Arguments
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.”
China and India are so big. Do my country’s climate actions even matter?
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.
2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #34
Posted on 25 August 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
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. "
Fact brief - Is decreased cosmic ray activity driving global warming?
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
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #34 2024
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
What should you do to prepare for the climate change storm?
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.
Let’s keep this going
Posted on 20 August 2024 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Anthony Lieserowitz
This Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of Climate Connections, our national radio program. Launched during a low point in mainstream media coverage of climate change, when only about 15% of Americans believed human-caused global warming was an urgent threat, the program was designed to get listeners talking about climate change and climate solutions.
From the beginning, we aimed to use our bite-sized, 90-second segments to show that climate action wasn’t just the province of scientists and distant technocrats who lead negotiations in United Nations meetings. Instead, anyone – including someone like you – could be part of the climate story. You can hear the result in the first segment we ever aired, which told the story of Debbie Dooley, a co-founder of the Atlanta Tea Party who found common cause with the Sierra Club to fight for homeowners’ rights to install rooftop solar panels and sell energy to the grid in Georgia.
We’ve since told more than 2,500 stories of people from every walk of life who are experiencing the impacts of climate change and role-modeling climate action. Among our team’s favorites are segments about a teen who changed his stepdad’s mind about global warming, a hunter and fisherman who’s seeing the impacts of a changing climate firsthand, Indigenous people whose seeds could help farmers adapt to a warmer climate, advocates working for universal air conditioning in Texas prisons, a team that runs a polar bear 911 hotline, a scientist who explains why an octopus showed up in a Miami parking garage, a Michigan woman who’s helping her neighbors go solar, and city residents who are using maps to fight inequality.
These stories have resonated with the stations that air the program.
Are climate models overestimating warming?
Posted on 19 August 2024 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from the Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler
In the world of climate communications, no claim seems to come up more frequently than “The climate models are wrong!” We recently wrote a post responding to claims that the models are running cold and future warming will be larger than models predict.
Today, it’s the claim that the models are hot and future warming will be much less than they predict. The source is some internet weirdo named Derwood Turnip, who posted this:
First, let’s be clear: climate models have an admirable track record of predicting the global average temperature. Zeke wrote a paper about that and it’s worth bookmarking so you’re ready to respond to anyone who says models are bad.
But Derwood’s post is about regional and seasonal climate change. While there are few details provided in the source document, I was able to reproduce the general result presented. So does this mean that models are warming too much?
2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #33
Posted on 18 August 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
Story of the week
At the risk of becoming monotonous, our Story of the Week yet again is Project 2025. This would be true if only by numbers alone; assessed by article count Project 2025 dominates this week's listing. Leaving that aside, Skeptical Science's mission is that of combating groundless skepticism over human-caused climate change, a constraint on our choices.
While we share a wide variety of climate-related stories each week, we'd be off-piste and ignoring our purpose if we didn't focus on Project 2025. Why? Because Project 2025's climate policy intentions and implications are what can be thought of as the whole point of the entire climate denial apparatus, the ultimate, ideal objective of filling people's heads with fantastic yarns about how Earth's climate functions— and can be made to malfunction. Without this synthetic ignorance and confusion, building the critical mass of support needed for imposing obviously lunatic policies on urgent matters of climate mitigation and adaptation would be impossible.
In the case of dealing with climate change mitigation and adaptation, the heft and reach of government is a mandatory component. Project 2025's authors recognize this, understanding key to their policy formulation.
How about everybody else? We'd best keep up. Here's this week's coverage of the policy package intended for launch in 2025:
- Inside Project 2025’s Secret Training Videos
- Project 2025 promises billions of tonnes more carbon pollution – study
- Project 2025 Aims to Break US Government & Ignore Climate Crisis if Trump is Elected
- Revealed: Shell Oil Non-Profit Donated to Anti-Climate Groups Behind Project 2025
In the sense of "are we collectively keeping our feet grounded in reality" the upcoming US general election is a referendum of sorts, a choice over how to perceive the world. On the one hand, 2+2 still equals 4. On the other, "facts" are whatever people want them to be, whatever is most comforting or convenient. The latter path is an interesting approach in philosophical terms but surely disastrous when it comes to dealing with unforgiving physics, physics being serenely oblivious to political ideology.
Stories we promoted this week, by publication date:
Before August 11
- IOC President Thomas Bach Says Climate Change Could Affect Timing of Future Olympics The Games appear prepared to adapt to a warming world. Patrick Andres | Aug 9, 2024, Sports Illustrated, Patrick Andres. "The Games appear prepared to adapt to a warming world."https://www.si.com/olympics/ioc-president-climate-change-future-olympics
- Warm Ocean Water Creates a Host of Problems, PBS North Carolina, Frank Graff.
- Can this ocean-based carbon plant help save the world? Some scientists are raising red flags, CNN, Paddison.
- 400-year-old corals reveal “tragic” temperature rise on reef, Earth, Cosmos Magazine, Ellen Phiddian.
- All the errors and fakery from “Climate: The Movie (The Cold Truth)” that I can fit in., potholer54 on Youtube, Peter Hadfield.
- Inside Project 2025’s Secret Training Videos, Pro Publica, Andy Kroll (ProPublica) & Nick Surgey (Documented).
Fact brief - Does CO2 correlate with global temperature long-term?
Posted on 17 August 2024 by 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 CO2 correlate with global temperature long-term?
While natural variations cause short-term ups and downs to the weather, CO2 and global temperatures move together long term.
This is because CO2 in the atmosphere impedes the escape of heat back to space. Humans added 50% more CO2 since the Industrial Revolution by burning fossil fuels.
Over multi-decade timespans, CO2 shows close correlation with global temperature. However, on much shorter timescales (years, months, days), other natural variations in temperature (e.g. El Nino, La Nina) create "noise" on the graph — the up-and-down fluctuations we see. That's why climate trends tend to be expressed in blocks of 30 years.
When viewed over 30 or more years of data, the dominant relationship between human CO2 emissions and warming is clear. Man made CO2 and global temperatures have both steadily increased since humans have begun to burn fossil fuels.
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
NASA Carbon Dioxide Latest Measurement
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change AR6 Chapter 7: The Earth’s Energy Budget, Climate Feedbacks, and Climate Sensitivity
Facts on Climate How are CO? concentrations related to warming?
Geophysical Research Letters The recent global warming hiatus: What is the role of Pacific variability?
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #33 2024
Posted on 15 August 2024 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
The ocean losing its breath under the heatwaves, Li et al., Nature Communications:
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.
Quantifying the Mean Sea Level, Tide, and Surge Contributions to Changing Coastal High Water Levels, Palmer et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans:
We used observations from 166 tide gauges, comparing changes between periods from 1983–2001 to 2002–2020 for a global data set (GESLA), and between overlapping periods from 1992–2010 to 2004–2022 for an Australian data set (BoM). The comparison between these periods allowed us to calculate the height that a coastal barrier would need to be modified to avoid more frequent flooding, and to quantify the individual amounts from changes in MSL, tides, and surges. Higher MSL was commonly associated with higher flood probability, but changes in tides and surges made important differences for many sites. On average, a coastal barrier exceeded once per year in the earlier period was overtopped at least twice per year in the more recent period.
On Thin Ice: Solar Geoengineering to Manage Tipping Element Risks in the Cryosphere by 2040, Smith et al., Earth's Future:
Tipping elements are features of the climate system that can display self-reinforcing and non-linear responses if pushed beyond a certain threshold (the “tipping point”). Models suggest that we may surpass several of these tipping points in the next few decades, irrespective of which emissions pathway humanity follows. Some tipping elements reside in the Arctic and Antarctic and could potentially be avoided or arrested via a stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) program applied only at the poles. This paper considers the utility of proactively developing the capacity to respond to emergent tipping element threats at the poles as a matter of risk management. It then examines both the air and ground infrastructure that would be required to operationalize such capability by 2040 and finds that this would require a funded launch decision by a financially credible actor by roughly 2030.
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.
Feasibility of peak temperature targets in light of institutional constraints, Bertram et al., Nature Climate Change:
Despite faster-than-expected progress in clean energy technology deployment, global annual CO2 emissions have increased from 2020 to 2023. The feasibility of limiting warming to 1.5 °C is therefore questioned. Here we present a model intercomparison study that accounts for emissions trends until 2023 and compares cost-effective scenarios to alternative scenarios with institutional, geophysical and technological feasibility constraints and enablers informed by previous literature. Our results show that the most ambitious mitigation trajectories with updated climate information still manage to limit peak warming to below 1.6 °C (‘low overshoot’) with around 50% likelihood. However, feasibility constraints, especially in the institutional dimension, decrease this maximum likelihood considerably to 5–45%. Accelerated energy demand transformation can reduce costs for staying below 2 °C but have only a limited impact on further increasing the likelihood of limiting warming to 1.6 °C. Our study helps to establish a new benchmark of mitigation scenarios that goes beyond the dominant cost-effective scenario design.
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.
From this week's government and NGO section:
Fueling the Opposition How Fossil Fuel Interests Are Fighting to Kill Wind and Solar Farms Before They Are Built, David Anderson, The Energy and Policy Institute
The author identifies some of the major players involved in disinformation campaigns targeting renewable energy projects and technologies, including funders from the coal, petroleum, and methane gas industries; networks of front groups and political operatives paid by these fossil fuel interests; and the cadre of top anti-wind and anti-solar activists who have coordinated closely with these front groups and operatives for over a decade. The author helps to answer frequently asked questions about the role the fossil fuel industry has played in stoking opposition to renewable energy projects and comes at a time when many of these same opponents are escalating their attacks and seeking to derail the Inflation Reduction Act’s historic investment in renewables
The False Promise and Potential Health Harms of Carbon Dioxide Enhanced Oil Recovery (CO2 EOR) as a Tool of Climate Mitigation, Science and Environmental Health Network and the Bold Alliance
Using increasing amounts of newly subsidized carbon dioxide (CO2) to remove oil from the ground is the next phase in the fossil fuel industry’s bid to extend the use of fossil fuels far into the future. While the industry claims that carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery (CO2 EOR) is a tool of climate mitigation, it perpetuates oil and gas extraction and generates more greenhouse gases. Subsidized by public money through excessively generous tax credits, CO2 EOR not only exacerbates climate change but also causes unusual public health and environmental damage. The authors explore the history and geology of CO2 EOR, describe the public health, environment, and climate impacts, and conclude that our commitment to future generations requires a halt to this practice.
142 articles in 66 journals by 808 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
Offshore wind farms connected by an underwater power grid for transmission could revolutionize how the East Coast gets its electricity
Posted on 14 August 2024 by Guest Author
This article by Tyler Hansen, Research Associate in Environmental Studies, Dartmouth College; Abraham Silverman, Research Scholar, Ralph O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute, Johns Hopkins University; Elizabeth J. Wilson, Professor of Environmental Studies, Dartmouth College, and Erin Baker, Professor of Industrial Engineering Applied to Energy Policy, UMass Amherst is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Offshore winds have the potential to supply coastlines with massive, consistent flows of clean electricity. One study estimates wind farms just offshore could meet 11 times the projected global electricity demand in 2040.
In the U.S., the East Coast is an ideal location to capture this power, but there’s a problem: getting electricity from ocean wind farms to the cities and towns that need it.
While everyone wants reliable electricity in their homes and businesses, few support the construction of the transmission lines necessary to get it there. This has always been a problem, both in the U.S. and internationally, but it is becoming an even bigger challenge as countries speed toward net-zero carbon energy systems that will use more electricity.
The U.S. Department of Energy and 10 states in the Northeast States Collaborative on Interregional Transmission are working on a potentially transformative solution: plans for an offshore electric power grid.
How an offshore transmission backbone could reduce the number of transmission lines and land crossings. Illustrations by Billy Roberts, NREL
At the core of this grid would be backbone transmission lines off the East Coast, from North Carolina to Maine, where dozens of offshore wind projects are already in the pipeline.
Climate Adam: Kamala Harris and Climate Change - Hope or Hype?
Posted on 13 August 2024 by BaerbelW
In common with climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy's purpose and in keeping with Skeptical Science's philosophy and role as a US 501(c)(3) non-profit, we present this video to our readers as a perspective informed by verifiable facts, not as an endorsement or recommendation. Please see video description for references.
Before it's even begun, the race for the White House has made headlines - from the attempt on Donald Trump's life, to Joe Biden suddenly quitting the race, and Kamala Harris stepping up to take his place. But what could this race for Presidency mean for our planet? How could the next President of the United States affect climate change? Fortunately we can look at Harris and Trump's records to find out - both have acted (for better or worse) many times in their careers on climate change.
Huge thanks to Miriam Nielsen @zentouro for her invaluable American input on this video
Support ClimateAdam on patreon: https://patreon.com/climateadam
Climate change is making us sick, literally
Posted on 12 August 2024 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Kait Parker
Although raw sewage and gastrointestinal illnesses are rarely topics broached in polite conversation, they’re having a glaring impact in hundreds of towns and cities in the United States. The risk of acute gastrointestinal illness increases by up to 62% after certain kinds of sewer overflows, according to recent research led by a team at the School of Public Health at Boston University.
And with increasing extreme rainfall events in the forecast, climate change could make the problem worse.
So how does sewage treatment affect digestive health, and what does climate change have to do with it all? The answers start with how your community manages its sewers.
Sewer management 101
Illustration of a combined sewer system in dry versus wet weather. (Image credit: EPA)
First appearing on the East Coast of the United States during the mid-1800s, combined sewers put both raw waste and stormwater in the same pipe. They were a quick solution for cities where populations were booming and increased drainage was needed.
Over time, community planners and engineers realized it was worthwhile to separate systems based on what flows within them.
2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #32
Posted on 11 August 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
Story of the week
What's our Story of the Week? Is it the AMOC being more likely than not to collapse by 2050? The eye-popping late-winter Antarctic heatwave? 
Ordinarily any of a half-dozen stories in this week's listing could have been our focus. Instead, "we interrupt regular programming" to bring you a special bulletin, via ProPublica. This news is connected with Project 2025, a scheme fostered by the conservative (self-described) Heritage Foundation to jump start the next US presidential administration (of the politically Right variety) with a freeze-dried, fully comprehensive policy suite that if implemented will radically alter and many cases severely diminish services provided to the US public by the US government.
Expert analysis suggests that if signficantly executed, Project 2025 would leave the US federal government's ability to inform public policy with cutting edge research severely degraded. And yes, of course there's a climate connection.
After barely a few months the United States will elect a president superseding the incumbent but possibly confronting us with a warmed-over replacement. US voters will choose between "reduce, reuse, recycle" and "let's try a new product." Regardless of who is elected in this cycle, the outcome will be very unusual, with wildly different significances. The US may end up with its first female head of state, a historically unprecedented event. On the other hand, a recycled president and administration would play out as an extremely rare situation for the US, and— thanks to Project 2025— in this case there's also distinct possibility of the rare circumstance of another form of entirely novel, ground-breaking history being made.
What could be so new and different about 45 becoming 47? Famliarity can be deceiving. From all indications, a recycled US president will include an entourage that has wasted few lessons learned from previous experience. As with the previous instance of this candidate's service there is little hint that the candidate himself has organic instincts for creating a coherent public policy agenda; he claims to be ignorant of key actors in his previous administration, leaving little room for charitable interpretation.
Nature abhors a vacuum. A public policy vacuum created by a president uninterested in serious effort on public service and its myriad of minutiae will be filled by whatever is most easily to hand. Common sense suggests that prefab policy encountering the path of least resistance is likely to fill this void. Project 2025 is chiefly authored by members of the recycled candidate's previous administration, leaving ideally low friction for the fruit of their labor to find a home.
But supposing we do end up with a belated redo of Donald Trump's first term, how will Project 2025 reach fruition? A cold start of an entire presidential administration is a monumental task, after all. This is the subject of Project 2025's so-called "4th Pillar," a 180 day schedule for spinning up an new presidency while simultaneously bending the US federal government into a new and unfamiliar shape.
The Heritage Foundation has been assiduously keeping this detailed implementation plan under wraps, a puzzling choice taking into consideration that reasonable people believe what's kept hidden can't suffer daylight for one reason or another. Now ProPublica has been supplied with what seems to be instructional material in connection with this secret 180 day plan (and yes, this does begin to sound like raving lunacy but here we are— arguable lunatics are in the room). Much of this material is fairly astounding in terms of discontinuity with what we've come to understand as the US federal goverment.
Here's the climate connection; we'll let it stand as metaphor for the whole enterprise:
In one video, Bethany Kozma, a conservative activist and former deputy chief of staff at the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Trump administration, downplays the seriousness of climate change and says the movement to combat it is really part of a ploy to “control people.”
“If the American people elect a conservative president, his administration will have to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere,” Kozma says.
Bold ours. Notably the previous operational instance of this particular assemblage of policy influencers did indeed air-brush a lot of climate information from US government publications. Given the nature of Poject 2025 and the informed track laid by its authors, there's every reason to believe they'll be much more effective next time, should that come to pass.
We encourage our readers to jump over to ProPublica and read the entire expose.
Stories we promoted this week, by publication date:
Before August 4
- A critical system of Atlantic Ocean currents could collapse as early as the 2030s, new research suggests, Climate, CNN, Angela Dewan & Angela Fritz.
- Is the dream of nuclear fusion dead? Why the international experimental reactor is in ‘big trouble’, Energy, The Observer/The Guardian,, Robin McKie. "The 35-nation Iter project has a groundbreaking aim to create clean and limitless energy but it is turning into the ‘most delayed and cost-inflated science project in history’ "
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #31 2024, Skeptical Science, Doug Bostrom & Marc Kodack.
- Tropical Glaciers in the Andes Are the Smallest They’ve Been in 11,700 Years, Science, Inside Climate News, Alexa Robles-Gil. "Four different glaciers along the Andes range no longer have hospitable conditions."
- ‘Astonishing’ Antarctica heat wave sends temperatures 50 degrees above normal, Climate, CNN, Mary Gilbert.
- ‘No big plan B’: A global anti-Trump climate resistance struggles to gain ground, Energy, Politico, Karl Mathiesen & Zack Colman. "Diplomats and activists from around the world are discussing ways to keep up the fight against global warming, even in the face of an absent or hostile U.S. administration."
- Fossil fuels made the Olympics 5 degrees hotter, World, Hetaed, Emily Atkin. "So did deforestation and animal agriculture."
- Fires Have Burned 4.5 Million Acres This Year, Blanketing Much of North America in Smoke, Weather, New York Times, Claire Moses. "Nearly 90 large fires are raging across the United States, intensifying this year’s fire season. The forecast shows no sign of letting up."
- Memo to the Supreme Court: Clean Air Act Targeted CO2 as Climate Pollutant, Study Says, Justice & Health, Nicholas Kusnetz. "The new paper digs into congressional archives to settle a legal debate, arguing that climate science had determined by 1970 that greenhouse gases would warm the planet—and that lawmakers knew."
Fact brief - Are carbon dioxide emissions from human activities enough to affect the climate?
Posted on 10 August 2024 by John Mason
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was updated by John Mason in collaboration with members from the Gigafact team. The initial version was published in 2021 and written by John Cook. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.
Are carbon dioxide emissions from human activities enough to affect the climate?
Neither land nor oceans have been able to adequately absorb the extra CO2 released by our fossil fuel burning, causing atmospheric CO2 to rise and affect our climate.
We have understood since the 1850s that adding more CO2 to our atmosphere will cause global temperatures to rise by making it more difficult for heat to escape the atmosphere.
Earth's carbon cycle naturally exchanges a large amount of CO2 between the atmosphere, oceans and land surface. Normally, our land and oceans keep CO2 levels balanced by emitting or absorbing CO2 accordingly. Now, the system is in a state of imbalance.
For over a million years, atmospheric CO2 swung between 180 and 300 parts per million as glaciations and interglacials came and went. But due to our activities, atmospheric CO2 reached 420 parts per million in March 2024 - a 50% increase from pre-industrial times.
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
NASA Earth Observatory: The carbon cycle
NASA Vital Signs: Carbon dioxide measurements
Reuters CO2 levels to breach 50% rise from pre-industrial era in 2021 - Met Office
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #32 2024
Posted on 8 August 2024 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Absence of causality between seismic activity and global warming, Verbitsky et al., Earth System Dynamics:
There is no more consequential scientific matter today than global warming. The societal and policy implications, however, hinge upon the attribution of that warming to human activity and, specifically, continued societal reliance on the burning of fossil fuels. It was recently suggested that this warming could be explained by the non-anthropogenic factor of seismic activity. If that is the case, it would have profound implications. We have assessed the validity of the claim using a statistical technique (the method of conditional dispersion) that evaluates the existence of causal connections between variables, finding no evidence for any causal relationship between seismic activity and global warming.
Plant, insect, and fungi fossils under the center of Greenland’s ice sheet are evidence of ice-free times, Bierman et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:
The persistence and size of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) through the Pleistocene is uncertain. This is important because reconstructing changes in the GrIS determines its contribution to sea level rise during prior warm climate periods and informs future projections. To understand better the history of Greenland’s ice, we analyzed glacial till collected in 1993 from below 3 km of ice at Summit, Greenland. The till contains plant fragments, wood, insect parts, fungi, and cosmogenic nuclides showing that the bed of the GrIS at Summit is a long-lived, stable land surface preserving a record of deposition, exposure, and interglacial ecosystems. Knowing that central Greenland was tundra-covered during the Pleistocene informs the understanding of Arctic biosphere response to deglaciation.
Evidence of Ecosystem Tipping Point on St. Lawrence Island: Widespread Lake Drainage Events After 2018, Liu et al., Geophysical Research Letters:
Influenced by climate change, numerous lakes in permafrost regions are draining, showing significant spatial variability. This study focuses on St. Lawrence Island, where over the last two decades, 771 of 3,271 lakes have drained—a rate around 40 times higher than across the entire northern permafrost region. The surge in lake drainage began in 2018, coinciding with record low sea ice extent in the Bering Sea and unprecedented bird mortalities. Using satellite imagery and machine learning methods, we analyzed drainage events to identify the climatic drivers and potential climate thresholds affecting the island's lake ecosystems. Our findings indicate that autumn peak temperatures above 6°C more than triple the drainage probability, and warming-induced permafrost thawing may be the direct driver of lake drainage. This research highlights the vulnerability of Arctic lake ecosystems to climate change and assists in developing predictive models for permafrost response, crucial for mitigating impacts on Arctic communities.
Climate change engagement of scientists, Dablander et al., Nature Climate Change:
Climate change is one of the biggest threats to humanity. Scientists are well positioned to help address it beyond conducting academic research, yet little is known about their wider engagement with the topic. We investigate scientists’ engagement with climate change using quantitative and qualitative analyses of a large-scale survey (N = 9,220) across 115 countries, all fields and all career stages. Many scientists already engage in individual lifestyle changes, but fewer engage in advocacy or activism. On the basis of our quantitative and qualitative results, we propose a two-step model of engagement to better understand why. Scientists must first overcome intellectual and practical barriers to be willing to engage, and then overcome additional barriers to actually engage. On the basis of this model, we provide concrete recommendations for increasing scientists’ engagement with climate change.
Achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions critical to limit climate tipping risks, Möller et al., Nature Communications:
Under current emission trajectories, temporarily overshooting the Paris global warming limit of 1.5 °C is a distinct possibility. Permanently exceeding this limit would substantially increase the probability of triggering climate tipping elements. Here, we investigate the tipping risks associated with several policy-relevant future emission scenarios, using a stylised Earth system model of four interconnected climate tipping elements. We show that following current policies this century would commit to a 45% tipping risk by 2300 (median, 10–90% range: 23–71%), even if temperatures are brought back to below 1.5 °C. We find that tipping risk by 2300 increases with every additional 0.1 °C of overshoot above 1.5 °C and strongly accelerates for peak warming above 2.0 °C. Achieving and maintaining at least net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2100 is paramount to minimise tipping risk in the long term.
Rebuilding Ukraine’s energy supply in a secure, economic, and decarbonised way, Tröndle et al., Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability:
Since Russia's 2022 invasion, Ukraine's civilian energy infrastructure has faced systematic attack and requires urgent and strategic reconstruction. This study confronts the dual challenges of rebuilding Ukraine's energy system rapidly to mitigate civilian and economic disruption while aligning this to long-term goals of sustainability and energy security. We demonstrate that Ukraine can readily meet future energy demands through a fully renewable electrified system at costs comparable to those from fossil fuels and nuclear power. Contrary to previous reliance on high-carbon energy sources, we find a diversified renewable energy portfolio, including significant solar photovoltaic and wind contributions, can efficiently meet growing energy demands and position Ukraine as an energy exporter, capitalising on its geographical advantages.
From this week's government and NGO section:
Climate Unscripted. The Reality of Climate Change and Sustainability Solutions in Unscripted TV, Rogers et al., USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center:
Building upon prior research on climate change issues in scripted film/TV, the authors examine the prevalence of sustainability and climate-related topics in unscripted television. By examining sustainability-related keywords over six months spanning 200,000 hours of unscripted programming, the authors found more than 28,000 keyword mentions across all unscripted TV genres — with home shows, docuseries, and food shows leading the way.
Investing in Nature to Fight Climate Change and Help Communities Thrive, Hayes et al., Stanford Law School’s Law and Policy Lab, the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, and the Bezos Earth Fund
The authors describe the shortcomings in how nature-based solutions are measured, monitored, reported on, and verified (MMRV) as a fundamental weakness that is holding back the deployment of nature-based solutions. Measurement and verification deficiencies limit confidence in claims that investing in “climate-smart” agricultural or forestry practices or prioritizing investments in restoring natural coastal barriers, will produce measurable and confirmable carbon emissions reductions or removals. This opens the door to criticism of governmental incentive programs; corporate “insetting” claims regarding low-carbon practices in supply chains; and carbon credit claims in voluntary carbon markets. This is unfortunate as nature-based solutions can and should play a major role in reducing GHG emissions and removing carbon from the atmosphere, while often also generating climate resilience and other ecosystem service co-benefits.
134 articles in 60 journals by 805 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
Ice Sheet-Albedo Feedback Estimated From Most Recent Deglaciation, Booth et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2024gl109953
Moist heatwaves intensified by entrainment of dry air that limits deep convection, Duan et al., Nature Geoscience 10.1038/s41561-024-01498-y
Navigating climate complexity and its control via hyperchaotic dynamics in a 4D Caputo fractional model, Naik et al., Scientific Reports Open Access 10.1038/s41598-024-68769-x
Uncertainties too large to predict tipping times of major Earth system components from historical data, Ben-Yami et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.adl4841
