclear power plants," Xcel said.


    • Tritium can release low levels of radiation, but on a similar level as common materials and food, the company said.
    • The compound can be created from electricity production at nuclear power plants, according to the Minnesota PCA.
    • Xcel said it has recovered about 25% of the tritium released and will continue to do so over the next year.
    • Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists, told KARE 11 that there would only be a health risk if people consumed a high amount of tritium.


    What's next: Clark, of Xcel Energy, said the company will "continue to gather and treat all potentially affected water while regularly monitoring nearby groundwater sources."


    • The MPCA said that Xcel is exploring the possibility of building aboveground storage tanks or a retention pond to store the contaminated water that has been recovered.

  18. #6668
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    left of center
    Posts
    20,590
    NASA – February 2023 was the 4th warmest February recorded.




    And winter (DJF) tied with the 5th warmest winter recorded.

    ___________




    The final part of the world’s most comprehensive assessment of climate change – which details the “unequivocal” role of humans, its impacts on “every region” of the world and what must be done to solve it – has now been published in full by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

    The synthesis report is the last in the IPCC’s sixth assessment cycle, which has involved 700 scientists in 91 countries. Overall, the full cycle of reports has taken eight years to complete.

    The report sets out in the clearest and most evidenced detail yet how humans are responsible for the 1.1C of temperature rise seen since the start of the industrial era.

    It also shows how the impacts of this level of warming are already deadly and disproportionately heaped upon the world’s most vulnerable people.

    The report notes that policies in place by the end of 2021 – the cut-off date for evidence cited in the assessment – would likely see temperatures exceed 1.5C this century and reach around 3.2C by 2100.

    In many parts of the world, humans and ecosystems will be unable to adapt to this amount of warming, it says. And the losses and damages will “escalate with every increment” of global temperature rise.

    But it also lays out how governments can still take action to avoid the worst of climate change, with the rest of this decade being crucial for deciding impacts for the rest of the century. The report says:

    “There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all…The choices and actions implemented in this decade will have impacts now and for thousands of years.”

    The report shows that many options for tackling climate change – from wind and solar power to tackling food waste and greening cities – are already cost effective, enjoy public support and would come with co-benefits for human health and nature.

    At a press briefing, leading climate scientist and IPCC author Prof Friederike Otto said the report highlights “not only the urgency of the problem and the gravity of it, but also lots of reasons for hope – because we still have the time to act and we have everything we need”.

    Carbon Brief’s team of journalists has delved through each page of the IPCC’s AR6 full synthesis report to produce a digestible summary of the key findings and graphics.

    1. What is this report?
    2. How is the Earth’s climate changing?
    3. How are human-caused emissions driving global warming?
    4. How much hotter will the world get this century?
    5. What are the potential impacts at different warming levels?
    6. How could warming cause abrupt and irreversible change?
    7. What does the report say on loss and damage?
    8. Why is climate action currently ‘falling short’?
    9. What is needed to stop climate change?
    10. How can individual sectors scale up climate action?
    11. What does the report say about adaptation?
    12. What are the benefits of near-term climate action?
    13. Why is finance an ‘enabler’ and ‘barrier’ for climate action?
    14. What are the co-benefits for the Sustainable Development Goals?
    15. What does the report say about equity and inclusion?

    __________

    • Tiny island nation takes climate change to The Hague


    The small Pacific island country of Vanuatu is poised to gain UN approval to seek an unprecedented legal opinion on what obligation countries have to combat climate change.

    Why it matters: Vanuatu's resolution would give the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague a chance to weigh in on potential consequences for nations that have caused much of global warming to date.


    • The nonbinding advisory opinion could be cited by U.S. courts, and used in legal proceedings around the world.


    The big picture: The push started in a law school classroom in Fiji four years ago, according to Cynthia Houniuhi, president of Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change.


    • She and her international environmental law classmates brainstormed ways to seek action through various legal mechanisms, Houniuhi told reporters on a press call Thursday.
    • Propelled by youth activism, the effort to gain adoption by the UN General Assembly has been led by the Vanuatu government since 2021. The resolution, with a vote expected on March 29, has over 100 co-sponsors.


    The intrigue: The questions the resolution asks the court are deliberately framed to avoid singling out large, industrialized countries responsible for the vast majority of historical global emissions.


    • This has helped the proposal gain steam in the General Assembly, picking up co-sponsors such as the U.K. and EU nations such as Norway. Australia recently signed on as well.
    • As a low-lying country, Vanuatu is acutely vulnerable to climate impacts. It is currently in a six-month state of emergency after two powerful tropical cyclones hit within one week in late February and early March.
    • The damage from those storms alone is expected to be half of Vanuatu's annual GDP, said Ralph Regenvanu, the country's top climate change and disaster risk management official.


    Between the lines: Sandra Nichols Thiam, a climate litigation specialist at the nonprofit Environmental Law Institute, said an ICJ advisory opinion would be significant despite its nonbinding status.


    • "This could be a really big deal," she told Axios in an interview.
    • Thiam said U.S. courts routinely cite international law in their decisions, and this could help establish countries' responsibility to act on climate change in ways consistent with the scientific evidence.


    This is a stricter standard than other climate cases seeking to hold governments accountable for meeting their commitments to date, Thiam added.


    • The case could help establish the goals that countries need to aim for based on their responsibilities for causing the problem, she added.


    What they're saying: Odo Tevi, Vanuatu's UN ambassador, said his country pursued an inclusive process to build consensus around the resolution, and that countries are recognizing its importance.


    • "It touches on the fundamental issue," he said, which is "about protecting the present, and future generations."


    What we're watching: Whether the U.S. throws its weight behind the resolution.


    • A State Department spokesperson tells Axios discussions are ongoing, and there was "nothing to preview or share at this time."


    https://www.axios.com/2023/03/24/tin...e-change-hague

    ________

    • A win of epic proportions’: World’s highest court can set out countries’ climate obligations after Vanuatu secures historic UN vote


    Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu on Wednesday won a historic vote at the United Nations that calls on the world’s highest court to establish for the first time the obligations countries have to address the climate crisis — and the consequences if they don’t.

    Vanuatu has long faced the disproportionate impacts of rising seas and intensifying storms. And in 2021, it launched its call for the UN International Court of Justice to provide an “advisory opinion” on the legal responsibility of governments to fight the climate crisis, arguing that climate change has become a human rights issue for Pacific Islanders.

    Although the advisory opinion will be non-binding, it will carry significant weight and authority and could inform climate negotiations as well as future climate lawsuits around the world. It could also strengthen the position of climate-vulnerable countries in international negotiations.

    This year has already been rough for Vanuatu: It is currently under a six-month state of emergency after a rare pair of Category 4 cyclones pummeled the country within 48 hours during the first week of March. The islands’ residents are still picking their way through the storms’ rubble.

    Wednesday’s resolution for an advisory opinion passed by majority, backed by more than 130 countries. Two of the world’s largest climate polluters, the US and China, did not express support, but did not object meaning the measure passed by consensus.

    This is the first time the highest international court is called on to address the climate crisis. The landmark decision is “essential,” UN Secretary General António Guterres said in his remarks to the assembly. “Climate justice is both a moral imperative and a prerequisite for effective global climate action.”

    https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/29/world...nge/index.html

  19. #6669
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    left of center
    Posts
    20,590
    Berkeley Earth – February 2023 was the 5th warmest February recorded




    La Niña has ended, with a transition to El Niño considered more likely than not later this year.

    2023 is likely to be the 3rd, 4th, or 5th warmest year recorded




    Berkeley Earth

    _________






    NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory

    __________



    The mass balance estimates considered here are based on a set of global reference glaciers with more than 30 continued observation years for the time-period, which are compiled by the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) in annual calls-for-data from a scientific collaboration network in more than 40 countries worldwide. https://wgms.ch/


    __________


    • What we know about how climate change affects tornado outbreaks


    More than 50 people are dead after severe thunderstorms and tornadoes tore through the U.S. South, Midwest and Mid-Atlantic in the past two weeks — and another potentially significant outbreak is projected for Tuesday.

    The big picture: At least 32 deaths have been confirmed from the latest powerful storm system, which brought over 50 preliminary tornado reports including in Alabama, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi, Tennessee, New Jersey and Arkansas — where President Biden expedited "a major disaster declaration" to provide federal assistance to the Natural State.

    Meanwhile, the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center (SPC) warns there's an "enhanced risk" that severe thunderstorms will develop on Tuesday from Illinois southward to Arkansas.


    • "These could pose a risk for a few strong tornadoes, large hail and damaging wind gusts," the SPC said in a forecast discussion Sunday night.


    "Tornado alley" moving

    The intrigue: Tornadoes and tornado outbreaks are an area of active investigation for climate scientists.


    • Victor Gensini, a meteorology professor at Northern Illinois University, told Axios in a phone interview Sunday that while research on the role of human-caused climate change in altering tornado characteristics is still in its infancy, records dating back over 70 years indicate a shift eastward from the traditional areas of the Midwest known as "tornado alley."
    • "Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, those kinds of areas are typically staying stagnant or decreasing in terms of the number of strong tornadoes they get every year," Gensini said.
    • "But then you see an increase in places like Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, areas that are the traditional area of the Great Plains," he said. "And that's incredibly important for the United States — as you go from the Great Plains, the population density rapidly increases."


    Yes, but: Harold Brooks, a senior research scientist at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman (Okla.), who coauthored a study on tornadoes with Gensini, cautioned in a phone interview with Axios Sunday night that tornadoes are small-scale phenomena, occurring within thunderstorms that are themselves small in scale.


    • This makes it difficult for researchers to decipher how climate change factors in with precision, Brooks noted.


    Warming alters severe thunderstorm ingredients

    What's happening: Jeff Trapp, head of atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois, said data suggests climate change is already altering one key ingredient in severe thunderstorm formation, a quantity known as "CAPE" (convective available potential energy).


    • This metric helps to indicate how much atmospheric energy there is for thunderstorms to tap into, once they are triggered by a cold front or other mechanism.
    • Higher CAPE indices are now more likely to be "found outside of the traditional tornado season of late spring/early summer," Trapp said via email.


    Zoom out: Studies show that while some severe thunderstorm ingredients, such as humidity and atmospheric instability, are likely to increase with a warming climate, others may do the opposite.


    • Climate change is anticipated to decrease the amount of wind shear available to severe thunderstorms, which could deprive them of a key ingredient for tornado formation.


    Tornado season shift


    • Trapp said that overall, the frequency of tornado activity in the U.S. has been declining, but the peak occurrence has shifted to earlier in the spring.


    • "This shift is due in part to late winter/early spring tornadoes such as what we’ve seen this year," Trapp added. "An increase in these 'out-of-season' events is consistent with climate model projections."


    What we're watching: Brooks said in an email the decadal average number of tornadoes may very well stay the same, but we could see more big years and small years.


    • "There's some evidence we're seeing that with a lot of monthly records for numbers, both high and low, in the more recent years," he said.
    • "We also have expectations that the number of severe thunderstorms (hail, wind, tornado) will probably increase in the U.S. (with increased variability on top of it), but the tornado question is not as clear."


    Climate change impacts

    The bottom line: We can't yet connect an individual tornado's ferocity or occurrence to climate change, but the overall environment in which they occur is already being altered by increased amounts of greenhouse gases.


    • Brooks noted in his phone interview that while changes in occurrence in tornado-effected regions was about 10%, the threat was much higher due to increasing population densities and impacts on poorer communities.
    • "It's really two things that are happening: climate change is altering the frequency, the intensity, maybe the location of where these things are happening, but at the same time, humans are increasing our footprint, our cities are growing larger" and this needs to be factored into for urban planning, per Gensini.


    https://www.axios.com/2023/04/03/cli...o-outbreaks-us

    _________

    • A study published last year collected attitudes about climate change from 10,000 people across the world, aged 16-25.


    In the survey, 59% of youth and young adults said they were very or extremely worried about climate change and more than 45% said their feelings about climate change negatively affected their daily life and functioning.

    “So, they know that the world is going to get to be a harder, darker, scarier place,” said Schwartz. “And imagining themselves in that world feels really scary for them.”


    Last edited by S Landreth; 06-04-2023 at 07:34 AM.

  20. #6670
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    left of center
    Posts
    20,590
    Copernicus – March 2023 tied with the 2nd warmest March recorded. March 2016 was the warmest March recorded.




    Copernicus

    _________

    Zeke Hausfather - 2023 is currently on track to be around the 4th warmest year on record at around 1.3C above preindustrial levels for the year as a whole. That being said, its still early in the year and there is a chance (~13%) it could end up passing 2016 as the warmest year on record.: https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1644395069271842816


  21. #6671
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    left of center
    Posts
    20,590
    NOAA – March 2023 was the 2nd warmest March recorded and (2023) January – March was the 4th warmest January – March recorded




    NOAA

    __________




    Climate models around the globe continue to warn of a potential El Niño developing later this year – a pattern of ocean warming in the Pacific that can increase the risk of catastrophic weather events around the globe.

    Some models are raising the possibility later this year of an extreme, or “super El Niño”, that is marked by very high temperatures in a central region of the Pacific around the equator.

    The last extreme El Niño in 2016 helped push global temperatures to the highest on record, underpinned by human-caused global heating that sparked floods, droughts and disease outbreaks.

    Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said in a Tuesday update that all seven models it had surveyed – including those from weather agencies in the UK, Japan and the US – showed sea surface temperatures passing the El Niño threshold by August.

    But the bureau and climate scientists warned that forecasts were much less reliable during the southern hemisphere autumn and outlooks should be “viewed with some caution”.

    There was a 50% chance of an El Niño developing before the end of the year, the bureau said.

    A feature of El Niños is a rise in sea surface temperatures at least 0.8C above the long term average in a region of the central equatorial Pacific. Extreme El Niños feature temperatures in that region of 2C above average.

    Several of the forecasts suggest temperatures could get this high by October, but scientists again urged caution with the results.

    Dr Mike McPhaden, a senior research scientist at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said historically El Niños tended to come along every four years or so.

    “We’re due one. However, the magnitude of the predicted El Niños shows a very large spread, everything from blockbuster to wimp,” he said.

    He said big El Niños tended to come along every 10 to 15 years and so it would be “very unusual” to see one so soon on the heels of the last major one in 2015 and 16.

    “Even so, nature has a way of tripping us up just when we think we know it all,” he said.

    “The really big ones reverberate all over the planet with extreme droughts, floods, heatwaves, and storms. If it happens, we’ll need to buckle up. It could also fizzle out. We should be watchful and prepared either way.”
    __________


    • US Gulf, Southeast sea levels rising at three times global average: study


    Sea levels along the U.S. Gulf and Southeast coasts are rising at a pace three times faster than the global average, according to a new study.

    The study, published in Nature on Monday from a team of nine researchers, found that the rates at which sea levels are rising in these regions are “unprecedented” for at least the past 120 years. The researchers found a notable acceleration in sea-level rise from Cape Hatteras in North Carolina into the western Gulf of Mexico.

    Researchers found the sea level rising about half an inch per year in the Southeast and Gulf coast regions since 2010, resulting from both man-made and natural factors.

    “The results, once again, demonstrate the urgency of the climate crisis for the Gulf region. We need interdisciplinary and collaborative efforts to sustainably face these challenges,” Sönke Dangendorf, a professor in the Department of River-Coastal Science and Engineering at Tulane University who led the study, told Tulane News.

    The researchers studied field and satellite measurements taken of the sea level since 1900 to narrow down what was contributing to the acceleration.

    Tulane News reported that the area, called the Subtropical Gyre, has been expanding as a result of changing wind patterns and increased warming. The warmer water masses need additional space, leading to higher sea levels, according to the outlet.

    The increasingly higher sea levels have made the land more prone to flooding and damage from storms, the study found. These conditions have created “the prospect of accelerating land loss in the most vulnerable settings.”

    The study states that the researchers expect the rates of sea level rise to return closer to the average in about the next decade. Tulane News reported that the increased acceleration resulted from a peak in weather-related variability that lasted a few years, along with man-made climate change signals.

    But Torbjörn Törnqvist, a co-author of the study and a professor at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Tulane, said the expectation that the acceleration will slow down is not a “reason to give the all clear.”

    “These high rates of sea-level rise have put even more stress on these vulnerable coastlines, particularly in Louisiana and Texas where the land is also sinking rapidly,” Törnqvist said.

  22. #6672
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    left of center
    Posts
    20,590
    Berkeley Earth – March 2023 tied with the 2nd warmest March on record.




    Likelihood of final 2023 ranking:


    • 1st place (38 %)
    • 2nd or 3rd place (22 %)
    • 4th place (31 %)
    • 5th place (5 %)
    • 6th place (2 %)
    • 7th place (1 %)
    • Top 7 overall (> 99 %)




    Berkeley Earth

    ___________

    John Kennedy - The @WMO State of the Global Climate 2022 report is out.

    Once again greenhouse gases, ocean heat and global sea level reached new records. For global temperature, the past 8 years were the 8 warmest years on record.








    From mountain peaks to ocean depths, climate change continued its advance in 2022, according to the annual report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Droughts, floods and heatwaves affected communities on every continent and cost many billions of dollars. Antarctic sea ice fell to its lowest extent on record and the melting of some European glaciers was, literally, off the charts.

    The State of the Global Climate 2022 shows the planetary scale changes on land, in the ocean and in the atmosphere caused by record levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. For global temperature, the years 2015-2022 were the eight warmest on record despite the cooling impact of a La Niña event for the past three years. Melting of glaciers and sea level rise - which again reached record levels in 2022 - will continue to up to thousands of years.

    “While greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise and the climate continues to change, populations worldwide continue to be gravely impacted by extreme weather and climate events. For example, in 2022, continuous drought in East Africa, record breaking rainfall in Pakistan and record-breaking heatwaves in China and Europe affected tens of millions, drove food insecurity, boosted mass migration, and cost billions of dollars in loss and damage,” said WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas.

    Climate Indicators

    Global mean temperature in 2022 was 1.15 [1.02 to 1.28] °C above the 1850-1900 average. The years 2015 to 2022 were the eight warmest in the instrumental record back to 1850. 2022 was the 5th or 6th warmest year. This was despite three consecutive years of a cooling La Niña – such a “triple-dip” La Niña has happened only three times in the past 50 years.

    Concentrations of the three main greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide – reached record observed highs in 2021, the latest year for which consolidated global values are available (1984-2021). The annual increase in methane concentration from 2020 to 2021 was the highest on record. Real-time data from specific locations show levels of the three greenhouse gases continued to increase in 2022.

    Reference glaciers for which we have long-term observations experienced an average thickness change of over −1.3 metres between October 2021 and October 2022. This loss is much larger than the average of the last decade. Six of the ten most negative mass balance years on record (1950-2022) occurred since 2015. The cumulative thickness loss since 1970 amounts to almost 30 m.

    The European Alps smashed records for glacier melt due to a combination of little winter snow, an intrusion of Saharan dust in March 2022 and heatwaves between May and early September.

    In Switzerland, 6% of the glacier ice volume was lost between 2021 and 2022 – and one third between 2001 and 2022.For the first time in history, no snow survived the summer melt season even at the very highest measurement sites and thus no accumulation of fresh ice occurred. A Swiss weather balloon recorded 0 C at a height of 5 184 m on 25 July, the highest recorded zero-degree line in the 69-year record and only the second time that the height of the zero-degree line had exceeded 5 000 m (16 404 feet). New record temperatures were reported from the summit of Mont Blanc.

    Measurements on glaciers in High Mountain Asia, western North America, South America and parts of the Arctic also reveal substantial glacier mass losses. There were some mass gains in Iceland and Northern Norway associated with higher-than-average precipitation and a relatively cool summer.

    According to the IPCC, globally the glaciers lost more than 6000 Gt of ice over the period 1993-2019. This represents an equivalent water volume of 75 lakes the size of Lac Leman (also known as Lake Geneva), the largest lake in Western Europe.

    The Greenland Ice Sheet ended with a negative total mass balance for the 26th year in a row.

    Sea ice in Antarctica dropped to 1.92 million km2 on February 25, 2022, the lowest level on record and almost 1 million km2 below the long-term (1991-2020) mean. For the rest of the year, it was continuously below average, with record lows in June and July.
    Arctic sea ice in September at the end of the summer melt tied for the 11th lowest monthly minimum ice extent in the satellite record.

    Ocean heat content reached a new observed record high in 2022. Around 90% of the energy trapped in the climate system by greenhouse gases goes into the ocean, somewhat ameliorating even higher temperature increases but posing risks to marine ecosystems. Ocean warming rates have been particularly high in the past two decades. Despite continuing La Niña conditions, 58% of the ocean surface experienced at least one marine heatwave during 2022.

    Global mean sea level (GMSL) continued to rise in 2022, reaching a new record high for the satellite altimeter record (1993-2022). The rate of global mean sea level rise has doubled between the first decade of the satellite record (1993-2002, 2.27 mm∙yr-) and the last (2013-2022, 4.62 mm∙yr).

    For the period 2005-2019, total land ice loss from glaciers, Greenland, and Antarctica contributed 36% to the GMSL rise, and ocean warming (through thermal expansion) contributed 55%. Variations in land water storage contributed less than 10%.

    Ocean acidification: CO2 reacts with seawater resulting in a decrease of pH referred to as ‘ocean acidification’. Ocean acidification threatens organisms and ecosystem services. The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report concluded that “There is very high confidence that open ocean surface pH is now the lowest it has been for at least 26 [thousand years] and current rates of pH change are unprecedented since at least that time.

    ___________




    A majority of Americans in a new poll say that climate change needs to be addressed “right now.”

    In a CBS News-YouGov poll released Friday, 53 percent said the issue requires immediate attention, while 14 percent said it should be addressed “in the next few years.”

    Another 9 percent said climate change should be dealt with “further in the future,” and nearly a quarter — 24 percent — said it does not need to be addressed “at all,” the poll found.




    Among those who said they didn’t see an urgent need to address climate change, 79 percent cited other “more pressing issues,” while 74 percent said the “effect of climate change is exaggerated.” Another 56 percent suggested that “there’s nothing we can do about climate change.”

    Views on tackling climate change differ by party and age groups, with Democratic and younger Americans more likely to say the issue needs to be addressed now or in the next few years.

    While 91 percent of Democrats said climate change requires urgent attention, 44 percent of Republicans said the same, according to the CBS News poll.

    Nearly three-quarters — 74 percent — of Americans between 18 and 44 years old said climate change needs to be addressed either now or in the near future, while 64 percent of those between 45 and 64 years old and 56 percent of those over 65 years old said the same.

  23. #6673
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    left of center
    Posts
    20,590
    NASA - March 2023 was the 2nd warmest March recorded



    NASA

    _________




    A recent, rapid heating of the world's oceans has alarmed scientists concerned that it will add to global warming.

    This month, the global sea surface hit a new record high temperature. It has never warmed this much, this quickly.

    Scientists don't fully understand why this has happened.

    But they worry that, combined with other weather events, the world's temperature could reach a concerning new level by the end of next year.

    Experts believe that a strong El Niño weather event - a weather system that heats the ocean - will also set in over the next months.

    Warmer oceans can kill off marine life, lead to more extreme weather and raise sea levels. They are also less efficient at absorbing planet-warming greenhouse gases.

    An important new study, published last week with little fanfare, highlights a worrying development.

    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.

    This is having real world consequences - 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.

    "It's not yet well established, why such a rapid change, and such a huge change is happening," said Karina Von Schuckmann, the lead author of the new study and an oceanographer at the research group Mercator Ocean International.

    "We have doubled the heat in the climate system the last 15 years, I don't want to say this is climate change, or natural variability or a mixture of both, we don't know yet. But we do see this change."

    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.

    What are the impacts of ocean warming?

    The average surface temperature of the world's seas has increased by around 0.9C compared to preindustrial levels, with 0.6C coming in the last 40 years alone.

    This is less than increases in air temperatures over the land - which have risen by more than 1.5C since preindustrial times. This is because much more energy is needed to heat water than land, and because oceans absorb heat far below their surface.

    Even this seemingly small average increase has significant real-world consequences.


    • Loss of species: more frequent and intense marine heatwaves lead to mass mortality of sea life. This is particularly damaging for coral reefs.
    • More extreme weather: increased heat in the upper ocean surface means hurricanes and cyclones can pick up more energy. This means they become more intense and longer-lasting.
    • Sea-level rise: warmer waters take up more space - known as thermal expansion - and can greatly accelerate the melting of glaciers from Greenland and Antarctica that flow into the oceans. This raises global sea levels, increasing risks of coastal flooding.
    • Less ability to absorb CO2: the oceans currently take up about a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions. Warmer waters have less ability to absorb CO2. If the oceans take up less CO2 in future, more would accumulate in the atmosphere - further warming the air and oceans.


    ________


    • Climate pledge mobilizes $120M to focus on environmental justice


    The Climate Funders Justice Pledge (CFJP) has mobilized $120 million in funding from major climate donors, the group tells Axios.

    Why it matters: The new milestone demonstrates the growing recognition that minorities and low-income residents tend to suffer the most from climate change, including extreme weather events such as heat waves and flash floods.


    • It also signals growing momentum behind climate justice as a pillar of work in the climate space among major donors.


    Background: The effort was launched by the Donors of Color Network two years ago to help steer more resources toward groups run by, and focused on, communities of color.


    • In addition to the funding, two major climate philanthropies — the Kresge Foundation and Pisces Foundation — have now exceeded the pledge’s target to devote at least 30% of their climate funding to such groups.


    Zoom in: The total number of pledge signatories is now up to 33, with the Wallace Global Fund committed to being transparent about how much money it is steering to organizations led by members of communities of color, which is the first stage of the pledge.


    • Despite the $120 million, most philanthropic dollars are still going toward other climate change work.
    • According to a CFJP statement, only 1.3% of dollars committed to U.S. climate philanthropy goes to such groups, despite a recent influx of new money into the climate space via organizations like the Bezos Earth Fund.


    What they're saying: Abdul Dosunmu, who leads the pledge work for the Donors of Color Network, told Axios the goal of the pledge is aimed at strengthening the climate movement and allowing it to benefit those who are most affected.


    • “Ultimately, the communities that are closest to the problem, and therefore closest to the solution, are the furthest away from the resources,” he said.


    Between the lines: "This is not your grandmother's Sierra Club, this is a very different kind of movement that combines on the ground modeling of different kinds of behaviors, that involves advocacy, it involves different tools for engaging in public policy and decision-making," said Rip Rapson, Kresge Foundation president and CEO, in an interview.


    • "And so it's really putting all your players on the field in a way that I think even five or six years ago, wasn't the case," he added.


    • He said since Kresge took the pledge in 2021, the organization has pledged $30 million to $35 million toward organizations working on climate change and led by underrepresented groups.
    • For example, Kresge is working with community groups in East Detroit to address chronic flooding issues.
    • Rapson noted that climate change is inextricably linked to other complex systems, such as public health, housing and economic development; previous silos between these issues are “eroding,” he adds.


    The bottom line: Dosunmu told Axios that his group’s philanthropic advocacy efforts are making headway, but have a long way to go.


    • "We are really trying to radically change conditions on the ground for BIPOC-led environmental justice organizations," he said, adding that "$120 million is really just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is possible."
    • Kresge, Pisces and the Schmidt Family Foundation now meet or beat the pledge's 30% funding threshold, per the CFJP.


    https://www.axios.com/2023/04/26/cli...dge-120-milion

    ___________


    • Climate change is behind the Horn of Africa drought, study finds


    A devastating drought in the Horn of Africa, which has now stretched across five straight failed rainy seasons, would not have occurred without human-caused climate change, a new study found.

    Why it matters: According to a new scientific analysis, climate change sparked by human emissions are exacerbating the region's arid conditions, as well as the suffering of tens of millions of people.


    • The drought has created one world's worst humanitarian crises. At least 36.4 million people in the Horn of Africa this year will need emergency assistance to survive, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).


    Zoom in: The report was released Thursday by the World Weather Attribution group, an international team of scientists specializing in teasing out climate change's influence on high-impact extreme weather and climate events.


    • The study's conclusions are among the strongest this group has made when dissecting extreme events worldwide.
    • The 19 researchers from Africa, Europe and the U.S. looked at rainfall trends over a 24-month period, from January 2021 to December 2022.
    • They also examined the rainfall received during the "short rains" season, from October through December, as well as the "long rains" from March through May, beginning in 2021.
    • They found that below average rainfall during the short rains was most likely tied to the presence of a La Niña event in the tropical Pacific, rather than climate change.
    • The long rains, on the other hand, are becoming drier as the global climate warms, with below average rainfall now about twice as likely as before the preindustrial era.


    Between the lines: Importantly, the researchers examined changes in moisture loss rates, known as evapotranspiration, from plants and soils as a result of higher temperatures.


    • In general, the hotter it gets, the more moisture is lost from the Earth's surface, worsening drought conditions.
    • The study found that moisture loss showed the strongest link to human-caused climate change, with a "conservative estimate" that such intense droughts, with extreme heat and moisture loss plus below average rainfall, are at least 100 times more likely to occur now than they were in the preindustrial era.


    The intrigue: The region studied includes southern Ethiopia, southern Somalia and eastern Kenya, which is mired in an "exceptional drought," the U.S. Drought Monitor's worst category.


    • Without warmer temperatures from climate change, drought conditions either would not have existed at all, or would have ranked in the least severe category, the study found.


    What they're saying: Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, said higher temperatures are key to explaining why this drought would not have occurred without climate change.


    • "The same kind of 20-year rainfall event is now an exceptional drought, because the evaporation is so much higher," Otto said during a conference call with reporters Wednesday. She pinned the blame for that on climate change.


    The big picture: The unique study goes beyond climate science to emphasize the impact the drought is having across a vulnerable region.


    • More than 23 million people across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia are "highly food insecure and face severe hunger and water shortages," the U.N.'s refugee agency estimates.
    • At the same time, millions across the region have been displaced and some areas are struggling to cope with outbreaks of waterborne diseases like cholera.
    • The crisis is especially severe in Somalia. Up to 43,000 people — half of them under the age of 5 — died last year to the drought, according to the World Health Organization.
    • Aid groups have repeatedly called on the international community to do more to address the crisis, but the U.N. fund for humanitarian assistance in East Africa remains woefully underfunded.


    How they did it: The research is based on peer reviewed methodology, but has not yet undergone its own review. The scientists examined rainfall and temperature data from ground-based weather stations, as well as other observational sources.


    • They also looked at climate models to find how well they captured recent trends, and ran them both with and without increased amounts of planet-warming greenhouse gases.
    • This helped to determine the roles climate change may be playing.


    The bottom line: What is happening now in Africa is likely to play out elsewhere as climate change continues.




    https://www.axios.com/2023/04/27/dro...te-change-role

  24. #6674
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    left of center
    Posts
    20,590
    JMA - March 2023 was the 3rd warmest March recorded.




    Tokyo Climate Center Home Page

    _________




    The Climate Brink

    What is the climate brink?

    As a global community, we currently find ourselves standing at the edge of two very different brinks. One represents the disastrous consequences of unmitigated climate change, and the other represents the hope of innovative solutions, renewable energy, and a sustainable future.
    Last edited by S Landreth; 08-05-2023 at 02:41 PM.

  25. #6675
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    left of center
    Posts
    20,590
    Flowers are popping up early. all across America

    A historically warm winter across a wide swath of America has led to a surprising sight: plenty of flowers blooming in the early days of March.

    Why it matters: Given the rising temperatures and changing precipitation patterns associated with climate change, we might be rethinking "April showers bring May flowers" for the generations ahead.

    What's happening: The issue is perhaps most exemplified by Washington, D.C.'s famous cherry blossoms, whose longevity and predictability are under threat from climate change, Axios' Chelsea Cirruzzo reports.


    • With the weather becoming more variable, with sharp whiplash events from one extreme to another, the blossoms are acting differently, blooming earlier and more unexpectedly, according to National Park Service arborist Matthew Morrison.
    • This year's peak bloom is predicted to take place March 22-25, but the NPS' indicator tree is showing several different phases of blossoms due to varying temperatures.


    A little farther north, Philadelphia's cherry blossoms face the same threats, Axios' Mike D'Onofrio reports.


    • "The beautiful cherry blossoms that we’ve been used to in the past, where everything’s all in bloom at once, is going to be more and more of the exception than the rule," Vince Marrocco, director of horticulture at the Morris Arboretum, tells Axios.


    The big picture: Weather events across the country can have a notable impact on native wildflowers and plant life.


    • Ohio's native wildflowers are blooming one to two weeks ahead of schedule after Columbus saw a February that was 9 degrees warmer than normal, Axios' Alissa Widman Neese reports.
    • Houston's spring and summer drought last year likely led to favorable conditions for Texas' famed bluebonnets to pop up around the city early this year, Axios' Shafaq Patel reports.


    Worth noting: While many locations in the eastern half of the U.S. had Januarys and Februarys that ranked among their warmest on record, the forecast for March looks colder than average nationwide.

    What's next: While climate change may cause some plants to appear early, it could also cause some to disappear from their traditional ranges in the decades ahead, Axios' Christine Clarridge reports.


    • A new map based on U.S. Forest Service data and climate predictions indicates that trees that have historically done so well in the Pacific Northwest may not survive the future, according to Pete Smith, the Arbor Day Foundation's urban forestry program manager.

Page 267 of 272 FirstFirst ... 167217257259260261262263264265266267268269270271272 LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •