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While CO2 is necessary for plant growth, the negative impacts of climate change, driven by man-made CO2 emissions, far outweigh short-term productivity gains.
Emily Ogburn, right, hugs her friend Cody Klein after he brought her a meal on October 2, 2024, in Swannanoa, North Carolina. Ogburn's home was spared and she spent the morning of the storm helping and comforting neighbors who had found shelter on a neighbor’s porch. (Photo by Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)Deadly Hurricane Helene, wildfires in the Amazon, an extreme monsoon downpour in India, a heat wave during the Summer Olympics, and other dangerous and devastating weather events in 2024 were all made more likely and damaging by climate change, scientists have found.
Climate scientists quantified the link by running thousands of simulations in climate models, some that included and some that did not include the effects of human-caused climate pollution in the atmosphere. They also examined past and present weather data to see how the probability of these kinds of events has changed in a hotter world.
This approach, known as attribution science, is a relatively new branch of climate science. It has enabled scientists to conclude that human-caused climate change made many recent extreme weather events much more damaging, deadly, and expensive than they would otherwise have been.
Climate change increased Hurricane Helene’s and Milton’s potential destructiveness
Hurricane Milton, which formed in the Gulf of Mexico in early October, offers an example of how climate change amplifies extreme weather. As a result of high water temperatures, the storm rapidly intensified from a tropical storm to reach Category 5 status. The scientists at Climate Central estimated that those unusually warm sea surface temperatures were made up to 400 to 800 times more likely by climate change.
Hurricane Helene made landfall on September 26, 2024, near Perry, Florida, as a Category 4 with 140 miles per hour winds. The storm is being blamed for 247 deaths, with hundreds more still missing, making it the fourth-deadliest U.S. hurricane since at least 1963. And a new study published in Nature found that the death toll associated with hurricanes is dramatically underestimated, perhaps by hundreds of times, due to knock-on effects lasting for over a decade.
Early estimates have placed the economic costs of the storm at up to $47 billion.
On Wednesday, the attribution science group World Weather Attribution released an analysis of how climate change affected Hurricane Helene. Their main findings:
Climate change made Helene's rainfall more severe
Posted on 8 October 2024 by Zeke Hausfather
This is a re-post from the Climate Brink
Much of my immediate family lives in Asheville and Black Mountain, NC. While everyone is thankfully safe, this disaster struck much closer to home for me than most. There is lots that needs to be done for disaster relief, and I’d encourage folks who can to donate to the recovery effort.
But as Western North Carolina and other areas of the Southeastern US work to recover after the catastrophic flooding caused by Helene, its worth exploring the role that climate change may have played in the event.
While Helene would have been a disaster even in a world without climate change, the intensification of severe rainfall events is one of the most clear-cut impacts of a warming world. Research in recent years has found that intensification of rainfall during hurricanes is particularly pronounced, and a very preliminary analysis by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) finds that rainfall from Helene could have been increased by up to 50% in some regions by the warming the world has experienced over the past 170 years.
A warmer wetter world
Simply put, warmer air can “hold” more water before it precipitates out, and the amount of moisture in the atmosphere is expected to increase by up to 7% per degree of warming. This, in turn, is expected to increase the severity of heavy precipitation events almost everywhere in the world – even if the average amount of rainfall does not change.
The figure below, from Fischer et al 2014, shows the percent change in heavy precipitation (defined as the highest daily precipitation experienced each year) across the CMIP5 ensemble of climate models as a function of global warming. Changes are shown per degree C, and scale relatively linearly with warming, and stippling represents areas where models agree on the sign of the change. Almost everywhere in the world is expected to see increases in heavy precipitation, with the exception of a few areas over the ocean.
There is also evidence that this relationship between warming and rainfall is even stronger in hurricanes, which can result in “super-scaling” of the Clausius-Clapeyron relation that governs increases in atmospheric water vapor and temperature. As Liu et al 2019 note, “the percentage increase for inner-core tropical cyclone rainfall rates in our model is markedly larger than the Clausius-Clapeyron rate” and scales with storm intensity. They found that rainfall from tropical storms increases by 13% per degree C to 17% per degree C (e.g. an increase 17% to 22% at current warming levels of 1.3C above preindustrial).
You will not escape the climate crisis
Posted on 7 October 2024 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from the Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler
On Bluesky, it was pointed out that Asheville, NC was recently listed as a place to go to avoid the climate crisis.
Mother Nature sent a “letter to the editor” indicating that she didn’t agree:
Helene’s climate link
While climate change does not cause hurricanes, we are certain it makes them more destructive. Humans have increased sea level, leading to more destructive storm surge, and a warmer atmosphere produces more rain.
Many people don’t understand how this will affect them. They think it’s a long-term problem where small impacts accumulate over decades, eventually leading to significant consequences far in the future.
In reality, though, these increases in storm surge and rainfall push our physical environment beyond thresholds that infrastructure was designed to handle.
As a result, the impacts of climate change are non-linear: they are zero until you cross the threshold and then, suddenly, you are wiped out. This leads to headlines like this:
2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #40
Posted on 6 October 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
Story of the week
We're all made of standard human fabric so it's nobody's particular fault but while "other" parts of the world have very recently lived (mostly) through enormous floods with huge consequences, only over the past week has the United States focused its immediate attention on hydrometeorological extremes— thanks to the arrival and massive hammer blow of Hurricane Helene and its titanic delivery of rainfall (see "psychological distance").
Our Story of the Week is statistically obvious by headcount in the list below. It's all about Hurricane Helene. A common theme in reportage from affected areas is the element of surprise in arrival of flooding on a previously unimagined and unexperienced scale. Affected residents of a swathe of states spanning from Florida to Virginia were depending on guidance from experts to prepare for this storm and despite fairly strident warnings it's safe to say that the advice they received didn't encompass the unfolding reality of the storm, particularly as it intruded into the continental interior and subsequently stalled as it died away into a tropical depression.
How could we be so surprised by something as hard to hide as 40 triilion gallons (1.514 liters) of water? Perhaps it's because we're using outmoded and inappropriate metrics when evaluating the threat posed by hurricanes. Our focus when it comes to hurricane preparation has traditionally been centered on wind and storm surge. These are certainly germane to coastal locations in terms of threat to life and overall destruction. Storm surge in particular is an urgent matter for people and infrastructure directly facing seas and oceans.
But are wind and storm surge the center of mass of potential hurricane disaster? With so much inland population potentially affected by hurricanes— and with the behavior of hurricanes now being significantly affected by global warming— how best can emergency commmunications serve the public? A hint lies in the fact that fresh water delivered by hurricanes typically kills more people than do wind or surge.
Storm surge fades as a factor not far from the coastline. Farther than a relatively few miles from shore and leaving surge behind, a hurricane's principal impact and threat transitions from crazy wind speed and invasive waves to something more generally familiar: rain. Only this isn't normal rain but instead precipitation from air absolutely stuffed with moisture thanks to its passage over warm ocean. The warmer the water, the higher the risk. Hurricane Helene was positivily juiced with moisture by passing over a Gulf of Mexico that like the rest of the world ocean is freakishly warm, and the storm carried that moisture just as far as it could— before shedding its unbearable load on Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina and Virginia.
We clearly need to be thinking about a different perspective on hurricane risk and how to talk about it, and fortunately we have experts doing exactly that. We didn't cover it in this week's listing but the New York Times just ran an article laying out the current defects with how we convey hurricane threats, The Problem With the Hurricane Category Rating. In a nutshell, over half of US hurricane fatalities are due to deluges of fresh water, yet our thinking about these disasters is myopically focused on coastal contexts. We do as a technical matter know much better. For a comprehensive review of circumspect weather hazard communications (important in a non-stationary climate!), see Improving Societal Outcomes of Extreme Weather in a Changing Climate: An Integrated Perspective (pdf), Morss et al., Annual Review of Environment and Resources.
Stories we promoted this week, by publication date:
Before September 29
- Sorry, AI won’t “fix” climate change, Opinion, MIT Technology Review, James Temple. "OpenAI’s Sam Altman claims AI will deliver an 'Intelligence Age,' but tech breakthroughs alone can't solve global warming."
- As Florida Storms Worsen, Some in Tampa Bay Wonder: Is Living There Worth It?, US, New York Times, Isabelle Taft, Elisabeth Parker, Valerie Boey Ramsey & Patricia Mazzei. "Residents of the booming region are confronting a new reality: Even when storms make landfall far away, their impact is being felt."
- A Controversial Play — and What It Taught Me About the Psychology of Climate, TedTalks on Youtube, David Finnigan.
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40 2024
Posted on 3 October 2024 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Sloth metabolism may make survival untenable under climate change scenarios, Cliffe et al., PeerJ:
Sloths are limited by the rate at which they can acquire energy and are unable to regulate core body temperature (Tb) to the extent seen in most mammals. Therefore, the metabolic impacts of climate change on sloths are expected to be profound. Here we use indirect calorimetry to measure the oxygen consumption (VO2) and Tb of highland and lowland two-fingered sloths (Choloepus hoffmanni) when exposed to a range of different ambient temperatures (Ta) (18 °C –34 °C), and additionally record changes in Tb and posture over several days in response to natural fluctuations in Ta. We use the resultant data to predict the impact of future climate change on the metabolic rate and Tb of the different sloth populations. The metabolic responses of sloths originating from the two sites differed at high Ta’s, with lowland sloths invoking metabolic depression as temperatures rose above their apparent ‘thermally-active zone’ (TAZ), whereas highland sloths showed increased RMR. Based on climate change estimates for the year 2100, we predict that high-altitude sloths are likely to experience a substantial increase in metabolic rate which, due to their intrinsic energy processing limitations and restricted geographical plasticity, may make their survival untenable in a warming climate.
Temperature-Driven Dengue Transmission in a Changing Climate: Patterns, Trends, and Future Projections, Feng et al., GeoHealth:
We analyzed dengue incidence trends and the relationship between annual mean minimum temperatures (AMMTs) and dengue incidence rates from 1990 to 2019 in 122 countries using the Global Burden of Disease and TerraClimate data sets. We also projected global dengue incidence rates under different carbon emission scenarios using temperature data from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) data set. Our results reveal a significant increase in global dengue cases from 1990 to 2019 and a positive correlation between temperature and dengue incidence. The association between AMMT and dengue incidence strengthened at temperatures exceeding 21°C. Central and eastern sub-Saharan Africa, as well as Oceania, were identified as the regions most sensitive to dengue; males and individuals aged 15–19 or 70–84 years were the most susceptible to dengue under rising temperatures. Our projections suggest that global dengue incidence will substantially increase by 2050 and 2100. By 2100, regions including Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, the southern United States, southern China, and island countries in the Pacific and Indian Oceans are projected to become year-round dengue-endemic under a high-emission climate scenario.
Inverse modeling of 2010–2022 satellite observations shows that inundation of the wet tropics drove the 2020–2022 methane surge, Qu et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:
Atmospheric methane concentrations rose rapidly over the past decade and surged in 2020–2022 but the causes have been unclear. We find from inverse analysis of GOSAT satellite observations that emissions from the wet tropics drove the 2010–2019 increase and the subsequent 2020–2022 surge, while emissions from northern mid-latitudes decreased. The 2020–2022 surge is principally contributed by emissions in Equatorial Asia (43%) and Africa (30%). Wetlands are the major drivers of the 2020–2022 emission increases in Africa and Equatorial Asia because of tropical inundation associated with La Niña conditions, consistent with trends in the GRACE terrestrial water storage data. In contrast, emissions from major anthropogenic emitters such as the United States, Russia, and China are relatively flat over 2010–2022. Concentrations of tropospheric OH (the main methane sink) show no long-term trend over 2010–2022 but a decrease over 2020–2022 that contributed to the methane surge.
Geospatial assessment of the cost and energy demand of feedstock grinding for enhanced rock weathering in the coterminous United States, Li et al., Frontiers in Climate:
Enhanced rock weathering (ERW)—the artificial enhancement of chemical weathering of rocks to accelerate atmospheric CO2 capture—is now widely seen as a potentially promising carbon dioxide removal (CDR) strategy that could help to achieve U.S. climate goals. Grinding rocks to smaller particle size, which can help to facilitate more rapid and efficient CO2 removal, is the most energy-demanding and cost-intensive step in the ERW life cycle. As a result, accurate life cycle analysis of ERW requires regional constraints on the factors influencing the energetic and economic demands of feedstock grinding for ERW. Here, we perform a state-level geospatial analysis to quantify how carbon footprints, costs, and energy demands vary among regions of the coterminous U.S. in relation to particle size and regional electricity mix. We find that CO2 emissions from the grinding process are regionally variable but relatively small compared to the CDR potential of ERW... Overall energy requirements for grinding are also modest, with the demand for grinding 1 Gt of feedstock representing less than 2% of annual national electricity supply. In addition, both cost and overall energy demand are projected to decline over time. These results suggest that incorporating feedstock grinding into ERW deployment at scale in the coterminous U.S. should generally have only modest impacts on lifecycle emissions, cost-effectiveness, and energy efficiency.
Accelerating transmission capacity expansion by using advanced conductors in existing right-of-way, Chojkiewicz et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:
As countries pursue decarbonization goals, the rapid expansion of transmission capacity for renewable energy (RE) integration poses a significant challenge due to hurdles such as permitting and cost allocation. However, we find that large-scale reconductoring with advanced composite-core conductors can cost-effectively double transmission capacity within existing right-of-way, with limited additional permitting. This strategy unlocks a high availability of increasingly economically viable RE resources in close proximity to the existing network. We implement reconductoring in a model of the US power system, showing that reconductoring can help meet over 80% of the new interzonal transmission needed to reach over 90% clean electricity by 2035 given restrictions on greenfield transmission build-out. With $180 billion in system cost savings by 2050, reconductoring presents a cost-effective and time-efficient, yet underutilized, opportunity to accelerate global transmission expansion.
From this week's government/NGO section
The F-List 2024. The Mad Men Fueling the Madness, Nayantara Dutta, Clean Creatives
The advertizing agencies working with fossil fuel clients remain stuck in the Mad Men era, ignoring the impact of their work for polluters, and its consequences for their reputation and talent. The authors share 1,010 fossil fuel contracts held by 590 advertizing and public relations agencies in 2023-2024. Like every other outdated practice of the ad industry, it is only a matter of time before fossil fuel campaigns come to an end. Mad Men no longer rule Madison Avenue, and climate madness must end. Clean agencies who reject fossil fuel clients are the future.
Fossil Fuel Ad Bans: protecting the public from corporate climate disinformation, Climate Action Against Disinformation
The fossil fuel industry, just like the tobacco industry before them, has spent decades advertising, explicitly to normalize their operations and mislead consumers about the dangers of their product, and even promote polluting products as climate solutions. That is why there is broad public support for an emerging global consensus on banning fossil fuel ads, like tobacco ads. As long as a fossil fuel lifestyle is considered normal, climate policy that focuses on demand reduction will never gain enough support to successfully meet the Paris Agreement goals. Fossil fuel ads are an obstacle to equitable climate action.
174 articles in 64 journals by 967 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
A climate change signal in the tropical Pacific emerges from decadal variability, Jiang et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-024-52731-6
Dense Water Production in Storfjorden, Svalbard, From a 1-Year Time Series of Observations and a Simple Model: Are Polynyas in a Warming Arctic Exporting Heat to the Deep Ocean?, Vivier et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2024jc020878
Increasing contribution of the atmospheric vertical motion to precipitation in a warming climate, Jun & Rind Rind, Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-024-01676-1
The unsung heroes of India’s extreme weather disasters
Posted on 2 October 2024 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sanket Jain
Noushadbi Mujawar has created a community health model that helps people in India build resilience amid the rising climate disasters. (Photo credit: Sanket Jain)
Community health care worker Noushadbi Mujawar safely evacuated everyone from Rajapur, an isolated village in India, as its streets began flooding in August 2019. Mujawar, 42, remained in the village herself even as floodwaters rose 12 feet above her house.
“I moved to a nearby taller building and decided to stay,” said Mujawar, who wanted to help those villagers who stayed with their property as the floodwaters rose.
“Many people stay in their homes during floods to care for their cattle, as evacuating them involves significant risks,” she said.
Mujawar is one of over a million accredited social health activists, known as ASHAs, in India, one for every 1,000 people in villages and towns. ASHAs help make public health care accessible.
Mujawar has tried to keep people safe during deadly floods that inundated her village in Maharashtra state in 2005, 2019, 2021, and 2024. She makes it a point to talk to every community member during any disaster to ensure their safety even as flooding deprives many of electricity, food supplies, and essentials.
“This is the most dangerous moment when people are at risk of mental health issues, and most of them never seek treatment because of the taboo,” Mujawar said.
Social stigma, cultural barriers, and fear of judgment often prevent people from discussing mental health issues and seeking treatment, especially in remote villages, where emotional vulnerability is seen as a weakness.
Four ways climate change likely made Hurricane Helene worse
Posted on 1 October 2024 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters
Hurricane Helene at sunset on Sep. 26, 2024, as the storm was closing in on the Florida coast as a Cat 4 with 130 mph winds. (Image credit: NOAA/RAMMB-CIRA Satellite Library)
After a spectacular burst of rapid intensification, Hurricane Helene made landfall just east of the mouth of the Aucilla River, about 10 miles west-southwest of Perry, Florida, at about 11:10 p.m. EDT Thursday. Top sustained winds were estimated at 140 mph, making Helene a Category 4 hurricane at landfall. We’ll have much more on Helene’s many impacts—some still unfolding on Friday—in our next Eye in the Storm post.
Helene’s landfall gives the U.S. a record eight Cat 4 or Cat 5 Atlantic hurricane landfalls in the past eight years (2017-2024), seven of them being continental U.S. landfalls. That’s as many Cat 4 and 5 landfalls as occurred in the prior 57 years. The only comparable beating the U.S. has taken from Category 4 and 5 landfalling hurricanes occurred in the six years from 1945 to 1950, when five Category 4 hurricanes hit South Florida.
With the U.S. taking such a beating from extreme hurricanes in recent years, it’s worth reviewing how climate change is contributing to making hurricanes worse.
Landfalling U.S. Cat 4s and 5s
The eight Cat 4 and 5 landfalls since 2017: Harvey (2017 in Texas), Irma (2017 in Florida), Maria (2017 in Puerto Rico), Michael (2018 in Florida), Laura (2020 in Louisiana), Ida (2021 in Louisiana), Ian (2022 in Florida), Helene (2024 in Florida).
The eight Cat 4 and 5 landfalls in the prior 57 years: Charley, 2004; Andrew, 1992; Hugo, 1989; Celia, 1970; Camille, 1969; Betsy, 1965; Carla, 1961; Donna, 1960.
How many people did the Beryl blackout kill?
Posted on 30 September 2024 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler
You should probably learn the term compound climate event. It refers to the occurrence of multiple weather- or climate-related hazards happening simultaneously or in close succession, leading to amplified impacts.
One of the most feared compound events is a hurricane causing massive infrastructure damage followed by extreme heat. If the damage caused a blackout, it could leave a huge population without access to air conditioning, leading to heat-related illnesses and fatalities.
This is far from a theoretical occurrence: It just happened in Houston when Hurricane Beryl hit the city, knocking out power for days.
Various news reports put the number of deaths due to Beryl at a few dozen. A third to half of these deaths have been attributed to extreme heat associated with the blackout. So maybe a dozen or so.
Is that estimate reasonable? Measuring heat-related deaths is challenging. When someone dies during a heatwave, the cause might be recorded as a heart attack, stroke, or respiratory failure, without acknowledging that heat played a role in triggering these conditions. This leads to chronic underestimations of the true toll of heat on public health.
2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #39
Posted on 29 September 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
Story of the week
Given the headlines dominance of hot oceans lofting water into the atmosphere where it then obeys the Clausius-Clapeyron relationship thereby leading to catastrophic rainfall, our Story of the Week might have been a composite of misery brought down on many heads thanks to our having changed Earth's climate. For an example of our hydrometeorological scope of disaster being widened in plain view over the past week alone, simply scan the article listing below to see how the story of Hurricane Helene evolved.
But extreme rainfall is not uppermost in the thoughts of our Skeptical Science team. Instead, a much more local tragedy has overwhelmed us: the sudden loss of key Skeptical Science author and highly esteemed and valued colleague John Mason. John passed away on Friday, September 20, untimely and wholly unanticipated. Not only was John extraordinarily productive for Skeptical Science but he was also a person who inevitably ended up being counted as a friend to any colleague with whom he shared purpose and effort. John's death is a full-spectrum loss, a cruel blow. For us, the Story of the Week is about Remembering our friend John Mason.
Stories we promoted this week, by publication date:
Before September 22
- COP29 aims to boost battery storage and grids for renewables, as pledges proliferate, Politics, Climate Home News, Jo Lo. "Governments are being asked to sign up to a goal to boost energy storage six-fold and renew or add 80 million km of electric grids, among other initiatives"
- Why everywhere seems to be flooding right now, Climate, Vox, Li Zhou. "Unique factors have driven torrential rains around the world — but there’s also a likely common thread."
- Even solar energy’s biggest fans are underestimating it, Climate, Vox, Umair Irfan. "Solar’s extraordinary forecast-defying growth, explained."
- Turning the Tide on Climate Change, ClimateAdam on Youtube, Adam Levy.
- Video: Can a colossal extreme weather event galvanize action on the climate crisis?, Eye on the Storm, Yale Climate Connections, YCC Team. "Many extremes over the past 40 years might have triggered transformational change – but didn’t. Meteorologist Dr. Jeff Masters explains."
Remembering our friend John Mason
Posted on 27 September 2024 by SkS-Team
We are extremely sad to say that our esteemed Skeptical Science colleague— and good friend to many of us— John Mason passed away on Friday September 20, 2024. Only last week, we blew a horn of appreciation for John's remarkable gift for telling stories about science. Our expectation was that of John being a constant in our lives. We are truly stunned by John's unexpected departure. With this post, we want to recount some of John's many contributions to Skeptical Science, a big part of a legacy which will live on in the minds of old and new readers of John’s work. Also included are personal memories from members of our team who had the pleasure to work and collaborate with John over the years.
John published his very first blog post, The End of the Hothouse, in December 2011 and many more have followed since then. One of his most often viewed articles, the History of Climate Science, started as a 3-part series in 2012. We then collected it into a post directly linked from our homepage. If you browse John's profile page, you'll notice that many of his articles tackled the geological past and what it can tell us about current climate change. He wrote long-form and very helpful primers about the slow carbon cycle, the jet stream, and the components of Earth's climate system to name just a few. In some posts, his witty sense of humor came through.
John wasn't one to suffer fools gladly, regardless of who they were (here, here or here). But even in combative verbal repartee, John’s innately gentle nature and kindness improved his ability to communicate through clouds of confusion and misunderstanding.
The project to update our rebuttals wouldn't have been possible without John and we for sure wouldn't have seen 75(!) updated rebuttals leave our little rebuttals update factory between February 2023 and July 2024, when we announced a summer break and relaxed publication schedule. John was also instrumental in getting our collaboration with Gigafact launched to publish fact briefs, very condensed rebuttals to common climate myths. Even as he is now no longer with us, John's writing will live on and will help others better understand and appreciate climate science.
Our memories of John
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #39 2024
Posted on 26 September 2024 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Refined Estimates of Global Ocean Deep and Abyssal Decadal Warming Trends, Johnson & Purkey, Geophysical Research Letters:
Deep and abyssal layer decadal temperature trends from the mid-1980s to the mid-2010s are mapped globally using Deep Argo and historical ship-based Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (CTD) instrument data. Abyssal warming trends are widespread, with the strongest warming observed around Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) formation regions. The warming strength follows deep western boundary currents transporting abyssal waters north and decreases with distance from Antarctica. Abyssal cooling trends are found in the North Atlantic and eastern South Atlantic, regions primarily ventilated by North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW). Deep warming trends are prominent in the Southern Ocean south of about 50°S, the Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian (GIN) Seas and the western subpolar North Atlantic, with cooling in the eastern subpolar North Atlantic and the subtropical and tropical western North Atlantic. Globally integrated decadal heat content trends of 21.6 (±6.5) TW in the deep and 12.9 (±1.8) TW in the abyssal layer are more certain than previous estimates.
[Bold ours. By way of comparison: total global electrical generation capacity is in the neighborhood of 11TW, roughly a third of the constant warming power input quantified above, which itself is but a small fraction of the excess energy now being absorbed by Earth thanks to our perturbation of radiative equilibrium.]
Ocean warming as a trigger for irreversible retreat of the Antarctic ice sheet, Hill et al., Nature Climate Change:
Warmer ocean conditions could impact future ice loss from Antarctica due to their ability to thin and reduce the buttressing of laterally confined ice shelves. Previous studies highlight the potential for a cold to warm ocean regime shift within the sub-shelf cavities of the two largest Antarctic ice shelves—the Filchner–Ronne and Ross. However, how this impacts upstream ice flow and mass loss has not been quantified. Here using an ice sheet model and an ensemble of ocean-circulation model sub-shelf melt rates, we show that transition to a warm state in those ice shelf cavities leads to a destabilization and irreversible grounding line retreat in some locations. Once this ocean shift takes place, ice loss from the Filchner–Ronne and Ross catchments is greatly accelerated, and conditions begin to resemble those of the present-day Amundsen Sea sector—responsible for most current observed Antarctic ice loss—where this thermal shift has already occurred.
Bookkeepers of catastrophes: The overlooked role of reinsurers in climate change debates, Röper & Kohl Kohl, Global Environmental Change:
Global warming had long been discussed as an abstract matter of physics and chemistry. Only in the 1990s did the more tangible costs caused by natural catastrophes come into focus. The key corporate actors to advance this damage and risk perspective on climate change and corroborate it with data – reinsurance companies – have largely been overlooked in the literature. Drawing on expert interviews, hitherto confidential archival sources and text analysis, this paper traces how the two largest reinsurers have made sense of climate change and become important voices in creating awareness of man-made climate change. It underscores their unique role as both producers and translators of climate change knowledge and highlights the thorny and even subjective nature of interpreting climate-related data. This sheds new light on the history of climate change knowledge and raises important questions about the role of business actors.
Durably reducing conspiracy beliefs through dialogues with AI, Costello et al., Science:
Conspiracy theory beliefs are notoriously persistent. Influential hypotheses propose that they fulfill important psychological needs, thus resisting counterevidence. Yet previous failures in correcting conspiracy beliefs may be due to counterevidence being insufficiently compelling and tailored. To evaluate this possibility, we leveraged developments in generative artificial intelligence and engaged 2190 conspiracy believers in personalized evidence-based dialogues with GPT-4 Turbo. The intervention reduced conspiracy belief by ~20%. The effect remained 2 months later, generalized across a wide range of conspiracy theories, and occurred even among participants with deeply entrenched beliefs. Although the dialogues focused on a single conspiracy, they nonetheless diminished belief in unrelated conspiracies and shifted conspiracy-related behavioral intentions. These findings suggest that many conspiracy theory believers can revise their views if presented with sufficiently compelling evidence.
Why not 35°C? Reasons for reductions in limits of human thermal tolerance and their implications, Vecellio et al., Temperature:
Here, we provide a brief explanation of the most evident reasons that physiological critical limits are lower than those based on biophysical theory. That is, why do the least vulnerable, healthiest humans not reach the theoretical SH10 upper limit for thermal balance that has been used to communicate extreme heat tolerance in the literature and mass media for over the past decade-plus? Additionally, we point out additional research that has now been completed, and those studies yet to be performed, to develop a fuller understanding of critical environmental thresholds for diverse populations across the world.
From this week's government/NGO section:
[Considering how academics are routinely accused of money-grubbing by hyping climate change, the following collection should cause a rethink in some circles.]
The Influence of Fossil Fuel Funding on Climate Research, Kathuria et al, Sunrise Columbia
The authors examine the alarming influence of fossil fuel funding on climate research at Columbia University. They focused on money coming into the university through grans/donations, not through endowment investments. Their research revealed numerous conflicts of interest. For example, between 2005 and 2024, the university accepted at least $43.7 million from fossil fuel companies, over $15.7 million of which went to our premier energy research hub, the Center on Global Energy Policy.
Dissociate Cornell: A Review of Cornell's Fossil Fuel Ties, Fossil Free Cornell
The authors split the report into four sections: Web of Science, Recruitment Events, Building Names, and Donation Spotlight. The Web of Science research, is an examination of Cornell-affiliated articles funded by the fossil fuel industry, reports that there have been 178 such articles funded by fossil fuels in the last 15 years. The Recruitment Events section delves into five fossil fuel companies that have a large recruiting presence on campus. The Building Names research looks into the 173 building names on campus and reports that 24 of them have a direct affiliation with either the fossil fuel industry, environmental injustice, or racism, and calls for 5 to be renamed. Finally, the Donation Spotlight section focuses on ten companies with close ties to fossil fuels that have donated $247,358,116 to Cornell, 9% of Cornell’s total received donations over the last 10 years.
Fossil Fuled. An Inconvenient Truth for American University, Dante Arminio, Campus Climate Network
The author presents a sample of American University's ties to the fossil fuel industry with a call to action through various examples of their contradictions to AU wanting to be a sustainable university.
In the Service of Delay. Fossil Fuel Connections to Princeton University, Clemons-Cope et al, Campus Climate Network
Princeton legitimizes and financially supports the fossil fuel industry. The University continues to invest in, profit from, and produce research that serves the interests of fossil fuel companies. The authors reveal the extent of Princeton’s entanglement with the industry across many of its' activities. The authors illustrate how Princeton’s ambition to be a climate leader and to seek truth through its' academics, is undermined by the continued advancement of fossil fuel interests. The authors focus on issues associated with Princeton’s fossil-fuel funded research and investments in the industry.
Tarred by Tradition. UNC's Enduring Ties to the Fossil Fuel Industry, Drew Phaneuf, Sunrise UNC
UNC is infested with financial and social ties to the fossil fuel industry. Since 2012, UNC-affiliated authors have published at least 82 journal articles with funding from the oil and gas industry. The top research sponsors are the Koch family, British Petroleum (BP), ExxonMobil, and Royal Dutch Shell. Furthermore, from 2013-2023, UNC received at least $11,952,183.00 from foundations associated with the fossil fuel industry. When including money from organizations known to fund climate denial, this sum jumps to $20,049,359.00. Much more fossil fuel money likely flows to UNC, as this number only reflects contributions from non-profit foundations, which are publicly available through third-party sources. Additionally, it is estimated that UNC-CH owns at least $243,000,000 in fossil fuel commodities. The university does not make information about these contributions or their investments publicly available.
It's Time for a Fossil Free UCSD. Uncovering UC San Diego's Ties to the Fossil Fuel Industry, Ahmed et al, Green New Deal at UC San Diego
The authors investigate the financial and social connections between the University of California San Diego and the fossil fuel industry. The authors uncover and make public the extent of these relationships by examining direct monetary donations, research articles, research partnerships, university investments, and endowment trustees that tie the university to fossil fuel actors, the undeniable antagonists in a world on the brink of catastrophic climate disaster.
185 articles in 68 journals by 1202 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
A Model-Based Investigation of the Recent Rebound of Shelf Water Salinity in the Ross Sea, Zhang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2023gl106697
Cloud water adjustments to aerosol perturbations are buffered by solar heating in non-precipitating marine stratocumuli, Zhang et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-24-10425-2024
Climate Adam: Turning the Tide on Climate Change
Posted on 25 September 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).
As the world heats, we face the consequences from rising seas, extreme weather, and the spread of disease. But what can we do to turn the tide? New research is revealing the climate actions that are actually working, and how we can all help build unstoppable momentum towards a climate tipping point to halt global warming.
Support ClimateAdam on patreon: https://patreon.com/climateadam
Just have a think: Arctic Sea Ice minimum 2024. Three degrees Celsius warming now baked in?
Posted on 24 September 2024 by Guest Author
This video includes conclusions of the "Just have a Think" channel's creator Dave Borlace. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any).
From the video‘s description:
Arctic Sea ice reaches it's minimum extent each year around the middle of September. This year is one of the lowest in recorded history. Ocean temperatures have been so 'off the charts' in 2023 and 2024 that scientists fear those waters have reached their capacity to mop up after us humans and are now starting to release that energy. On our current trajectory, by 2100, our planet will reach a temperature not seen for 3 MILLION years!. So...what's the plan???
Support Dave Borlace on Patreon: https://patreon.com/justhaveathink
Correcting myths about the cost of clean energy
Posted on 23 September 2024 by dana1981
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections
After decades of stable electricity prices, U.S. residents have seen their rates rise by one-third over the past four years.
The fossil fuel lobby and some Republican politicians are exploiting the opportunity to falsely place the blame on clean energy sources.
“We are going to get the energy prices down,” former President Donald Trump said at an August 2024 rally in Wisconsin. “You know, this was caused by their horrible energy – wind.”
In reality, wind is the cheapest source of new power in the United States today.
It’s true that electricity from wind and sunshine is intermittent, depending on the weather and time of day. So these power sources require building more energy storage and electrical transmission lines. But their fuel is free, unlike fossil fuels, whose prices vary wildly.
A plethora of evidence, including real-world electricity rates and power generation mixes, demonstrates that wind and solar energy tend to reduce electricity prices compared to fossil fuels. Bottom line: Electricity prices have generally increased for the same reason as everything else – inflation.
Some states with lots of cheap renewables have low electricity rates
Wind energy has been the cheapest source of new electricity in the U.S. for about a decade, according to the Lazard financial services company’s annual levelized cost of energy report.
This analysis accounts for the cost of electricity generation over the lifetime of the source, including factors like capital, operations and maintenance, fuel costs, financing, and utilization rates. In other words, it accounts for the fact that wind and solar power are intermittent. They are nevertheless the two cheapest sources of new power available in the U.S. today, especially when including clean energy tax credits from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA.
2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #38
Posted on 22 September 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
Story of the week
Our Story of the Week is about a newly released long term Earth surface temperature chronology. But this report is locally completely overshadowed for us by news of bereavement arriving only yesterday as of publication. Withholding our loss seems inhuman so here and now we'll collide with an awful reality.
We are extremely sad to say that our esteemed Skeptical Science colleague— and good friend to many of us— John Mason has passed away. Only last week we blew a horn of appreciation for John's remarkable gift for telling stories about science. Our expectation was that of John being a constant in our lives. We are truly stunned by John's unexpected departure. We will have more to say in extolling John but at this moment we can only bow our heads in appreciation of enjoying his many virtues, sadness at his loss. And we can remember that every day is a gift.
John would certainly want us to carry on— as will his words as people continure reading his works--and so we shall.
Phantastic Job! says NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies Director Gavin Schmidt, in his
RealClimate post about a newly published record of Earth's temperature spanning the Phanerozoic and reaching back nearly half a billion years. Waxing eloquent, Dr. Schmidt fills us in on the work's tantalizing promise:
There is something tremendously satisfying about seeing a project start, and then many years later see the results actually emerge and done better than you could have imagined. Especially one as challenging as accurately tracking half a billion years of Earth’s climate.
Think about what is involved – biological proxies from extinct species, plate tectonic movement, disappearance in subduction zones of vast amounts of ocean sediment, interpolating sparse data in space and time, degradation of samples over such vast amounts of time. All of which adds to the uncertainty.
It is not as though people have not tried – we discussed this here in 2014, where we made a plea for better graphs of the global temperature. Now, 10 years later, we finally have something.
Emily Judd and coauthors describe their approach and report results in A 485-million-year history of Earth’s surface temperature, via AAAS' Science. The team unifies both proxy records and models to produce a more comprehensive picture of deep time Earth paleoclimate than we've ever before seen.
What's the urgent takeaway from a record extending into the dim mists of prehistory? We're changing Earth's temperature at a rate never approached over a span of 485 million years. Quite an accomplishment.
Schmidt's writeup identifies some areas for further investigation, and possible improvements in the paper's estimation of climate sensitivity. We can look forward to knowing more, but at this point in time Judd et al. have already earned accolades for extending our perspective.
Stories we promoted this week, by publication date:
Before September 16
- Departures From Climate Action 100+ Highlight U.S.-Europe Divide Over ESG Investing, Science, Inside Climate News, Mathilde Augustin. "In recent months, several major U.S. financial firms have left Climate Action 100+ in apparent response to political pressure. Abroad, the initiative is anything but losing steam."
- When Will the EV Sales Slump End? Here’s What the Experts Say, Clean Energy News, Inside Climate News, Dan Gearino. "Three questions and answers to help get a handle on the electric vehicle market."
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37, Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler, Doug Bostrom & John Hartz. A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, September 8, 2024 thru Sat, September 14, 2024.
- How to Talk to Anxious Children About Climate Change, Inside Climate News, Nina Dietz. For years, educators and parents often avoided the subject. But that is starting to change, as therapists urge parents to listen to their kids and help them understand that their fears are normal.
- Race is on to produce a super-coral to survive world’s warming seas, Environment, The Observer/The Guardian, Robin McKie. "Widespread bleaching of reefs is devastating delicate ecosystems"
- Impact Of Climate Change On Agriculture Suggests Even Greater Challenges To Environment, Global Food Supply And Public Health, Eurasia Review, Staff.
- Arctic Sea Ice minimum 2024. Three degrees Celsius warming now baked in!, Just have a Think on Youtube, Dave Borlace. In his latest "Just have aThink" video, Dave Borlace talks about Arctic Sea Ice
- Data center emissions probably 662% higher than big tech claims. Can it keep up the ruse?, Technology, The Guardian, Isabel O'Brien. "Emissions from in-house data centers of Google, Microsoft, Meta and Apple may be 7.62 times higher than official tally"
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #38 2024
Posted on 19 September 2024 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
A just world on a safe planet: a Lancet Planetary Health–Earth Commission report on Earth-system boundaries, translations, and transformations, Gupta et al., The Lancet Planetary Health:
The health of the planet and its people are at risk. The deterioration of the global commons—ie, the natural systems that support life on Earth—is exacerbating energy, food, and water insecurity, and increasing the risk of disease, disaster, displacement, and conflict. In this Commission, we quantify safe and just Earth-system boundaries (ESBs) and assess minimum access to natural resources required for human dignity and to enable escape from poverty. Collectively, these describe a safe and just corridor that is essential to ensuring sustainable and resilient human and planetary health and thriving in the Anthropocene. We then discuss the need for translation of ESBs across scales to inform science-based targets for action by key actors (and the challenges in doing so), and conclude by identifying the system transformations necessary to bring about a safe and just future.
Thermal tolerance traits of individual corals are widely distributed across the Great Barrier Reef, Denis et al., Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences:
Adaptation of reef-building corals to global warming depends upon standing heritable variation in tolerance traits upon which selection can act. Yet limited knowledge exists on heat-tolerance variation among conspecific individuals separated by metres to hundreds of kilometres. Here, we performed standardized acute heat-stress assays to quantify the thermal tolerance traits of 709 colonies of Acropora spathulata from 13 reefs spanning 1060 km (9.5° latitude) of the Great Barrier Reef. Thermal thresholds for photochemical efficiency and chlorophyll retention varied considerably among individual colonies both among reefs (approximately 6°C) and within reefs (approximately 3°C). Although tolerance rankings of colonies varied between traits, the most heat-tolerant corals (i.e. top 25% of each trait) were found at virtually all reefs, indicating widespread phenotypic variation. Reef-scale environmental predictors explained 12–62% of trait variation. Corals exposed to high thermal averages and recent thermal stress exhibited the greatest photochemical performance, probably reflecting local adaptation and stress pre-acclimatization, and the lowest chlorophyll retention suggesting stress pre-sensitization. Importantly, heat tolerance relative to local summer temperatures was the greatest on higher latitude reefs suggestive of higher adaptive potential. These results can be used to identify naturally tolerant coral populations and individuals for conservation and restoration applications.
Defeating cap-and-trade: How the fossil fuel industry and climate change counter movement obstruct U.S. Climate Change Legislation, Nanko & Coan, Global Environmental Change:
This study investigates the role of climate change contrarians in the defeat of the American Clean Energy and Security Act in 2010, a pivotal moment in U.S. climate policy that marked the end of extensive efforts to enact cap-and-trade climate legislation in the United States. Our research objectives are twofold: firstly, to determine the extent to which climate contrarians gained access to testify at congressional hearings in the years leading up to the bill’s ultimate defeat; and secondly, to examine the potential influence of fossil fuel industry (FFI) funds in facilitating this access. We compile a comprehensive new dataset encompassing all witnesses testifying at cap-and-trade and climate science hearings from 2003 to 2010. This information is cross-referenced with other pertinent data concerning interest groups, lobbying activities, and Congress. Our findings reveal a significant correlation between FFI lobbying expenditures and campaign contributions and the presence of contrarian witnesses at these hearings, suggesting a coordinated effort by the FFI to obstruct climate legislation. We find that contrarians were able to obtain disproportionate access to central hearings in key committees with jurisdiction over cap-and-trade bills, increasing their potential to obstruct legislation. Moreover, our analysis exposes a concerning over-representation of scientists known to deny the scientific consensus at these hearings, undermining the scientific consensus on climate change and perpetuating doubt about the urgency of climate action.
Durably reducing conspiracy beliefs through dialogues with AI, Costello et al., Science:
Conspiracy theory beliefs are notoriously persistent. Influential hypotheses propose that they fulfill important psychological needs, thus resisting counterevidence. Yet previous failures in correcting conspiracy beliefs may be due to counterevidence being insufficiently compelling and tailored. To evaluate this possibility, we leveraged developments in generative artificial intelligence and engaged 2190 conspiracy believers in personalized evidence-based dialogues with GPT-4 Turbo. The intervention reduced conspiracy belief by ~20%. The effect remained 2 months later, generalized across a wide range of conspiracy theories, and occurred even among participants with deeply entrenched beliefs. Although the dialogues focused on a single conspiracy, they nonetheless diminished belief in unrelated conspiracies and shifted conspiracy-related behavioral intentions. These findings suggest that many conspiracy theory believers can revise their views if presented with sufficiently compelling evidence.
From this week's government and NGO section:
Big Oil in Court - The latest trends in climate litigation against fossil fuel companies, Oil Change International and Zero Carbon Analytics
The authors analyze the escalating wave of climate litigation aimed at fossil fuel companies, e.g., 86 climate lawsuits have been filed against the world’s largest oil, gas, and coal-producing corporations – including BP, Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies. The number of cases filed against fossil fuel companies each year has nearly tripled since the Paris Agreement was reached in 2015, highlighting a growing global movement to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for their role in the climate crisis.
Climate Change Adaptation in Areas Beyond Government Control: Opportunities and Limitations, Karen Meijer and Ann Sophie Böhle, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Areas beyond government control constitute a highly diverse subgroup of fragile and conflict-affected settings. As a result of conflict and weak governance, many of these areas have become more vulnerable to climate change and their communities have been left with limited capacity to respond to changing climatic conditions and extreme weather events. These settings pose unique challenges for external engagement and have, therefore, long been overlooked in adaptation efforts. The authors explore both opportunities for and the limitations of climate change adaptation in areas beyond government control. By highlighting the diversity of these settings and the range of possible adaptation measures, the authors propose a framework with four guiding questions designed to help identify context-appropriate adaptation options.
87 articles in 50 journals by 550 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
A Model-Based Investigation of the Recent Rebound of Shelf Water Salinity in the Ross Sea, ZHANG et al., Open Access pdf 10.22541/essoar.169755485.54197066/v1
Observations of climate change, effects
Amplified precipitation extremes since 21st century in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration, China, Wang et al., Atmospheric Research Open Access 10.1016/j.atmosres.2024.107695
