Global Warming and Climate Change skepticism examined

Open access notables

Arctic glacier snowline altitudes rise 150 m over the last 4 decades, Larocca et al., The Cryosphere:

We mapped the snowline (SL) on a subset of 269 land-terminating glaciers above 60° N latitude in the latest available summer, clear-sky Landsat satellite image between 1984 and 2022. The mean SLA was extracted using the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEM). We compared the remotely observed SLA observations with available long-term field-based measurements of ELA and with ERA5-Land reanalysis climate data. Over the last 4 decades, Arctic glacier SLAs have risen an average of ∼152 m (3.9±0.4 m yr−1; R2=0.74, p<0.001), with a corresponding summer (June, July, August) temperature shift of +1.2 °C at the glacier locations. This equates to a 127±5 m shift per 1 °C of summer warming. However, we note that the effect of glacier surface thinning could bias our estimates of SLA rise by up to ∼1 m yr−1, a significant fraction (∼25 %) of the overall rate of change, and thus should be interpreted as a maximum constraint. Along with warming, we observe an overall decrease in snowfall, an increase in rainfall, and a decrease in the total number of days in which the mean daily temperature is less than or equal to 0 °C.

A 27-country test of communicating the scientific consensus on climate change, Ve?kalov et al., Nature Human Behaviour:

Communicating the scientific consensus that human-caused climate change is real increases climate change beliefs, worry and support for public action in the United States. In this preregistered experiment, we tested two scientific consensus messages, a classic message on the reality of human-caused climate change and an updated message additionally emphasizing scientific agreement that climate change is a crisis. Across online convenience samples from 27 countries (n = 10,527), the classic message substantially reduces misperceptions (d = 0.47, 95% CI (0.41, 0.52)) and slightly increases climate change beliefs (from d = 0.06, 95% CI (0.01, 0.11) to d = 0.10, 95% CI (0.04, 0.15)) and worry (d = 0.05, 95% CI (−0.01, 0.10)) but not support for public action directly. The updated message is equally effective but provides no added value. Both messages are more effective for audiences with lower message familiarity and higher misperceptions, including those with lower trust in climate scientists and right-leaning ideologies. Overall, scientific consensus messaging is an effective, non-polarizing tool for changing misperceptions, beliefs and worry across different audiences.

A slow and deceitful path to decarbonization? Critically assessing corporate climate disclosure as central tool of soft climate governance, Frisch, Energy Research & Social Science:

While successful in translating climate change into business language, the climate disclosure regime currently does not enable a rapid transformation of the economy. The article offers an innovative explanation for the limited effects of climate disclosure on reducing corporate greenhouse gas emissions, but avoids a destructive critique that dismisses climate disclosure as mere greenwashing activity. Simultaneously, it counters naïve illusions that more transparency, better standards, and the right performance indicators will solve the “wicked problem” of climate change.

For 20 years now, Ken Nedimyer has been strapping on his scuba gear and diving into the waters off the Florida coast in a desperate effort to restore coral reefs that have been decimated by climate change and pollution. In 2019, he founded his latest venture, Reef Renewal USA. The group’s YouTube channel shows Nedimyer and other members underwater, carefully attaching nursery-grown coral to structures designed to build healthy reefs.

“We’re working hard under pressure with innovation, speed, and efficiency to repopulate our coral reefs,” the narrator says.

Diver-conservationists like Nedimyer will lose the race against time, scientists say, unless humanity acts quickly to end emissions of climate-warming pollution. In the Southern Hemisphere’s Coral Sea, home of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, extreme temperatures have recently hit their highest in 400 years, according to an article in the journal Nature.

“If we don’t divert from our current course, our generation will likely witness the demise of one of Earth’s great natural wonders, the Great Barrier Reef,” paleoclimatologist Ben Henley at the University of Melbourne told the New York Times.

‘Out of sight’

According to a 2023 Pew Research poll, a majority of Americans consider global warming to be a major threat. If you drill down a bit and ask this group which ecosystem most concerns them, odds are they’ll cite tropical rainforests, or maybe alpine areas or the Arctic tundra.

And they’re not wrong to be concerned about these important communities. But our terrestrial bias blinds us to what is arguably an even more endangered ecosystem lying beneath the ocean’s surface.

“Coral reefs suffer from an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ dilemma,” said Jessica Levy, a marine biologist working for the Florida-based Coral Restoration Foundation.

“What we’re looking at is the potential loss of an entire ecosystem, which we’ve never experienced in human history,” Levy said, “and I don’t think anyone wants to find out what that would mean if we had a complete collapse of our coral-reef ecosystems.”

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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.

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2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #34

Posted on 25 August 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz

A listing of 30 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, August 18, 2024 thru Sat, August 24, 2024.

Story of the week

Our Story of the Week is another stab at "connecting the dots," drawing a line between two different stories sharing common foundations.

First there's Emily Atkin writing for HEATED with a critical commentary on Elon Musk, in Why vilify the oil and gas industry?. As detailed by Atkin, in a recent interview with the current US presidential GOP party nominee Musk made an odd statement, one that with all charity can only be interpreted as remarkably chumpish and naive. Musk asserted in connection with climate change that "I don’t think we should vilify the oil and gas industry." Unsurprisingly this article generated a lot of buzz in social media. Musk's assertion is starkly at odds with the fossil fuel industry's amply documented footprints of concerted, effective deception as recorded in public perception, public policy— and certainly not least— investigative journalism.

Assuming for a moment that Musk is somehow genuinely ignorant of a rich and obvious historical record, his information and cogitation could be improved by reading another article we shared this week, Oil firms and dark money fund push by Republican states to block climate laws by Peter Stone, writing for The Guardian. Stone's piece is certainly important in terms of ongoing situational awareness. But except in terms of details there's fundamentally little new in this article for anybody generally familiar with the struggle between the fossil fuel industry's desperate effort to prolong monetization of its outmoded and dangerous resouces versus modernization and cleanup of our energy systems. How a person of Musk's wide curiosity can remain oblivious to such activities is a true mystery— and beggars belief.

For decades the fossil fuel industry has been fighting tooth and nail to preserve the anachronistic revenue stream it enjoys. Against the trillions of dollars of revenue at stake, a few hundred milllions spent on paying for favorable legislation and judicial bench-stuffing is not even noise on the bottom line. It doesn't need Musk's genius to see this but rather only a few minutes of attention and an easy Google search, by any person of average intelligence.

It's hard to credit that anybody of Musk's intelligence and insight into the materiality of energy supplies could truly be so ignorant. But ignorance is innocent, so let's be generous and call Elon Musk ignorant rather than a liar.

Elon Musk can also fairly be seen as a brutally pragmatic technological visionary, a person with a strong record of success as defined by context. In company with Nissan (first to offer a practical and affordable mass market EV) his automotive company has delivered a powerful and largely positive object lesson to the entire transport sector. Meanwhile, Musk's SpaceX is littering the skies with a reasonably useful but also problematic constellation of communications satellites. The latter system's impacts on astronomy and (more urgently) a burgeoning orbtal debris threat create a puzzling inconsistency in terms of Musk's avowed inclinations toward sustainability.

Musk also seems increasingly burderned by counterproductive ideological baggage, much along the lines of Henry Ford who was another earth-shaking titan of industry, Henry Ford. Elon Musk and Henry Ford share some strong resemblances in terms of single-handed upheaval of large segments of the industrial sector. Yet for all his brilliance at efficient vertically integrated manufacturing, Ford stepped outside of his lane of competence and ultimately was heard apologizing for and disclaiming his own publications, which diverged far from matters of industrial prowess and dived into a sewer of bigotry.

Although far removed from Ford's particular fallibility, Musk seems to be following a roughly parallel path of plutocratic downfall as did Ford, dabbling in matters outside his core skill set. Unlike Ford, Musk's extracurricular inclinations are not expressed as feelings of hatred of a population but rather by displays of expediently selective or truly genuine ignorance, as exemplified in his facile or shallow exculpation of the fossil fuel indiustry for its truly baroque record of deceptions and prevarications.

When Elon Musk says we shouldn't vilify the fossil fuel industry, everybody can agree he's right about the working class members of that sector. But Musk is plainly completely wrong about this industry's leadership. He has only to scrolll a wee bit or pick up a newspaper to learn better. After all, Stone's exposé is part of a practically daily sunrise of dayllight shed on the dark doings of oil, gas and coal commerce. One need not be a rocket scientist to join the clue train.

Before August 18

Carbon Removals Aren`t Just About Getting the Science Right, Inside Climate News, By Mathilde Augustin. Carbon removal technologies are essential to meet Paris Agreement targets, but they’re facing serious challenges beyond engineering and chemistry.
`Nobody ever saw anything like this before`: how methane emissions are pushing the Amazon towards environmental catastrophe, Health The Guardian, Rob Jackson. As the world heats up, methane released from thawing permafrost and warming tropical wetlands is intensifying climate breakdown. But curbing it is achievable
The threat of climate change demands something more than thoughts, prayers and excuses, CBC, Aaron Wherry. Adaptation or mitigation? It's a false choice — we need both
The Aspen Institute Is Calling for a Systemic Approach to Climate Education at the University Level, Science, Inside Climate News, Caroline Marshall Reinhart. "Arizona State and UC San Diego will begin requiring climate courses this academic year. Columbia, Harvard and Stanford are going even further, creating schools devoted to climate change."
NOAA: July 2024 was Earth’s hottest month on record, Eye on the Storm, Yale Climate Connections, Jeff Masters & Bob Henson. "A stunning streak of global record warmth is now 14 months long, according to the agency."
Meeting 1.5C warming limit hinges on governments more than technology, study says, Carbon Brief, Ayesha Tandon. "The ability of governments to implement climate policies effectively is the “most important” factor in the feasibility of limiting global warming to 1.5C, a new study says. "

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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

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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

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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.

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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

Photo of a man near a microphone

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.

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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?

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Consider standing your ground

Get insurance

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