Explaining climate change science & rebutting global warming misinformation
Global warming is real and human-caused. It is leading to large-scale climate change. Under the guise of climate "skepticism", the public is bombarded with misinformation that casts doubt on the reality of human-caused global warming. This website gets skeptical about global warming "skepticism".
Our mission is simple: debunk climate misinformation by presenting peer-reviewed science and explaining the techniques of science denial, discourses of climate delay, and climate solutions denial.
Posted on 14 September 2024 by John Mason, Guest Author
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with John Mason. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.
Does manmade CO2 have any detectable fingerprint?
Atmospheric chemistry shows that humans are driving the recent CO2 increase.
A key piece of evidence involves carbon isotope ratios in the atmosphere. Isotopes are different versions of the same element. Carbon comes in three isotopes of different weights and amounts: carbon-12 (98.9% of all carbon), carbon-13 (1.1%) and carbon-14 (trace amounts only).
Photosynthetic plants prefer the lightest isotope, carbon-12, because it is favored in photosynthesis reactions. That means plant tissues have relatively less carbon-13 than carbon-12. Fossil fuels, made of dead plants, also carry that distinct low carbon-13 isotope ratio, as does the CO2 produced by burning them.
Measurements over recent decades show a shift in the isotope ratio of atmospheric CO2, consistent with our burning of large amounts of ancient plant-derived carbon - in other words, fossil fuels. Natural carbon sources, like volcanoes, cannot explain this “fingerprint”.
Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Stable Carbon and the Carbon Cycle
Global Biogeochemical Cycles Changes to Carbon Isotopes in Atmospheric CO2 Over the Industrial Era and Into the Future
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration How do we know the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is caused by humans?
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Posted on 12 September 2024 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Early knowledge but delays in climate actions: An ecocide case against both transnational oil corporations and national governments, Hauser et al., Environmental Science & Policy:
Cast within the wide context of investigating the collusion at play between powerful political-economic actors and decision-makers as monopolists and debates about ‘the modern corporation and private property’ (Berle and Means, 1932/2017), ‘the new industrial state’ (Galbraith, 1967), and ‘the economic theory of regulation’ (Stigler, 1971), the paper reviews the contentious relationship between states, corporations, and markets. Specifically, the article probes strategies of oil corporations and national governments intended to delay the inclusion of environmental concerns in policies and avoid accountability. Our method of content analysis of articles, reports, and international declarations of different actors and periods relies on a qualitative methodology and ontology of critical realism. We find that not only did oil corporations hide the truth, but also that national governments, that knew (or should have known) about the threat posed by oil industrial activities and which have wider responsibilities than corporations, did not act and are (at least) as responsible and as ‘ecocidal’ in what could be called an oil TNC-state alliance.
Fossil fuel industry influence in higher education: A review and a research agenda, Hiltner et al., WIREs Climate Change:
The evolution of fossil fuel industry tactics for obstructing climate action, from outright denial of climate change to more subtle techniques of delay, is under growing scrutiny. One key site of ongoing climate obstructionism identified by researchers, journalists, and advocates is higher education. Scholars have exhaustively documented how industry-sponsored academic research tends to bias scholarship in favor of tobacco, pharmaceutical, food, sugar, lead, and other industries, but the contemporary influence of fossil fuel interests on higher education has received relatively little academic attention. We report the first literature review of academic and civil society investigations into fossil fuel industry ties to higher education in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. We find that universities are an established yet under-researched vehicle of climate obstruction by the fossil fuel industry, and that universities' lack of transparency about their partnerships with this industry poses a challenge to empirical research. We propose a research agenda of topical and methodological directions for future analyses of the prevalence and consequences of fossil fuel industry–university partnerships, and responses to them.
Who are the green transition experts? Towards a new research agenda on climate change knowledge, Frandsen & Hasselbalch, WIREs Climate Change:
Experts play a significant role in shaping global and local norms on how societies should respond to the climate crisis. However, current scholarship on the relationship between expertise and climate change has not fully addressed recent transformations in the field, specifically the emergence and increasingly influential role of what we term “green transition expertise.” We define green transition expertise as a more applied, normative, and contextual form of climate change knowledge that is contrasted with the formalized, pure science of “climate expertise.” If climate experts assess the deteriorating state of the global climate, then transition experts tell states and corporations what they should do about it. We argue that if the social science of climate change knowledge is to further deepen its grasp of the politics of the green transition analytically and normatively, it must embrace a “post-IPCC” research agenda that turns increasingly toward studying the power of transition experts in directing state and corporate climate action. Based on a review of the literature, we contrast the extant IPCC agenda with an emerging post-IPCC agenda along three dimensions: expert cast (who are the experts?), expert content (what do they know?) and expert context (where are they located?).
Tackling the academic air travel dependency. An analysis of the (in)consistency between academics’ travel behaviour and their attitudes, De Vos et al., Global Environmental Change:
While the unsustainability of aviation is well-recognised in academia, academics themselves are often frequent flyers – generating the emissions many of them also problematise. To investigate this contradiction, we survey 1,116 staff members from University College London (UK). We cluster academics based on their opinions of academic travel and international conference organisation, and examine how these groups participate in, and travel to, academic activities. Five clusters are identified: 1) Conservative frequent flyers, 2) Progressive infrequent flyers, 3) In-person conference avoiders, 4) Involuntary flyers, and 5) Traditional conference lovers. Despite some levels of similarity between academic travel attitudes and behaviour, results show that certain types of academics seem forced to regularly fly to distant conferences. In fact, members of our largest cluster (Involuntary flyers) have negative attitudes towards flying, yet have the plane as dominant travel mode. To reduce academic air travel (dependency), we provide tailored policy instruments for each cluster, aimed at reducing the need to travel to lowering the impact of travel.
What is a heat wave: A survey and literature synthesis of heat wave definitions across the United States, Bunting et al., PLOS Climate:
Heat waves are the last extreme weather events without a formal, on the books, definition. Instead, across the U.S. those working on extreme heat event management, forecasting, and planning are using differing definitions in their work. With such differing definitions being used there are widespread impacts including some to human and environmental health, natural resource management, and long-term emergency management planning. For instance, when should heat advisories for vulnerable populations be released when an event impacts a region using multiple definitions? There are concrete and justifiable reasons for the lack of a formal heat wave definition including, at its simplest, differences in what temperature is extreme enough, compared to the region’s climatological regimens, to be deemed as an extreme heat event or heat wave. This study looks for patterns and commonalities in emergency managers and climatologists, those most commonly addressing or planning for such events, definition of heat wave events through a review of the literature and widespread survey across the United States. Through a short 11-questions survey and subsequent text mining, we find widespread variability in the common heat wave definitions but a consistent pattern of core key term usage including aspects of heat duration, extreme temperature, and humidity. However, we also see little to no usage of non-climatological variables such as exposure, vulnerability, population, and land cover/land use.
Readiness for a clean energy future: Prevalence, perceptions, and barriers to adoption of electric stoves and solar panels in New York city, Lane et al., Energy Policy:
Adoption of electric stoves and rooftop solar can reduce fossil-fuel reliance and improve health by decreasing indoor air pollution and alleviating energy insecurity. This study assessed prevalence and perceptions of these clean-energy technologies to increase adoption in New York City (NYC). A representative survey of 1950 NYC adults was conducted from February 28 to April 1, 2022. Fourteen percent of people had an electric stove; 86% had gas stoves. Black, Latino/a, and lower-income residents were more likely to have electric stoves than White and higher-income residents. Only 14% of residents were interested in switching from gas to electric stoves. Of the 71% with gas stoves uninterested in switching, nearly half (45%) preferred gas cooking, particularly among White and higher-income residents, indicating a large opportunity to shift preferences. About 5% used solar for their home or building; another 77% were interested in solar. Of the 18% uninterested in solar, reasons included lack of agency, confusion about operation, and costs.
From this week's government and NGO section:
Choosing Our Future: Education for Climate Action, Sabarwal et al., World Bank Group
Education is a key asset for climate action. Education reshapes behaviors, develops skills, and spurs innovation—everything we need to combat the greatest crisis facing humanity. Better educated people are more resilient and adaptable, better equipped to create and work in green jobs, and critical to driving solutions. Yet, education is massively overlooked in the climate agenda. Almost no climate finance goes to education. Channeling more climate funding to education could significantly boost climate change mitigation and adaptation. The economic losses and human cost of climate change are enormous. Despite this, climate action remains slow due to information gaps, skills gaps, and knowledge gaps. Education is the key to addressing these gaps and driving climate action around the world. Indeed, education is the greatest predicator of climate-friendly behavior.
Michigan's Clean Energy Economic Comeback: How Local Economies in Michigan Are Benefitting from State and Federal Climate Policies, 5 Lakes Energy, Evergreen Collaborative
Overall, the authors found that the combined effects of federal and state climate policies in Michigan is projected to reduce energy costs across the whole economy, including lowering Michigan families’ energy bills by an average of $297 per year by 2030 and $713 per year by 2040, relative to the baseline expected energy cost if federal and state climate policies were not in place; bring the state $15.6 billion in Inflation Reduction Act investments cumulatively by 2030 and $30.7 billion cumulatively by 2040 broken down by prosperity region in the report; reduce Michigan's greenhouse gas emissions from the electric power sector by at least 65% by 2030 and 88% by 2040l and save Michigan $7.3 billion by 2030 in avoided public health costs (deaths, hospitalizations, lost school & work days, and more) and $27.8 billion cumulatively by 2040.
135 articles in 55 journals by 872 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
Antarctic meltwater reduces the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation through oceanic freshwater transport and atmospheric teleconnections, An et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-024-01670-7
Boreal Forest Fire Causes Daytime Surface Warming During Summer to Exceed Surface Cooling During Winter in North America, Helbig et al., AGU Advances Open Access 10.1029/2024av001327
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Posted on 11 September 2024 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk
The Inflation Reduction Act is the Biden administration’s signature climate law and the largest U.S. government investment in reducing climate pollution to date. Among climate advocates, the policy is well-known and celebrated, but beyond that, only a minority of Americans have heard much about it.
Once voters learn a bit about this landmark law, however, a large majority support it.
These findings are from a survey of U.S. registered voters, conducted jointly by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (the publisher of this site) and the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University.
In the nationally representative survey, participants were first asked if they’d heard about the Inflation Reduction Act. Only 39% of participants said they’d heard either “a lot” or “some” information about it. Surprisingly, the number of people who had heard about the law remains unchanged from one year ago, even as the legislation has begun to spur a surge in U.S. manufacturing of batteries, solar panels, and automobiles — and has helped consumers make energy-saving purchases.
Next, survey participants read a short description of the Inflation Reduction Act:
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Posted on 10 September 2024 by greenman3610
This is a re-post from This is Not Cool
Here’s an example of some of the best kind of climate reporting, especially in that it relates to impacts that will directly affect the audience.
WFLA in Tampa conducted a study in collaboration with the Department of Energy, analyzing trends in hurricane strength, and projecting hurricane activity in to the future.
The results are sobering.
One of the predictions is for hurricanes with 20 percent stronger maximum winds. As Jeff Berardelli explains below, that 20 percent is actually much, much worse than it sounds.
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Posted on 9 September 2024 by dana1981
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections
In February 2021, several severe storms swept across the United States, culminating with one that the Weather Channel unofficially named Winter Storm Uri. In Texas, Uri knocked out power to over 4.5 million homes and 10 million people. Hundreds of Texans died as a result, and the storm is estimated to have cost the state $130 billion.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, quickly sought to blame the crisis on renewable energy. While the storm and blackouts were still ongoing, Abbott told Sean Hannity of Fox News, “This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America … fossil fuel is necessary for the state of Texas as well as other states to make sure we will be able to heat our homes in the wintertime and cool our homes in the summertime.”
Subsequent investigations into the causes of the Texas blackouts concluded that Gov. Abbott was wrong. Although wind energy underperformed in the cold temperatures, so did gas and coal power plants. But incidents like these raise the question: Will clean energy and climate policies make communities more vulnerable to dangerous power outages?
The answer, as other states have demonstrated, is no – with sufficient planning and preparation, that is.
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Posted on 8 September 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
A listing of 34 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, September 1, 2024 thru Sat, September 7, 2024.
Story of the week
Our Story of the Week is about how people are not born stupid but can be fooled into appearing exactly so to the rest of us.
This week we posted a critique of Australian Queensland state senator Gerard Rennick by journalist and author Peter Hadfield, sailing under his Potholer54 YouTube flag. The title "Could this be the stupidest politician in Australia?" is certainly not a flattering introduction to Rennick, but hearing the senator express his understanding of CO2's role in Earth's atmosphere in his own voice and words certainly gives us pause. Rennick really does sound stupid— obdurately so.
Is Senator Rennick unusually stupid? Doubtful. Rennick holds two post-graduate degrees, each from respectable institutions not prone to handing out sheepskin to all comers. Given their knowledge domains and the typical adjacency of commerce to laissez-faire philosophy, these degrees may however offer a clue as to how Rennick has come to be found spouting humiliatingly wrong comprehension of the interaction and behavior of energy and matter in Earth's atmosphere.
How does somebody come to appear as stupid while actually being reasonably intellectually competent? Indicators from a lot of research on human psychology and cognition suggest that our beliefs are heavily influenced by our ideology. In supporting our principles, we selectively choose what to believe, as a largely unconscious process. Even when reality doesn't comport with supporting our principles, we may cling to beliefs that bolster our bedrock values.
Judging by his own words and stated policy concerns, Senator Rennick appears commited to the principle that government is overly invasive. This poses a cognitive problem in connection with human-caused climate change, given that without goverment interventions we can't solve the problem we've created by our changing Earth's climate. To resolve this uncomfortable logical collision, Rennick has apparently has sought and found explanations that avoid this dilemma by simply rearranging our perception of reality to fit his principles. Unfortunately, repeating these faulty rationalizations makes Rennick appear to be very stupid when clearly he is not genuinely unintelligent.
How did Senator Rennick come up with the ideas he's embarrassingly reciting into the permanent historical record of Queensland's parliament? A generous reading of this situation is that Rennick is vulnerable and has been victimized. In all probability the claptrap he's repeating is not original but rather is regurgitation of disinformation, bunk he's found outside the space between his own two ears. Because what he hears supports his principles, Rennick is a gullible mark.
The perpetrators of the deceit Rennick has found and adopted are surely congratulating themselves for finding a parrot with such a high profile.
Sadly it's the case that victims like Rennick are exposed to a postive firehose of rubbish delivered by social networks. We can expect worse to come, given that so-called "AI" is being used to increase proliferation of lies such as those repeated by Senator Rennick. A paper just published in Communications Earth & Environment by Skeptical Science founder Dr. John Cook and colleagues explores how this is happening on the social media service formerly known as Twitter.
We wish Senator Rennick would take better care of his own reputation and our collective future. He might well start by reading the review paper Science Denial, which could help by arming him for some self-reflection.
Stories we promoted this week, by publication date:
Before September 1
- South Korean court says government must do more to fight climate change, NBC News World News, Reuters. Climate advocacy groups said it was the first high court ruling on a government’s climate action in Asia, potentially setting a precedent in a region where similar lawsuits have been filed in Taiwan and Japan.
- Air Conditioning Poses a Climate Conundrum, State of the Planet, Renée Cho. Air conditioning is leaving the realm of luxury and becoming vital to health, yet more air conditioning makes our climate problem harder.
- Business Group Sues Texas Officials Over Law That Shields Oil Industry, Climate, New York Times, Karen Zraick. "The suit challenges a measure that prohibits state entities like retirement funds from doing business with firms that 'boycott energy companies.' "
- The World’s Largest Wetland Is Burning, and Rare Animals Are Dying, World, New York Times, Ana Ionova. "In Brazil, wildfires have roared across the Pantanal, a maze of rivers, forests and marshlands that sprawl over an area 20 times the size of the Everglades."
- The Quantum Mechanics of the Greenhouse Effect, Science, Quanta/Wired, Joseph Howlett. "Carbon dioxide’s powerful heat-trapping effect has been traced to a quirk of its quantum structure. The finding may explain climate change better than any computer model."
- Harris and Trump offer starkly different visions on climate change and energy, AP News, Matthew Daley.
- Could this be the stupidest politician in Australia?, potholer54 on Youtube, Peter Hadfield.
- Labor Day weekend will start out restful for the Hurricane Hunters. Then what?, Eye on the Storm, Yale Climate Connections, Jeff Masters & Bob Henson. "The intrepid aviators may get called into duty as soon as Sunday as an Atlantic disturbance slowly organizes."
- Guest post: Just 15 countries account for 98% of new coal-power development, Energy, Carbon Brief, Lucy Hummer, Jeanette Lim, Jelena Babajeva, Claire Pitre & Xing Zhang .
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Posted on 5 September 2024 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Diurnal Temperature Range Trends Differ Below and Above the Melting Point, Pithan & Schatt, Geophysical Research Letters:
The globally averaged diurnal temperature range (DTR) has shrunk since the mid-20th century, and climate models project further shrinking. Observations indicate a slowdown or reversal of this trend in recent decades. Here, we show that DTR has a minimum for average temperatures close to 0°C. Observed DTR shrinks strongly at colder temperature, where warming shifts the average temperature toward the DTR minimum, and expands at warmer temperature, where warming shifts the average temperature away from the DTR minimum. Most, but not all climate models reproduce the minimum DTR close to average temperatures of 0°C and a stronger DTR shrinking at colder temperature. In models that reproduce the DTR minimum, DTR shrinking slows down significantly in recent decades. Models project that the global-mean DTR will shrink over the 21st century, and models with a DTR minimum close to 0°C project slower shrinking than other models.
Rock glaciers across the United States predominantly accelerate coincident with rise in air temperatures, Kääb & Røste, Nature Communications
Despite their extensive global presence and the importance of variations in their speed as an essential climate variable, only about a dozen global time series document long-term changes in the velocity of rock glaciers – large tongue-shaped flows of frozen mountain debris. By analysing historical aerial photographs, we reconstruct here 16 new time series, a type of data that has not previously existed for the North American continent. We observe substantial accelerations, as much as 2–3 fold, in the surface displacement rates of rock glaciers across the mountains of the western contiguous United States over the past six to seven decades, most consistent with strongly increasing air temperatures in that region. Variations between individual time series suggest that different local and internal conditions of the frozen debris bodies modulate this overall climate response. Our observations indicate fundamental long-term environmental changes associated with frozen ground in the study region.
Impacts of AMOC Collapse on Monsoon Rainfall: A Multi-Model Comparison, Ben-Yami et al., Earth's Future:
A collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) would have substantial impacts on global precipitation patterns, especially in the vulnerable tropical monsoon regions. We assess these impacts in experiments that apply the same freshwater hosing to four state-of-the-art climate models with bistable AMOC. As opposed to previous results, we find that the spatial and seasonal patterns of precipitation change are remarkably consistent across models. We focus on the South American Monsoon (SAM), the West African Monsoon (WAM), the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) and the East Asian Summer Monsoon (EASM). Models consistently suggest substantial disruptions for WAM, ISM, and EASM with shorter wet and longer dry seasons (−29.07%, −18.76%, and −3.78% ensemble mean annual rainfall change, respectively). Models also agree on changes for the SAM, suggesting rainfall increases overall, in contrast to previous studies. These are more pronounced in the southern Amazon (+43.79%), accompanied by decreasing dry-season length. Consistently across models, our results suggest a robust and major rearranging of all tropical monsoon systems in response to an AMOC collapse.
The feasibility of reaching gigatonne scale CO2 storage by mid-century, Zhang et al., Nature Communications:
The Sixth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects subsurface carbon storage at rates of 1 – 30 GtCO2 yr−1 by 2050. These projections, however, overlook potential geological, geographical, and techno-economic limitations to growth. We evaluate the feasibility of scaling up CO2 storage using a geographically resolved growth model that considers constraints from both geology and scale-up rate. Our results suggest a maximum global storage rate of 16 GtCO2 yr−1 by 2050, but this is contingent on the United States contributing 60% of the total. These values contrast with projections in the Sixth Assessment Report that vastly overestimate the feasibility of deployment in China, Indonesia, and South Korea. A feasible benchmark for global CO2 storage projections, and consistent with current government technology roadmaps, suggests a global storage rate of 5-6 GtCO2 yr−1, with the United States contributing around 1 GtCO2 yr−1.
Small reduction in land surface albedo due to solar panel expansion worldwide, Wei et al., Communications Earth & Environment:
Photovoltaic (PV) panel deployment for decarbonization may reduce local terrestrial albedo, triggering a positive radiative forcing that counteracts the desired negative radiative forcing from carbon emission reductions. Yet, this potential adverse impact remains uncertain due to limited observations at PV sites. Herein we employ a robust linear parameterization method to quantify PV-induced albedo changes based on satellite data globally. We find an overall albedo decrease of −1.28 (−1.80, −0.90) × 10−2 (median and interquartile range), specific for land-cover types and climate regimes. However, the extent of albedo reduction is markedly lower than simplistic assumed values in simulating climate feedback for solar farming in Earth system models. Moreover, the albedo-induced positive radiative forcing can be offset by negative radiative forcing from clean solar generation in most PV farms within one year. Our findings underscore PV’s potential in mitigating global warming and stress the need for more accurate model estimations.
From this week's government and NGO section:
Quarterly EV Cost Savings Report, Coltura
Drivers in all 50 states are experiencing significant fuel savings from driving an electric vehicle. In Q2 2024, based on US average gasoline prices, utility rates, and fuel efficiency, an American driver saves 8.1 cents per mile on fuel by driving an EV instead of a gas car, up from 7.6 cents at the end of 2023. The average U.S. EV driver saved $100 a month on fuel and maintenance in the second quarter. A gasoline Superuser (a person in the top 10% of US gasoline consumption) who uses more than 100 gallons a month would save on average $400 on fuel and maintenance with an EV. The analysis also breaks this down by state and by vehicle type. Per mile, the greatest savings are from drivers in Washington state — because of its high gas prices and low electricity prices — where drivers can save 13.1 cents per mile on fuel, which translates to $120 a month on average. Electricity is cheaper than gasoline in all 50 states and DC, for all vehicle types. Even in a state with relatively low gas costs and high electricity rates, such as Massachusetts, fuel savings for switching to an EV are 4.7 cents per mile, $44 per month on average.
Wargaming Climate Change A Structure for Incorporating Physical and Social Effects into Strategic Military Planning, Tingstad et al, RAND
The authors summarize insights about approaches for understanding the implications of climate change in a national security context through the use of analytic gaming. These reflections are based on experience that has been developed while gaming climate change for the U.S. Department of Defense. There are multiple sources of climate information and data that are available to the defense gaming community, but using these sources effectively requires knowledge of how to obtain them and their respective benefits and limitations. Wargames focusing on or including climate change can serve purposes from concept development to education to engagement. Climate information and data can be used to shape assumptions, model starting conditions, create crisis narratives, move scene-setters, and make final adjudications.
99 articles in 47 journals by 650 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
Changing Role of Horizontal Moisture Advection in the Lower Troposphere Under Extreme Arctic Amplification, Hori et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2024gl109299
Enhanced generation of internal tides under global warming, Yang et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-024-52073-3
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Posted on 4 September 2024 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler
I love thermodynamics. Thermodynamics is like your mom: it may not tell you what you can do, but it damn well tells you what you can’t do. I’ve written a few previous posts that include thermodynamics, like one on air capture of carbon dioxide and one on air conditioning. For whatever reason, they tend to get a lot of traffic. Well, here’s another one.
I was charging my electric vehicle (EV) at a DC fast charger the other day and was pumping electrons into my car at around 200 kilowatts (kW). Man, that’s a lot of power, I thought to myself. For reference, 200 kW is the average power draw of around 60 houses. Just going into my car.
That got me thinking about a comparison between charging EVs to “charging” gasoline cars by filling the tank with gas.
The energy stored in gasoline is astounding — it really is an incredibly high-density fuel. One gallon of gasoline contains 132 megajoules (MJ = a million joules) of energy. That’s comparable to the energy a house requires in a day.
This means that an SUV’s 20-gallon gas tank contains about 2.6 gigajoules (GJ = 1 billion joules) of energy. If it takes 4 minutes to fill your tank, then you can calculate the rate that you’re transferring energy into the gas tank as energy content of gasoline divided by time: 2.6 GJ divided by 240 seconds = 10 megawatts (MW = 1 million joules per second).
10 MW is an absolutely insane amount of power. It’s roughly equal to the power output of an enormous wind turbine at peak performance. Or the power required to drive ten locomotives. Or enough to power 3,000 houses. 10 MW is also equal to 13,000 horsepower. Let me repeat: It’s a lot of power.
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Posted on 3 September 2024 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Daisy Simmons
Every summer brings a new spate of headlines about record-breaking heat – for good reason: 2023 was the hottest year on record, in keeping with the upward trend scientists have been clocking for decades.
With climate forecasts suggesting that heat waves will only become more frequent and severe in the future, it’s increasingly clear that the world needs new ways to adapt to heat – in addition to eliminating climate-warming pollution.
Heat waves pose a serious (and costly) public health risk, given that extreme heat can prompt heat exhaustion, dehydration, and heat stroke and can also worsen chronic conditions like cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.
Cranking up the collective AC isn’t the answer to this rising threat. Although AC is still necessary to protect people’s health in many circumstances, relying on air conditioning alone will become even less feasible than it is now for those who can’t afford higher electricity bills. What’s more, conventional air conditioning systems and units are major climate culprits, accounting for roughly 10% of the world’s electricity use and almost 4% of annual climate-warming emissions.
The good news is that people are working to find alternatives. From wrapping a bridge in tin foil to feeding zoo animals Popsicles and designating millions of dollars to a prize for developing affordable and climate-friendly cooling solutions, it’s safe to say people have been getting creative in the effort to beat the heat.
In honor of creative problem-solving everywhere, we rounded up a few intriguing solutions that could help communities adapt to a hotter world.
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Posted on 2 September 2024 by John Cook
Together with Cristian Rojas, Frank Algra-Maschio, Mark Andrejevic, Travis Coan, and Yuan-Fang Li, I just published a paper in Nature Communications Earth & Environment where we use the Computer Assisted Recognition of Denial and Skepticism (CARDS) machine learning model to detect climate misinformation in 5 million climate tweets. We find over half of climate misinformation tweets involve personal attacks or conspiracy theories. This new paper builds on work published in 2021 which I wrote about in the article How machine learning holds a key to combating misinformation.
Here is the abstract of our open access paper "Hierarchical machine learning models can identify stimuli of climate change misinformation on social media":
Misinformation about climate change poses a substantial threat to societal well-being, prompting the urgent need for effective mitigation strategies. However, the rapid proliferation of online misinformation on social media platforms outpaces the ability of fact-checkers to debunk false claims. Automated detection of climate change misinformation offers a promising solution. In this study, we address this gap by developing a two-step hierarchical model. The Augmented Computer Assisted Recognition of Denial and Skepticism (CARDS) model is specifically designed for categorising climate claims on Twitter. Furthermore, we apply the Augmented CARDS model to five million climate-themed tweets over a six-month period in 2022. We find that over half of contrarian climate claims on Twitter involve attacks on climate actors. Spikes in climate contrarianism coincide with one of four stimuli: political events, natural events, contrarian influencers, or convinced influencers. Implications for automated responses to climate misinformation are discussed.
We used the taxonomy from Coan et al. (2021) where we developed the CARDS model for detecting misinformation claims. There are 5 categories of misinformation: it's not real, it's not us, it's not bad, solutions won't work, experts aren't reliable:
This taxonomy provides a comprehensive overview of the frequently employed main claim and its corresponding subarguments utilized to bolster contrarian perspectives on climate change. Source: Coan et al. (2021)
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Posted on 1 September 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
A listing of 34 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, August 25, 2024 thru Sat, August 31, 2024.
Story of the week
After another crammed week of climate news including updates on climate tipping points, increasing threats from rising seas, burgeoning disease threats and tropical storms juiced by too much warmth, Our Story of the Week is about root cause and excacerbator for all of the above.
Writing for Jacobin, former Rhode Island state representative Aaron Regenburg delivers a critique and rebuttal of a previous essay in the same publication. Regenburg's target is a sincerely delivered but incorrect argument that climate disinformation is not a matter of priority when talking to the general public about solving our climate mishap, an ill-conceived premise that we should save our words by ignoring climate disinformation and instead forcus on climate solutions.
As Regenburg points out, choosing a single frame in this way is a false choice, a misindentification of mutual exclusivity. Following this advice would only prolong the disastrous outcome we're now living. After all, the problems listed in this edition of Climate News of the Week are much worse thanks to a decades long, concerted, pervasive and well-funded campaign of disinformaton on behalf of the fossil fuel industry.
Downplaying or ignoring intentional deceit delivered on an industrial scale is a bit like thinking that wishing hard enough to stay dry is as good as an umbrella when encountering a rainstorm. Climate remedy will happen via effective public policy, public policy is an outcome of politics and hence systematic climate mitigation is an inherently political matter. Electorates confused by disinformation into flaccid support for or even hostile reactions against useful climate policy cut the legs from beneath our ability to confront and solve our climate problem.
Writes Regenburg, "The climate movement can walk and chew gum at the same time." Perfectly true, and it's equally true that people can be told and understand both how they're being misled and what they can do to help fix our problem. Doubt and uncertainty over the very existence of climate change as a matter of concern clearly preempts impetus to act, so if there were an attention or communications resource shortage, we'd better be looking to first clear up climate confusion. In reality there is no inherent dilemma or condundrum in simultaneous delivery, and it's even arguably a bit insulting to suggest that average people can't cope with full information.
Stories we promoted this week, by publication date:
Before August 25
- Scientists closely watching these 3 disastrous climate change scenarios, Nation, USA TODAY, Doyle Rice.
- This chart of ocean heat is terrifying, Climate, Vox, Benji Jones. "The Gulf’s looming hurricane problem, explained in a simple graph."
- The need for pluralism in climate modelling, RealClimate, Guest post by Marina Baldissera Pacchetti, Julie Jebeile and Erica Thompson. How should we allocate resources for climate modelling if the goal is to improve climate-related decisions? Higher resolution, machine learning and/or storylines? A call for a deeper discussion on how we should develop the climate modelling toolbox.
- China and India are so big. Do my country`s climate actions even matter?, Yale Climate Connections, Dana Nuccitelli. Though some countries contribute more to climate change than others, the crisis can only be averted if every major polluter does its part.
- The Tipping Points of Climate Change — and Where We Stand, TED on Youtube, Johan Rochström.
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Posted on 31 August 2024 by Guest Author, John Mason
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with John Mason. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.
Is recent global warming part of a natural cycle?
While natural cycles explain some historical periods of climate change, the current one is due to human activity.
Solar energy reaching the Earth varies regularly over thousands of years with "Milankovitch cycles" in the planet's orbital path, tilt, and wobble. As an example of "external forcing", they affect the total energy present in Earth's climate system.
But those cycles are in a cooling phase and cannot explain recent warming. Man made greenhouse gasses can.
Shorter-term cycles ("internal variability"), like the El Nino Southern Oscillation, merely move energy around within the climate system. In warm El Nino years, heat is released from the oceans to the atmosphere. In cooler La Nina years, the reverse occurs.
However, even La Nina years are getting warmer. 2022 was the warmest La Nina year on record and the 5th warmest year globally. This runs counter to natural cycles contributing to current global warming.
Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration What is Attribution?
NASA Why Milankovitch (Orbital) Cycles Can’t Explain Earth’s Current Warming
Geophysical Research Letters The recent global warming hiatus: What is the role of Pacific variability?
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Posted on 29 August 2024 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Arctic glacier snowline altitudes rise 150 m over the last 4 decades, Larocca et al., The Cryosphere:
We mapped the snowline (SL) on a subset of 269 land-terminating glaciers above 60° N latitude in the latest available summer, clear-sky Landsat satellite image between 1984 and 2022. The mean SLA was extracted using the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEM). We compared the remotely observed SLA observations with available long-term field-based measurements of ELA and with ERA5-Land reanalysis climate data. Over the last 4 decades, Arctic glacier SLAs have risen an average of ∼152 m (3.9±0.4 m yr−1; R2=0.74, p<0.001), with a corresponding summer (June, July, August) temperature shift of +1.2 °C at the glacier locations. This equates to a 127±5 m shift per 1 °C of summer warming. However, we note that the effect of glacier surface thinning could bias our estimates of SLA rise by up to ∼1 m yr−1, a significant fraction (∼25 %) of the overall rate of change, and thus should be interpreted as a maximum constraint. Along with warming, we observe an overall decrease in snowfall, an increase in rainfall, and a decrease in the total number of days in which the mean daily temperature is less than or equal to 0 °C.
A 27-country test of communicating the scientific consensus on climate change, Ve?kalov et al., Nature Human Behaviour:
Communicating the scientific consensus that human-caused climate change is real increases climate change beliefs, worry and support for public action in the United States. In this preregistered experiment, we tested two scientific consensus messages, a classic message on the reality of human-caused climate change and an updated message additionally emphasizing scientific agreement that climate change is a crisis. Across online convenience samples from 27 countries (n = 10,527), the classic message substantially reduces misperceptions (d = 0.47, 95% CI (0.41, 0.52)) and slightly increases climate change beliefs (from d = 0.06, 95% CI (0.01, 0.11) to d = 0.10, 95% CI (0.04, 0.15)) and worry (d = 0.05, 95% CI (−0.01, 0.10)) but not support for public action directly. The updated message is equally effective but provides no added value. Both messages are more effective for audiences with lower message familiarity and higher misperceptions, including those with lower trust in climate scientists and right-leaning ideologies. Overall, scientific consensus messaging is an effective, non-polarizing tool for changing misperceptions, beliefs and worry across different audiences.
A slow and deceitful path to decarbonization? Critically assessing corporate climate disclosure as central tool of soft climate governance, Frisch, Energy Research & Social Science:
While successful in translating climate change into business language, the climate disclosure regime currently does not enable a rapid transformation of the economy. The article offers an innovative explanation for the limited effects of climate disclosure on reducing corporate greenhouse gas emissions, but avoids a destructive critique that dismisses climate disclosure as mere greenwashing activity. Simultaneously, it counters naïve illusions that more transparency, better standards, and the right performance indicators will solve the “wicked problem” of climate change.
Climate policies that achieved major emission reductions: Global evidence from two decades, Stechemesser et al., Science:
Meeting the Paris Agreement’s climate targets necessitates better knowledge about which climate policies work in reducing emissions at the necessary scale. We provide a global, systematic ex post evaluation to identify policy combinations that have led to large emission reductions out of 1500 climate policies implemented between 1998 and 2022 across 41 countries from six continents. Our approach integrates a comprehensive climate policy database with a machine learning–based extension of the common difference-in-differences approach. We identified 63 successful policy interventions with total emission reductions between 0.6 billion and 1.8 billion metric tonnes CO2. Our insights on effective but rarely studied policy combinations highlight the important role of price-based instruments in well-designed policy mixes and the policy efforts necessary for closing the emissions gap.
“Disempowered by the transition”: Manipulated and coerced agency in displacements induced by accelerated extraction of energy transition minerals in Zimbabwe, Matanzima, Energy Research & Social Science:
The theme of manipulated and coerced agency is the foci of this manuscript. I show how the “urgency” to decarbonize and fast- tracked ETMs mining interact to induce displacements in absence of due diligence. Urgency by mining companies to extract minerals interacts with weak governance and corruption to induce forced resettlement characterized by manipulation of consent in regions where ETMs are concentrated. This article focuses on the case of Buhera district (south-eastern Zimbabwe) where communities were displaced due to lithium mining activities at the Sabi Star mine (run by a Chinese mining company known as Max Mind) to elucidate how manipulation and coercion were utilized to get people to agree to “unfair” resettlement terms. The resettlement programme was deliberately jumbled to confuse peasants so that they consent to a flawed displacement scheme. In the aftermath, people agreed to hasty removals coupled with unfair compensation resulting in their impoverishment. The Buhera case is an epitome of the political ecologies of energy transitions and displacements prevailing across the global south, that needs to be urgently addressed if we are to achieve a fairer and just energy transition. The article leans on the political ecology arguments to argue its case.
Infectious disease responses to human climate change adaptations, Titcomb et al., Global Change Biology:
The ways humans respond to climate change, either through adaptation or mitigation, have underappreciated, yet hugely impactful effects on infectious disease transmission, often in complex and sometimes nonintuitive ways. Thus, in addition to investigating the direct effects of climate changes on infectious diseases, it is critical to consider how human preventative measures and adaptations to climate change will alter the environments and hosts that support pathogens. Here, we consider the ways that human responses to climate change will likely impact disease risk in both positive and negative ways. We evaluate the evidence for these impacts based on the available data, and identify research directions needed to address climate change while minimizing externalities associated with infectious disease, especially for vulnerable communities. We identify several different human adaptations to climate change that are likely to affect infectious disease risk independently of the effects of climate change itself. We categorize these changes into adaptation strategies to secure access to water, food, and shelter, and mitigation strategies to decrease greenhouse gas emissions. We recognize that adaptation strategies are more likely to have infectious disease consequences for under-resourced communities, and call attention to the need for socio-ecological studies to connect human behavioral responses to climate change and their impacts on infectious disease.
From this week's government and NGO section:
State of the Climate in 2023, American Meteorological Society
Notable findings from the international report include Earth’s greenhouse gas concentrations being the highest on record, record temperatures notable across the globe, El Niño conditions contributed to record-high sea surface temperatures, ocean heat and global sea level were the highest on record, heatwaves and droughts contributed to massive wildfires around the world, the Arctic was warm and navigable, Antarctica sea ice sets record lows throughout 2023, and tropical cyclone activity was below average, but storms still set records around the globe.
Surging Seas in a Warming World, UN Secretary-General’s Climate Action Team, United Nations
The authors provide a summary of the latest science on sea-level rise and its present-day and projected impacts — including coastal flooding — at a global and regional level, with a focus on major coastal cities in the Group of Twenty (G20) countries and the Pacific Small Island Developing States. The findings demonstrate that sea-level rise is affecting the lives and livelihoods of coastal communities and low-lying island nations around the world today, and it is accelerating. The climate actions and decisions taken by political leaders and policymakers in the coming months and years will determine how devastating these impacts become and how quickly they worsen.
218 articles in 79 journals by 1516 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
Amazon drought amplifies SST warming in the North Tropical Atlantic, Lou et al., Climate Dynamics 10.1007/s00382-024-07400-1
Decreased cloud cover partially offsets the cooling effects of surface albedo change due to deforestation, Luo et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-024-51783-y
Ice Sheet-Albedo Feedback Estimated From Most Recent Deglaciation, Booth et al., 10.22541/essoar.171535275.57284648/v1
Role of the Labrador Current in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation response to greenhouse warming, Shan et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-024-51449-9
Understanding the role of contrails and contrail cirrus in climate change: a global perspective, Singh et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-24-9219-2024
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Posted on 28 August 2024 by Guest Author
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any).
Coral reefs are in hot water... literally. Climate change is ramping up temperatures, causing increasing bleaching of reefs across the world. On top of that, these unique, vital ecosystems are facing threats from plastic pollution, ocean acidification, and overfishing. And new research shows just how in danger the Great Barrier Reef is. But there are solutions to protect reefs from global warming - helping them adapt to a warming world and removing the threats they face. But if we don't stop climate change as soon as possible, we may live to see the end of coral reefs.
Support ClimateAdam on patreon: https://patreon.com/climateadam
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Posted on 27 August 2024 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Osha Davidson
For 20 years now, Ken Nedimyer has been strapping on his scuba gear and diving into the waters off the Florida coast in a desperate effort to restore coral reefs that have been decimated by climate change and pollution. In 2019, he founded his latest venture, Reef Renewal USA. The group’s YouTube channel shows Nedimyer and other members underwater, carefully attaching nursery-grown coral to structures designed to build healthy reefs.
“We’re working hard under pressure with innovation, speed, and efficiency to repopulate our coral reefs,” the narrator says.
Diver-conservationists like Nedimyer will lose the race against time, scientists say, unless humanity acts quickly to end emissions of climate-warming pollution. In the Southern Hemisphere’s Coral Sea, home of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, extreme temperatures have recently hit their highest in 400 years, according to an article in the journal Nature.
“If we don’t divert from our current course, our generation will likely witness the demise of one of Earth’s great natural wonders, the Great Barrier Reef,” paleoclimatologist Ben Henley at the University of Melbourne told the New York Times.
‘Out of sight’
According to a 2023 Pew Research poll, a majority of Americans consider global warming to be a major threat. If you drill down a bit and ask this group which ecosystem most concerns them, odds are they’ll cite tropical rainforests, or maybe alpine areas or the Arctic tundra.
And they’re not wrong to be concerned about these important communities. But our terrestrial bias blinds us to what is arguably an even more endangered ecosystem lying beneath the ocean’s surface.
“Coral reefs suffer from an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ dilemma,” said Jessica Levy, a marine biologist working for the Florida-based Coral Restoration Foundation.
“What we’re looking at is the potential loss of an entire ecosystem, which we’ve never experienced in human history,” Levy said, “and I don’t think anyone wants to find out what that would mean if we had a complete collapse of our coral-reef ecosystems.”
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Posted on 26 August 2024 by dana1981
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections
At a Republican presidential debate in 2023, several candidates articulated a common sentiment about whose climate policies really matter.
“If you want to go and really change the environment, then we need to start telling China and India that they have to lower their emissions,” said Nikki Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and ultimate runner-up to Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primary race. “We also need to take on the international world and say, ‘OK, India and China, you’ve got to stop polluting.’”
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina agreed, saying, “The places where they are continuing to increase [climate pollution] – Africa, 950 million people; India, over a billion; China, over a billion.”
It’s true that China and India are each home to just over 1.4 billion people. Both have rapidly growing economies that largely depend on fossil fuel energy. China is responsible for about one-quarter of annual climate-warming pollution, and together with India, the two countries account for one-third of yearly global emissions (the U.S. accounts for about 11%).
Given the size of the economies of China and India, it’s understandable to wonder if the climate actions of smaller countries matter. But they do, for several reasons: because the Chinese and Indian governments are making great efforts to deploy climate solutions; because China and India are responsible for much lower per-person and historical climate pollution than many other countries; and crucially, because the climate crisis can only be averted if every country does its part.
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Posted on 25 August 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
A listing of 30 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, August 18, 2024 thru Sat, August 24, 2024.
Story of the week
Our Story of the Week is another stab at "connecting the dots," drawing a line between two different stories sharing common foundations.
First there's Emily Atkin writing for HEATED with a critical commentary on Elon Musk, in Why vilify the oil and gas industry?. As detailed by Atkin, in a recent interview with the current US presidential GOP party nominee Musk made an odd statement, one that with all charity can only be interpreted as remarkably chumpish and naive. Musk asserted in connection with climate change that "I don’t think we should vilify the oil and gas industry." Unsurprisingly this article generated a lot of buzz in social media. Musk's assertion is starkly at odds with the fossil fuel industry's amply documented footprints of concerted, effective deception as recorded in public perception, public policy— and certainly not least— investigative journalism.
Assuming for a moment that Musk is somehow genuinely ignorant of a rich and obvious historical record, his information and cogitation could be improved by reading another article we shared this week, Oil firms and dark money fund push by Republican states to block climate laws by Peter Stone, writing for The Guardian. Stone's piece is certainly important in terms of ongoing situational awareness. But except in terms of details there's fundamentally little new in this article for anybody generally familiar with the struggle between the fossil fuel industry's desperate effort to prolong monetization of its outmoded and dangerous resouces versus modernization and cleanup of our energy systems. How a person of Musk's wide curiosity can remain oblivious to such activities is a true mystery— and beggars belief.
For decades the fossil fuel industry has been fighting tooth and nail to preserve the anachronistic revenue stream it enjoys. Against the trillions of dollars of revenue at stake, a few hundred milllions spent on paying for favorable legislation and judicial bench-stuffing is not even noise on the bottom line. It doesn't need Musk's genius to see this but rather only a few minutes of attention and an easy Google search, by any person of average intelligence.
It's hard to credit that anybody of Musk's intelligence and insight into the materiality of energy supplies could truly be so ignorant. But ignorance is innocent, so let's be generous and call Elon Musk ignorant rather than a liar.
Elon Musk can also fairly be seen as a brutally pragmatic technological visionary, a person with a strong record of success as defined by context. In company with Nissan (first to offer a practical and affordable mass market EV) his automotive company has delivered a powerful and largely positive object lesson to the entire transport sector. Meanwhile, Musk's SpaceX is littering the skies with a reasonably useful but also problematic constellation of communications satellites. The latter system's impacts on astronomy and (more urgently) a burgeoning orbtal debris threat create a puzzling inconsistency in terms of Musk's avowed inclinations toward sustainability.
Musk also seems increasingly burderned by counterproductive ideological baggage, much along the lines of Henry Ford who was another earth-shaking titan of industry, Henry Ford. Elon Musk and Henry Ford share some strong resemblances in terms of single-handed upheaval of large segments of the industrial sector. Yet for all his brilliance at efficient vertically integrated manufacturing, Ford stepped outside of his lane of competence and ultimately was heard apologizing for and disclaiming his own publications, which diverged far from matters of industrial prowess and dived into a sewer of bigotry.
Although far removed from Ford's particular fallibility, Musk seems to be following a roughly parallel path of plutocratic downfall as did Ford, dabbling in matters outside his core skill set. Unlike Ford, Musk's extracurricular inclinations are not expressed as feelings of hatred of a population but rather by displays of expediently selective or truly genuine ignorance, as exemplified in his facile or shallow exculpation of the fossil fuel indiustry for its truly baroque record of deceptions and prevarications.
When Elon Musk says we shouldn't vilify the fossil fuel industry, everybody can agree he's right about the working class members of that sector. But Musk is plainly completely wrong about this industry's leadership. He has only to scrolll a wee bit or pick up a newspaper to learn better. After all, Stone's exposé is part of a practically daily sunrise of dayllight shed on the dark doings of oil, gas and coal commerce. One need not be a rocket scientist to join the clue train.
Before August 18
- Carbon Removals Aren`t Just About Getting the Science Right, Inside Climate News, By Mathilde Augustin. Carbon removal technologies are essential to meet Paris Agreement targets, but they’re facing serious challenges beyond engineering and chemistry.
- `Nobody ever saw anything like this before`: how methane emissions are pushing the Amazon towards environmental catastrophe, Health The Guardian, Rob Jackson. As the world heats up, methane released from thawing permafrost and warming tropical wetlands is intensifying climate breakdown. But curbing it is achievable
- The threat of climate change demands something more than thoughts, prayers and excuses, CBC, Aaron Wherry. Adaptation or mitigation? It's a false choice — we need both
- The Aspen Institute Is Calling for a Systemic Approach to Climate Education at the University Level, Science, Inside Climate News, Caroline Marshall Reinhart. "Arizona State and UC San Diego will begin requiring climate courses this academic year. Columbia, Harvard and Stanford are going even further, creating schools devoted to climate change."
- NOAA: July 2024 was Earth’s hottest month on record, Eye on the Storm, Yale Climate Connections, Jeff Masters & Bob Henson. "A stunning streak of global record warmth is now 14 months long, according to the agency."
- Meeting 1.5C warming limit hinges on governments more than technology, study says, Carbon Brief, Ayesha Tandon. "The ability of governments to implement climate policies effectively is the “most important” factor in the feasibility of limiting global warming to 1.5C, a new study says. "
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Posted on 24 August 2024 by Guest Author, John Mason
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with John Mason. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.
Is decreased cosmic ray activity driving global warming?
Over 50 years of data has produced no evidence that cosmic rays are driving global warming.
While some studies attribute some small contribution to decreased cosmic ray activity, there is a scientific consensus that CO2 is the primary factor driving temperature increases worldwide.
Galactic cosmic rays are high-energy particles released by stars of the Milky Way and other galaxies. These rays hit Earth’s upper atmosphere and produce charged particles called ions.
It is suggested these ions cause an increase in cloud cover, which would shield Earth from radiation and prevent warming; thus, it has been proposed that decreased cosmic ray activity is causing rising temperatures. However, causal links between cosmic rays, clouds, and warming have been debunked by decades of data.
A 2017 paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research found the effects of cosmic rays on clouds insignificant compared to that of natural emissions like wildfires and volcanoes.
Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
Encyclopedia Britannica Cosmic ray
Scientific American Cosmic Rays Not Causing Climate Change
JGR Atmospheres Causes and importance of new particle formation in the present-day and preindustrial atmospheres
JGR Space Physics Can solar variability explain global warming since 1970?
Environmental Research Letters Testing the proposed causal link between cosmic rays and cloud cover
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Posted on 22 August 2024 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
The ocean losing its breath under the heatwaves, Li et al., Nature Communications:
The world’s oceans are under threat from the prevalence of heatwaves caused by climate change. Despite this, there is a lack of understanding regarding their impact on seawater oxygen levels - a crucial element in sustaining biological survival. Here, we find that heatwaves can trigger low-oxygen extreme events, thereby amplifying the signal of deoxygenation. By utilizing in situ observations and state-of-the-art climate model simulations, we provide a global assessment of the relationship between the two types of extreme events in the surface ocean (0–10 m). Our results show compelling evidence of a remarkable surge in the co-occurrence of marine heatwaves and low-oxygen extreme events. Hotspots of these concurrent stressors are identified in the study, indicating that this intensification is more pronounced in high-biomass regions than in those with relatively low biomass. The rise in the compound events is primarily attributable to long-term warming primarily induced by anthropogenic forcing, in tandem with natural internal variability modulating their spatial distribution. Our findings suggest the ocean is losing its breath under the influence of heatwaves, potentially experiencing more severe damage than previously anticipated.
Should we change the term we use for “climate change”? Evidence from a national U.S. terminology experiment, Bruine de Bruin et al., Climatic Change:
The terms “global warming,” “climate crisis,” “climate emergency,” and “climate justice” each draw attention to different aspects of climate change. Psychological theories of attitude formation suggest that people’s attitudes can be influenced by such variations in terminology. In a national experiment, we randomly assigned a national sample of 5,137 U.S. residents to “climate change,” “global warming,” “climate crisis,” “climate emergency,” or “climate justice” and examined their responses. Overall, “climate change” and “global warming” were rated as most familiar and most concerning, and “climate justice” the least, with ratings for “climate crisis” and “climate emergency” falling in between. Moreover, we find no evidence for “climate crisis” or “climate emergency” eliciting more perceived urgency than “climate change” or “global warming.” Rated willingness to support climate-friendly policies and eat less red meat were less affected by presented terms, but they were lowest for “climate justice.” Although effects of terms on rated familiarity, concern, and perceived urgency varied by political leaning, “climate justice” generally received the lowest ratings on these variables among Democrats, Republicans, and Independent/others. Auxiliary analyses found that when terms were unfamiliar, participants were generally less likely to express concern, urgency, policy support, or willingness to eat less red meat. We therefore recommend sticking with familiar terms, conclude that changing terminology is likely not the key solution for promoting climate action, and suggest alternative communication strategies.
Reducing climate change impacts from the global food system through diet shifts, Li et al., Nature Climate Change:
How much and what we eat and where it is produced can create huge differences in GHG emissions. On the basis of detailed household-expenditure data, we evaluate the unequal distribution of dietary emissions from 140 food products in 139 countries or areas and further model changes in emissions of global diet shifts. Within countries, consumer groups with higher expenditures generally cause more dietary emissions due to higher red meat and dairy intake. Such inequality is more pronounced in low-income countries. The present global annual dietary emissions would fall by 17% with the worldwide adoption of the EAT-Lancet planetary health diet, primarily attributed to shifts from red meat to legumes and nuts as principal protein sources. More than half (56.9%) of the global population, which is presently overconsuming, would save 32.4% of global emissions through diet shifts, offsetting the 15.4% increase in global emissions from presently underconsuming populations moving towards healthier diets.
Rapid intensification of tropical cyclones in the Gulf of Mexico is more likely during marine heatwaves, Radfar et al., Communications Earth & Environment:
Tropical cyclones can rapidly intensify under favorable oceanic and atmospheric conditions. This phenomenon is complex and difficult to predict, making it a serious challenge for coastal communities. A key contributing factor to the intensification process is the presence of prolonged high sea surface temperatures, also known as marine heatwaves. However, the extent to which marine heatwaves contribute to the potential of rapid intensification events is not yet fully explored. Here, we conduct a probabilistic analysis to assess how the likelihood of rapid intensification changes during marine heatwaves in the Gulf of Mexico and northwestern Caribbean Sea. Approximately 70% of hurricanes that formed between 1950 and 2022 were influenced by marine heatwaves. Notably, rapid intensification is, on average, 50% more likely during marine heatwaves. As marine heatwaves are on the increase due to climate change, our findings indicate that more frequent rapid intensification events can be expected in the warming climate.
Significant challenges to the sustainability of the California coast considering climate change, Thorne et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:
Evidence from California and across the United States shows that climate change is impacting coastal communities and challenging managers with a plethora of stressors already present. Widespread action could be taken that would sustain California’s coastal ecosystems and communities. In this perspective, we highlight the main threat to coastal sustainability: the compound effects of episodic events amplified with ongoing climate change, which will present unprecedented challenges to the state. We present two key challenges for California’s sustainability in the coastal zone: 1) accelerating sea-level rise combined with storm impacts, and 2) continued warming of the oceans and marine heatwaves. Cascading effects from these types of compounding events will occur within the context of an already stressed system that has experienced extensive alterations due to intensive development, resource extraction and harvesting, spatial containment, and other human use pressures.
145 articles in 66 journals by 826 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
Assessing the volume of warm water entering the Indian Ocean and surface temperature changes in Persian Gulf, Azar et al., International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology 10.1007/s13762-024-05891-3
Deforestation amplifies climate change effects on warming and cloud level rise in African montane forests, Abera et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-024-51324-7
Drivers of long-term changes in summer compound hot extremes in China: Climate change, urbanization, and vegetation greening, Ji et al., Atmospheric Research 10.1016/j.atmosres.2024.107632
Quantifying Changes in the Arctic Shortwave Cloud Radiative Effects, Kim et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres Open Access 10.1029/2023jd040707
Responses of Lower-Stratospheric Water Vapor to Regional Sea Surface Temperature Changes, Zhou et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-23-0600.1
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Posted on 21 August 2024 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters
Like an approaching major hurricane whose outer spiral bands are only just beginning to hit, an approaching climate change storm has begun and will soon grow to ferocious severity — a topic I discussed in detail in my previous post, When will climate change turn life in the U.S. upside down? This immense tempest is already exposing the precarious foundations upon which civilization is built — an inadequate infrastructure designed for the gentler climate of the 20th century. What should you do to prepare?
On a personal level, you should prepare for the intensifying climate change storm like you would for an approaching major hurricane. If you’re going to stay in place, know your risk, get more insurance, stock up on supplies, weatherproof your home, be ready for long power outages (if you can, get solar panels with battery backup), keep extra courses of essential medicines on hand, and get your finances in order. And if you live in a sufficiently risky place, leave.
Consider standing your ground
Moving to a new place strips you from the web of social connections in your community. As journalist Madeline Ostrander has observed, such ties help people cope during emergencies: “Sense of place, community, and rootedness aren’t just poetic ideas. They are survival mechanisms,” she has written.
So before you pack your bags, first make sure you understand the expected consequences of climate change where you live now. Do those risks outweigh the cost of leaving behind friends, neighbors, family, and professional contacts?
Get insurance
If you decide to remain where you are, it is well worth it to increase your insurance coverage, despite the fact that insurance costs are rising rapidly. Even if you don’t live in a 1-in-100-year flood zone, flood insurance is a good idea for all property owners and renters. The National Flood Insurance Program will insure residential properties for up to $250,000 and the contents for an additional $250,000. Contact your private insurance agent to get a policy.
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Arguments
