Explaining climate change science & rebutting global warming misinformation
Global warming is real and human-caused. It is leading to large-scale climate change. Under the guise of climate "skepticism", the public is bombarded with misinformation that casts doubt on the reality of human-caused global warming. This website gets skeptical about global warming "skepticism".
Our mission is simple: debunk climate misinformation by presenting peer-reviewed science and explaining the techniques of science denial, discourses of climate delay, and climate solutions denial.
Posted on 6 March 2025 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Snow Mass Recharge of the Greenland Ice Sheet Fueled by Intense Atmospheric River, Bailey & Hubbard, Geophysical Research Letters:
Atmospheric rivers (ARs) have been linked with extreme rainfall and melt events across the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS), accelerating its mass loss. However, the impact of AR-fueled snowfall has received less attention, partly due to limited empirical evidence. Here, we relate new firn core stratigraphy and isotopic analyses with glacio-meteorological data sets from SE Greenland to examine an intense AR in mid-March 2022. We demonstrate that the associated snowfall—up to 11.6 gigatons d−1—delayed summer melt onset by11-days and offset Greenland's 2022 net mass loss by 8%. Since 2010, our synoptic analysis reveals that snow accumulation across SE Greenland increased by 20 mm water equivalent a−1, driven by enhanced Atlantic cyclonicity. We find that the impact of ARs on the GrIS is not exclusively negative and their capacity to contribute mass recharge may become increasingly significant under ongoing Arctic amplification and predicted poleward intrusion of mid-latitude moisture.
The People against the Sun? Ideology and Strategy in Far-Right Parties' Climate Obstruction of Solar Energy, Weisskircher & Volk, Environmental Politics:
Far-right parties increasingly mobilize against climate action. While scholarship has initially focused on explicit climate denialism, by now research analyzes the opposition against specific climate policies. This article studies far-right parties’ positions on solar energy, the fastest growing renewable energy source in Europe. First, we examine the crucial case of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a prominent example of climate obstruction. Second, we explore ten additional far-right parties from eight western European countries as shadow cases. Methodologically, we analyze 61 manifestos (2014–2023). The article makes three key contributions: First, it shows how far-right parties frame solar power. Second, it underlines the heterogeneity of positions among far-right parties over space and time. Third, it argues that variation in opposition and support indicates that positions towards solar power are driven rather by strategic considerations than by a common coherent ideological stance – an important finding for understanding far-right climate obstruction more broadly.
Anticipating the Challenges of AI in Climate Governance: An Urgent Dilemma for Democracies, Machen & Pearce, WIREs Climate Change:
There is increasing interest in AI as a means of accelerating climate policy interventions. While undoubtedly promising, AI's recent history in other fields demonstrates the risk of significant unintended consequences that widen social inequalities or reduce democratic engagement. In this perspective, we review recent developments in climate governance and in AI governance and anticipate several potential problems when the two are combined. In particular, we highlight potential democratic challenges for the application of AI in climate governance through narrowing the range of policy options, narrowing the range of experts and publics that can contribute to climate governance, and how the implementation of AI may run counter to norms of democratic accountability. These challenges represent an urgent dilemma for climate governance as ignoring these issues will erode democratic oversight, lead to unpopular unintended consequences, and could reverse recent positive trends in diversity and participation within climate science and policy. In contrast, engaging with them could strengthen democracy and increase the successful social uptake of the technologies. By way of mitigating these risks, we introduce four principles for a bounded application of climate AI technologies that recognizes and enhances understanding of the political and contested nature of environmental decision-making. First, situating AI within expert and lay public debates. Second, valuing non-quantifiable knowledge. Third, expanding deliberation within AI decision-making. Fourth, developing domain-specific AI applications.
China’s readiness for transitioning to a low-carbon economy: mitigant and catalyst factors for a geopolitical conflict, Chen et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science:
The transition from a carbon-intensive economy to a carbon-neutral one has become a critical global objective to address climate change. This study examines the relationship between Low-Carbon Economic Development (LCED) and Geopolitical Risk (GPR) in China by focusing on the challenges and opportunities they present. We use a qualitative analysis to identify that rising GPR, exacerbated by market instability, resource allocation conflicts, and trade disputes, significantly hinders LCED progress. However, these geopolitical tensions also act as a catalyst for accelerating the development of renewable energy, reducing reliance on traditional energy sources, and fostering low-carbon technologies. Furthermore, LCED can ameliorate GPR by decreasing dependence on energy imports, promoting international cooperation, and encouraging scientific innovation. These findings suggest actionable policy recommendations to support the global transition to a low-carbon economy. This research underscores the potential LCED has as a fundamental tool for resolving geopolitical tensions and uniting global efforts to combat climate change.
Barriers and limits to adaptation in the Arctic, Malik & Ford, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability:
The Arctic is experiencing rapid environmental changes, adaptation challenges, and geopolitical competition. Indigenous Peoples inhabiting the Arctic particularly experience these impacts affecting livelihoods, culture, and the possibilities for long-term adaptation. This study examines the social barriers and limits to adaptation in the Arctic, highlighting the intricate relationship between different social factors. We showcase that these factors are not merely technical or isolated but are deeply political in nature, influenced by broader structural factors, power dynamics, and governance systems. Colonialism, global capitalism, and geopolitical interests intersect and affect resource extraction, Indigenous sovereignty, cultural continuity, and adaptation. We highlight how structural inequalities, exclusion, marginalisation, and systemic neglect impact Indigenous Peoples’ adaptation. We examine how social norms, individual values, psychosocial factors, and governance systems shape adaptation outcomes, distinguishing between barriers and limits.
From this week's government/NGO section:
Climate Change in the American Mind: Public Perceptions of the Health Harms of Global Warming, Fall 2024, Fine et al., Yale University and George Mason University
The authors present their findings from a nationally representative survey – Climate Change in the American Mind – from interviews with 1,013 adults (18+), conducted between December 11 – 22, 2024. The authors focused on public perceptions of the health harms of climate change and various sources of energy. The survey results reported here assess Americans’ awareness and understanding of the health harms of global warming; their beliefs about who should take action to protect people from these harms; and their trust in various sources of information about these harms. The authors compare many of the results with prior surveys conducted in 2014, 2018, and 2020. Many Americans have thought (32%) or worried (28%) a “great deal” or “moderate amount” about the health harms of global warming, similar to the percentages in 2014. 39% of Americans think Americans’ health is being harmed by global warming “a great deal” or “a moderate amount,” an 8 percentage point increase from 2014. However, only 16% think their own health is being harmed by global warming a “great deal” or a “moderate amount.” When asked to name health problems related to global warming, about four in ten Americans (37%) identify at least one health problem (+5 points since 2014).
Electricity Demand Growth and Data Centers: A Guide for the Perplexed, Koomey et al., Koomey Analytics and the Bipartisan Policy Center
Recent reports of unprecedented growth in electricity demand from data centers have appeared in many major news outlets. These headlines encapsulate two widely expressed concerns. First, the rising energy demand from data centers could further overburden aging power infrastructure. Second, this new source of demand could jeopardize efforts to mitigate climate change. The authors explore the accuracy of such narratives and explain the key drivers of load growth for data centers.
101 articles in 47 journals by 727 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
A Linear Sensitivity Framework to Understand the Drivers of the Wet-Bulb Globe Temperature Changes, Kong & Huber, 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4765660/v1
Common and Distinct Drivers of Convective Mass Flux and Walker Circulation Changes, Kang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2024gl111897
Dust in the arctic: a brief review of feedbacks and interactions between climate change, aeolian dust and ecosystems, Meinander et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1536395
Hot season gets hotter due to rainfall delay over tropical land in a warming climate, Song et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-025-57501-6
Read more...
0 comments
Posted on 5 March 2025 by Guest Author
This video includes personal musings and conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy and climate communicator Becky Hoag. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any).
In just a few weeks President Donald Trump has done everything he can to attack climate action - from halting research to censoring data. But Earth's not going down without a fight. Environmental groups, scientists, states and countries are fighting back for our planet - doing what they can to protect climate research and safeguard environmental policy. Becky and I break down all the climate action for ya!
Support ClimateAdam on patreon: https://patreon.com/climateadam
Check out Becky's Youtube channel: @beckisphere
Read more...
0 comments
Posted on 4 March 2025 by Ken Rice
On November 1, 2024 we announced the publication of 33 rebuttals based on the report "Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles" written by Matthew Eisenson, Jacob Elkin, Andy Fitch, Matthew Ard, Kaya Sittinger & Samuel Lavine and published by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School in 2024. Below is the blog post version of rebuttal #18 based on Sabin's report.
Even at its peak, shadow flicker from wind turbines typically remains far weaker than what is known to trigger seizures in people with epilepsy1.
A 2021 academic study found that wind turbines operate between 0.5 to 1 Hz, much lower than the threshold frequency of 3 Hz typically required to cause a seizure (Karanikas et al. 2021). Similarly, a 2012 report prepared for the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection found that shadow flicker frequencies from wind turbines are “usually in the range of 0.3–1.0 Hz, which is outside of the range of seizure thresholds according to the National Resource Council and the Epilepsy Foundation.”2 If shadow flicker were to reach 3 Hz, the probability of causing a seizure in a member of the photosensitive population would be approximately 1.7/100,000.2
Additional public-health studies have likewise found that wind turbines do not cause seizures (Zaporozhets et al. 2022, Knopper et al. 2014). Wind turbines with three blades, for example, would need to rotate at a speed of 60 rpm to cause a seizure. However, modern turbines typically operate at maximum speeds between 15 and 17 rpm, depending on model, well below the 60 rpm threshold.
Read more...
0 comments
Posted on 3 March 2025 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters and Bob Henson
One month into the new Trump administration, firings of scientists and freezes to U.S. research funding have caused an unprecedented elimination of scientific expertise from the federal government. Proposed and ongoing cuts to agencies like the National Weather Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, could hobble efforts to keep Americans safe during and after disasters. Meanwhile, slashed funding for climate research risks blindfolding the U.S. as the dangers from climate change escalate in the coming years and decades, scientists warn.
Mass layoffs at FEMA
When Hurricanes Helene and Milton – both made more destructive by climate change – devastated the Southeast last fall, workers at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, oversaw the government’s effort to rescue survivors and aid the recovery. FEMA has been key, too, in bolstering the country’s long-term resilience efforts, such as elevating flood-prone homes and installing drainage works.
But mass layoffs of probationary employees – a civil service classification that typically encompasses new hires but can also include military veterans, longtime employees who’ve switched positions, or those who were hired on a fast track or work with a disability – and sudden departures within the deferred resignation program put in place by Elon Musk’s DOGE unit have led to a loss of about 1,000 of FEMA’s 25,000 employees. The Washington Post reported that one of the agency staffers fired was a 15-year employee and a chief for the National Flood Insurance Program. According to the Washington Post, another wave of firings is expected, targeting employees who work in climate-related diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
Such cuts could result in slower disaster responses, longer waits for payouts, and reduced implementation of resilience efforts, ultimately increasing the risk of damage from climate change-enhanced extreme weather. In addition, firings could hamper efforts to update the agency’s significantly outdated flood maps, which are critical for determining flood risk and insurance rates.
Read more...
0 comments
Posted on 2 March 2025 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
A listing of 34 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, February 23, 2025 thru Sat, March 1, 2025.
This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if you spot any clear misses and/or have suggestions for additional categories, please let us know in the comments. Thanks!
Stories we promoted this week, by category:
Climate Policy and Politics (17 articles)
- Trump bars federal scientists from working on pivotal global climate report by Ella Nilsen & Laura Paddison, CNN, Climate, CNN, Feb 21, 2025
- US Cultural Revolution: Gutting of National Science Foundation & Its Climate Research by Michael Barnard, CleanTechnica, Feb 22, 2025
- Project 2025: What environmental cutbacks has Trump made in a month and what’s next? Trump is ‘erasing climate action’ within federal agencies and giving the green light to big polluters. by Staff, Euro News Green, Feb 20, 2025
- National Science Foundation staff axed by Trump fear for US scientific future An inside tale: Probation extended, tenure revoked, a scramble to merge research portfolios, and more by Brandon Vigliarolo, Science, The A Register, Feb 21, 2025
- Farmers Sue Over Deletion of Climate Data From Government Websites The data, which disappeared from Agriculture Department sites in recent weeks, was useful to farmers for business planning, the lawsuit said. by Karen Zraick, Climate, New York Times, Feb 24, 2025
- Boiling Point: Want to fight climate change? Then talk about climate change by Sammy Roth, Climate & Environment, Los Angeles Times, Feb 25, 2025
- CCC: Reducing emissions 87% by 2040 would help ‘cut household costs by £1,400’ by by Simon Evans, Josh Gabbatiss & Molly Lempriere, Policy, Carbon Brief, Feb 26, 2025
- The far right just made huge gains in a country once seen as a climate champion. It’s a pattern happening across the world by Laura Paddison, Climate, CNN, Feb 26, 2025
- Congress Set to Vote on Repeal of Biden Administration Climate Regulations by Nicholas Kusnetz, Fossil Fuels, Inside Climate News, Feb 26, 2025
- EPA head urges Trump to reconsider scientific finding that underpins climate action, AP sources say by Matthew Daly, AP News, Feb 26, 2025
- NOAA fires about 800 employees, with more possible Friday by Ella Nilsen & Tami Luhby, CNN Politics, Feb 27, 2025
- Any fool can break things Elon Musk is vandalizing America's greatest treasures by Bill McKibben, The Crucial Years, Feb 28, 2025
- Congress is reversing a tax on this climate superpollutant The Senate voted to overturn an EPA rule requiring oil companies to pay a fine for emitting methane, a powerful greenhouse gas by Maxine Joselow, Climate, Washington Post, Feb 27, 2025
- A thank you note from China they are thankful that we are turning over leadership of the 21st century to them by Andrew Dressler, The Climate Brink, Feb 28, 2025
- Who is Importing Donald Trump’s Anti-Climate Agenda to Germany? An investigation by CORRECTIV maps the influential axis of think tanks and politicians encouraging Europe to “drill baby drill”. by Annika Joeres, Elena Kolb & Katharina Huth, DeSmog International, Feb 21, 2025
- Experts Say Attempted Mass Firing of NOAA Workers May be Illegal and Threatens Public Safety Weather forecasters, climate modelers, glacier scientists and crew members on research ships received termination emails, while a federal judge simultaneously ordered the Trump administration to rescind firing orders. by Bob Berwyn & Lauren Dalban, Inside Climate News, Mar 01, 2025
- Scientists scorn EPA push to say climate change isn’t a danger, say just look around at the world by Seth Borenstein, Climate, AP News, Feb 27, 2025
Read more...
4 comments
Posted on 1 March 2025 by Sue Bin Park
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.
Are high CO2 levels harmless because they also occurred in the past?
While the Earth adapted to high carbon dioxide levels in the past, modern civilization cannot without major consequences.
Past periods of high CO2 brought about a climate vastly different from our own. During the Eocene “hothouse” period around 55 million years ago, CO2 concentrations peaked at 1,600 parts per million. That epoch saw ice-free poles and palm trees above the arctic circle.
The last time CO2 was as high as today was 3 million years ago. Global temperatures were as much as 7°F (4°C) warmer and sea levels were as much as 80 feet (25 meters) higher.
Given that 40% of the population lives around 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the coast, rising sea levels from CO2 emissions threaten a global climate refugee crisis.
The rapid CO2 rise today, compared to the gradual rise historically, compounds the danger, with our food systems and ecosystems already struggling to adapt.
Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact
This fact brief is responsive to quotes such as the one highlighted here.
Sources
NASA Carbon Dioxide
NOAA Climate Change: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
Nature Future climate forcing potentially without precedent in the last 420 million years
NOAA Models and fossils face off over one of the hottest periods in Earth's history
NOAA What’s the hottest Earth’s ever been?
United Nations PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL POPULATION LIVING IN COASTAL AREAS
Read more...
0 comments
Posted on 27 February 2025 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
A twenty-first century structural change in Antarctica’s sea ice system, Raphael et al., Communications Earth & Environment:
From 1979 to 2016, total Antarctic sea ice extent experienced a positive trend with record winter maxima in 2012 and 2014. Record summer minima followed within the period 2017-2024, raising the possibility that the Antarctic sea ice system might be changing state. Here we use a Bayesian reconstruction of Antarctic sea ice extent which extends the record back to 1899, to show that the sequence of extreme minima in summer Antarctic sea ice extent is unlikely to have happened in the 20th century. We show that they represent a structural change in the sea ice system, manifest by increased persistence in the sea ice extent anomalies and a strongly reduced tendency to return to the mean state. Further, our analysis suggests that we may no longer rely on the past, long-term, behavior of the sea ice system to predict its future state. Extreme conditions may characterize the future state of Antarctic sea ice.
Recent Decline in Global Ocean Evaporation Due To Wind Stilling, Ma et al., Geophysical Research Letters
Ocean evaporation (Eo) is the major source of atmospheric water vapor and precipitation. While it is widely recognized that Eo may increase in a warming climate, recent studies have reported a diminished increase in the global water vapor since ∼2000s, raising doubts about recent changes in Eo. Using satellite observations, here we show that while global Eo strongly increased from 1988 to 2017, the upward trend reversed in the late 2000s. Since then, two-thirds of the ocean have experienced weakened evaporation, leading to a slight decreasing trend in global-averaged Eo during 2008–2017. This suggests that even with saturated surface, a warmer climate does not always result in increased evaporation. The reversal in Eo trend is primarily attributed to wind stilling, which is likely tied to the Northern Oscillation Index shifting from positive to negative phases. These findings offer crucial insights into diverse responses of global hydrological cycle to climate change.
Atlantification advances into the Amerasian Basin of the Arctic Ocean, Polyakov et al., Science Advances:
Atlantification—the northward inflow of anomalous waters and biota from the Atlantic into the polar basins—has wide-ranging climatological ramifications. We present previously unknown observational evidence that the atlantification processes are strengthening in the eastern Eurasian Basin. The primary example is the diminishing sea ice, which is related to a powerful ocean-heat/ice-albedo feedback, which accelerates sea-ice losses. Furthermore, we observe that atlantification is extending far beyond the Lomonosov Ridge into the Makarov Basin of the Arctic Ocean where upper ocean ventilation creates a new and unique ecological environment. The eastern part of the Siberian Arctic Ocean is still strongly stratified, but the atlantification-driven shoaling of warm, salty, and nutrient-rich intermediate waters already has important ecological consequences there. Disentangling the role of atlantification in multiple and complex high-latitude changes should be a priority in future modeling and observational efforts.
Record Early Sea Ice Loss in Southeastern Hudson Bay in Spring 2024, Soriot et al., Geophysical Research Letters:
Hudson Bay seasonal sea-ice cover plays an important role in marine ecosystems and human activities. Spring 2024 witnessed a uniquely early southeastern opening, leading to basin-wide sea ice extent falling 5 below the 1979–2023 average. Here, we show that a strong pressure gradient between high pressure over the Canadian Archipelago and low pressure to the south led to unusually strong and persistent winds from the east during May 2024. Consequently, the median sea ice opening date in the southeast was 31 days earlier than the 1979–2023 median, while sea ice opening in the west was delayed by 13 days. Early opening and warmer than average sea surface temperatures have extended the ice-free period to 202 days in southeastern Hudson Bay, with potentially dramatic consequences on the local marine ecosystem and contributed to the record low Arctic-wide sea ice extent by December 2024.
Against separation: the importance of transdisciplinary collaboration in climate action, Paiusco & Boem, Environmental Politics:
Addressing recent literature that supports the separation between climate science and climate activism, we stress the critical role that activists can play in disseminating scientific knowledge relevant to climate action. Furthermore, we encourage transdisciplinary collaboration and emphasize the importance of including climate ethicists and philosophers in the discussion.
From this week's government/NGO section:
Scaling up carbon dioxide removals. Recommendations for navigating opportunities and risks in the EU, Edenhofer et al., European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change
The authors outline key actions for the European Union (EU) to accelerate the deployment of carbon dioxide removals, emphasizing their potential to drive innovation, restore ecosystems, and create economic opportunities, while ensuring environmental and social safeguards. The authors offer nine recommendations to policy makers for rapidly scaling up removals, in ways that enhance EU’s industrial competitiveness while addressing associated opportunities and risks. These recommendations address both temporary removals, resulting from activities such as afforestation, reforestation, and soil carbon sequestration, and permanent removals, including technologies such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS).
Most Voters Have Heard Nothing About Carbon Removal, but Support Investing in It After Learning More, Catherine Fraser and Grace Adcox, Data for Progress
The authors surveyed 1,270 likely voters from January 24-27, 2025, to understand attitudes toward carbon dioxide removal (CDR), finding most voters still are largely unfamiliar with carbon removal. A majority of voters (63%) report having heard “nothing at all” about carbon removal, compared with 7% and 31% who report having heard “a lot” or “a little,” respectively. However, among voters who report hearing either a lot or a little about carbon removal, a bipartisan majority (56%) have a favorable opinion of it. Those who report having heard about carbon removal most often say they’ve heard about it from national broadcast television (32%) and social media (25%), relative to other sources.
160 articles in 58 journals by 957 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
Accelerated internal tides in a warming climate, Gong et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.adq4577
Anthropogenic intensification of Arctic anticyclonic circulation, Liu et al., Science Advances 10.1126/sciadv.ads4508
Changes in large-scale circulation behind the increase in extreme heat events in the Apennines (Italy), Capozzi et al., Atmospheric Research Open Access 10.1016/j.atmosres.2025.108013
Read more...
0 comments
Posted on 26 February 2025 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler
Recent interviews with Trump administration officials have revived a persistent myth in climate change discussions: “CO2 is plant food”. This is one of those zombie climate-denial arguments that just never goes away because 1) it’s a simple argument and 2) it seems intuitive — after all, plants need carbon dioxide, so more of it must be good, right?
Yes, CO2 enhances photosynthesis. But crops don’t grow in a vacuum, they also need water, temperatures in a particular range, and farmers need predictable seasons. Climate change disrupts all of those.
The Earth is greening, but only partially due to enhanced CO2. The observed greening in India and China, for example, are mainly due to aggressive reforestation programs, farm subsidies, and irrigation projects designed to sustain high agricultural output — not rising CO2 levels.
If climate change aids agriculture anywhere, it’s at high latitudes, where it benefits few people. Meanwhile, the world’s major breadbaskets — places like the U.S. Midwest, India, and parts of Africa — are seeing more frequent heat waves, floods, and droughts. The reality is that climate change makes agriculture more difficult almost everywhere.
The “CO2 is plant food” myth survives because it’s a convenient lie, not because it’s true.
Here are some peer-reviewed articles on this nuanced question:
Read more...
4 comments
Posted on 25 February 2025 by BaerbelW
On November 1, 2024 we announced the publication of 33 rebuttals based on the report "Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles" written by Matthew Eisenson, Jacob Elkin, Andy Fitch, Matthew Ard, Kaya Sittinger & Samuel Lavine and published by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School in 2024. Below is the blog post version of rebuttal #17 based on Sabin's report.
The weight of the evidence suggests that there is no direct causal correlation between low-frequency noise from wind turbines and human health1 (also Marshall et al. 2023, Radun et al. 2022, van Kamp & van den Berg 2021, Schmidt et al. 2014, Dumbrille et al. 2021). Individual cases of sleep disturbance among people living in proximity to new wind turbines are more likely the result of annoyance about the presence of those turbines rather than inaudible noise emanating from them2.
One historical study looked at complaints filed in relation to 51 Australian wind farms from 1993 to 2012. Prior to 2009, complaints related to health and noise were rare, despite the fact that many small and large wind farms were already in operation. However, following the coining of the phrase "wind turbine syndrome" in a self-published book that year, there was a dramatic spike in complaints (Crichton et al. 2014).
Read more...
5 comments
Posted on 24 February 2025 by dana1981
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections. Climate journalism and its funding are under attack right now. If you value this kind of work, please consider donating to help ensure that it can continue.
Among his Day One executive orders, President Donald Trump declared that his administration would eliminate what he called “the ‘electric vehicle (EV) mandate,” and “promote true consumer choice” by terminating regulations and subsidies that he claimed make EVs too affordable compared to combustion-engine cars.
That order could undermine efforts to decarbonize cars and trucks, which is necessary if the world is to reach net zero emissions. Road transportation accounts for 12% of global and 22% of American climate pollution. Electric vehicles (EVs) have emerged as a relatively climate-friendly alternative to fossil-fueled cars, producing far lower emissions due to their high efficiency. And as power grids shift to cleaner and more efficient electricity sources like solar and wind, the climate case for EVs will only become stronger.
Global EV sales have surged as prices have fallen and countries have implemented policies like regulations and subsidies to encourage their adoption. In 2019, 2 million EVs and plug-in hybrids were sold, accounting for just 2.5% of global new car sales. In 2024 the number skyrocketed to over 17 million, accounting for more than one in five new passenger cars sold last year.
But last year’s global EV sales growth was uneven. It came mostly in China, which sold 11 million EVs and plug-in hybrids. That represents a 40% increase from the prior year, accounting for nearly two-thirds of all worldwide sales. Europe came in second with 3 million, or 18% of new EVs, but sales there declined 3% from the previous year as some government incentives expired. North America accounted for 1.8 million, or just over 10% of global EV sales, but saw only a modest 9% increase in 2024. In the rest of the world, EV sales grew rapidly to 1.3 million, 27% higher than in 2023.
Global annual sales of fully electric and plug-in hybrid passenger vehicles. (Data: International Energy Agency for 2012–2023 and Rho Motion for 2024. Graphic: Dana Nuccitelli.)
The International Council on Clean Transportation forecasts that global climate pollution from road transportation will peak this year and then begin to decline, thanks largely to the adoption of EVs. But the political climate in countries like the U.S. remains a potential stumbling block.
Read more...
8 comments
Posted on 23 February 2025 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
A listing of 33 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, February 16, 2025 thru Sat, February 22, 2025.
This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if you spot any clear misses and/or have suggestions for additional categories, please let us know in the comments. Thanks!
Stories we promoted this week, by category:
Climate Change Impacts
- Mapped: How extreme weather is destroying crops around the world Extreme weather can harm food production in many different ways. by Orla Dwyer, Design by Tom Prater, Interactive, Carbon Brief,, Feb 13, 2025
- `Everything we had floated away`: Hurricane Helene survivors help each other as disinformation swirls Mountain communities in southern Appalachia begin rebuilding after climate crisis-fueled disaster. by Nina Lakhani in Barnardsville, North Carolina, with photographs by Thalia Juarez, The Guardian, Feb 16, 2025
- Rescues are ongoing in flooded Kentucky and a new winter storm and brutal cold are incoming by Amanda Musa, Mary Gilbert, Robert Shackelford & Lauren Mascarenhas, CNN, Feb 17, 2025
- Al Gore: Action on climate is 'unstoppable', despite recent shifts in US policy by Robin Pomeroy & Natalie Marchant,, Climate Action, World Economic Forum, Feb 17, 2025
- Arctic Air Mass Brings Dangerous Temperatures to Parts of the U.S. And a winter storm could dump up to a foot of snow from the Central Plains to the East Coast. by Nazaneen Ghaffa, Weather, New York Times, Feb 18, 2025
- Update: How’s U.S. winter weather changing in a warming world? Cold extremes are indeed waning over most of the midlatitude Northern Hemisphere, but a decade-plus debate on the Arctic’s role continues. by Bob Henson, Eye on the Storm, Yale Climate Connections, Feb 18, 2025
- Rising Risks U.S. housing market could lose nearly $1.5 trillion in value due to rising costs of climate change by Diana Olick, CNBC News, Feb 19, 2025
- Study Shows Glaciers Have Lost '3 Olympic Swimming Pools Per Second' Since 2000 One researcher said the findings support calls "for urgent and concrete actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and associated warming." by Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams, Feb 20, 2025
- Why the U.S. has been home to Earth’s most unusually cold air this year Lobes of the polar vortex, like an octopus’s tentacles, have frequently lashed the United States this year. by Ben Noll, Weather, Washington Post, Feb 21, 2025
- An Economist`s Dire Forecast About Just How Much Climate Change Will Impact GDP Modeling shows an estimated loss of global GDP of up to 50 percent in coming decades—unless we make changes now. by Jenni Doering, Inside Climate News, Feb 22, 2025
- An Economist’s Dire Forecast About Just How Much Climate Change Will Impact GDP Modeling shows an estimated loss of global GDP of up to 50 percent in coming decades—unless we make changes now. by Jenni Doering, Living on Earth/Inside Climate News, Feb 22, 2025
Read more...
0 comments
Posted on 20 February 2025 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Long-lasting intense cut-off lows to become more frequent in the Northern Hemisphere, Mishra et al., Communications Earth & Environment:
Cut-off Lows are slow-moving mid-latitude storms that are detached from the main westerly flow and are often harbingers of heavy and persistent rainfall. The assessment of Cut-off Lows in climate models is relatively limited, in fact, there are no studies conducted on the future changes of Cut-off Lows within climate models. Given the importance of Cut-off Lows in leading to severe hazards, here we study them in Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6’s worst-case future simulations (SSP5-8.5). Most (80%) of the models show that Cut-off Lows with high intensity and longer lifetimes are projected to become more frequent in spring over the land regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Such an increase in Cut-off Low frequency could substantially increase related potential hazards. An increase in Cut-off Low propagation velocity, however, may partly offset this increase in hazard. Lastly, projected changes in the jet stream with possible dynamical linkages to Cut-off Lows corroborate the findings of this study.
Mismatch Between Global Importance of Peatlands and the Extent of Their Protection, Austin et al., Conservation Letters:
Global peatlands store more carbon than all the world's forests biomass on just 3% of the planet's land surface. Failure to address mounting threats to peatland ecosystems will jeopardize critical climate targets and exacerbate biodiversity loss. Our analysis reveals that 17% of peatlands are protected globally—substantially less than many other high-value ecosystems. Just 11% percent of boreal and 27% of temperate and tropical peatlands are protected, while Indigenous peoples' lands encompass at least another one-quarter of peatlands globally. Peatlands in protected areas and Indigenous peoples' lands generally face lower human pressure than outside those areas. Yet, almost half of temperate and tropical peatlands in protected areas still experience medium to high human pressure. Country submissions of Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement and National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans under the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework could help catalyze actions and secure funding for peatland conservation, including support for the Indigenous stewardship that is critical to protect many of the world's highest priority peatland areas.
Can residential energy systems withstand the heat? Quantifying solar photovoltaic and heat pump yields for future New Zealand climate conditions, Zegeer et al., Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability:
Our findings revealed that a future climate doubles the cooling demand and reduces the heating demand by one-third, with the heat pump demand peak load projected to be 40% higher than current demand. Although solar PV generation experiences a decrease in efficiency of 8%, there is a 40% increase in annual direct usage of ASHP [air source heat pumps]. Despite the high cooling demand, the combined yearly electricity demand for heating and cooling decreased by 6.5% overall, and the system saw a 50% improvement in demand fulfilment. However, the system performance volatility at hotter-than-normal temperatures and the potential for significant energy shortfalls remain concerns. The shift from a predominantly heating to a cooling environment is a critical design condition that should be considered in energy expansion planning and future electrification. The framework and time series developed in this work can be expanded and applied to other energy system modelling exercises.
Global Land-Water Competition and Synergy Between Solar Energy and Agriculture, Curioni et al., Earth's Future:
The food and energy systems face mounting challenges due to increasing demands and sustainability constraints, which impact their ability to efficiently utilize natural resources, such as land and freshwater. Among these challenges, competition for land between large-scale renewable energy production plants and agriculture poses a risk, especially for photovoltaics. Agrivoltaics offers an opportunity to synergistically use land for simultaneous production of energy and food. Recent studies have investigated the upscaling potential of agrivoltaics, moving from field scale analyses to larger-scale suitability assessments. Yet, studies addressing the interaction between crop dynamics and local climatic factors, as well as explicitly investigating hydrological dynamics of agrivoltaics across crops and climates, are still limited. Here, we first superpose a spatial data set of existing photovoltaic farms with different land use/land cover maps to assess the magnitude of land use competition associated with photovoltaics. Then, we use a spatialized agro-hydrological model to simulate the response to different levels of radiation attenuation of 22 non-irrigated crops in their harvested areas across the globe. We find that 22%–35% of rainfed harvested areas globally would maintain their yields if converted to agrivoltaics, while 13%–16% of ground-mounted photovoltaic plants globally are associated with a cropland to non-cropland transition. While carrying the typical limitations and uncertainties of global studies, our results may offer novel possibilities for cross-crop and cross-location comparisons of agrivoltaic experiences, as well as a basis to have a deeper and cross-scale understanding of the feasibility of photovoltaics.
Soaring Building Collapses in Southern Mediterranean Coasts: Hydroclimatic Drivers & Adaptive Landscape Mitigations, Fouad et al., Earth's Future:
The low-lying, arid coastal regions of the Southern Mediterranean Basin, extending over 4,600 km, face daunting sea level rise and hydroclimatic changes due to shifting weather patterns. The impact of these factors on coastal urban buildings and infrastructure must be better understood. Alexandria, a historic and densely populated port city in Egypt representative of several coastal towns in the Southern Mediterranean, has experienced over 280 building collapses along its shorelines over the past two decades, and the root causes are still under investigation. We examine the decadal changes in coastal and hydroclimatic drivers along the city's coastline using photogrammetric satellite images from 1974 to 2021. We explore the interconnectivity between shoreline retreat, ground subsidence, and building collapses. Our results suggest that collapses are correlated with severe coastal erosion driven by sediment imbalances resulting from decades of inefficient landscape management and urban expansion along the city's waterfront. This severe erosion, combined with sea level rise, increases seawater intrusion, raising groundwater levels in coastal aquifers. Degrading ground stability and accelerating corrosion in building foundations ultimately culminating in collapses. We identified a coastal area of high vulnerability with over 7,000 buildings at risk, surpassing any other vulnerable zone in the Mediterranean Basin. We propose cost-effective and nature-based techniques for coastal landscape adaptation to alleviate these dangers in Alexandria and other Southern Mediterranean cities facing similar climatic challenges.
Estimating the carbon footprint of post-war reconstruction: toward a ‘greener’ recovery of Ukraine, Kobayakawa, Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability:
The substantial investment required for Ukraine's post-war reconstruction will likely result in significant carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. This study quantitatively estimates the carbon footprint (CF) of the reconstruction process using an environmentally extended multi-region input–output analysis. Results indicate that the projected total CF over a ten-year reconstruction period will amount to 741 Mt-CO2 exceeding Ukraine's pre-war annual territorial emissions by more than fourfold. With the construction industry accounting for 77% of total emissions, there is an urgent need to modernize the sector and enhance its efficiency to achieve significant emission reductions. Key mitigation strategies include modernizing construction processes and implementing large-scale recycling of construction materials like concrete and steel. Beyond reducing emissions, these measures have the potential to foster industrial innovation, generate employment, and align Ukraine's development trajectory with European Union environmental standards. This research highlights the necessity of integrating sustainability into Ukraine's recovery pathway to ensure a greener, more sustainable future for Ukraine.
From this week's government/NGO section:
Climate Change in the American Mind: Beliefs & Attitudes, Fall 2024, Leiserowitz et al., Yale University and George Mason University
Americans who think global warming is happening outnumber those who think it is not by a ratio of more than 5 to 1 (73% versus 14%). Two-thirds of Americans (66%) think global warming is affecting weather in the United States. 11% of Americans have considered moving to avoid the impacts of global warming.
Flying in 2024 and beyond. Research findings from Wave 13 of the CAA’s UK Aviation Consumer Survey, UK. Civil Aviation Authority
Consumers are flying in the highest numbers since this survey began in 2016, with 62% having flown in the last 12 months. This year’s results reinforce the shift in the demographic profile of recent flyers observed last year, with recent flyers skewing much younger than pre-pandemic. The authors asked consumers to prioritize several different areas, to understand the perceived relative importance of areas that the aviation industry might focus on. The exercise revealed reducing the cost of flying to be the most widespread priority amongst consumers, though this is far from universal – only around a quarter (27%) of consumers would prioritize this above all other areas. However, consumers do not feel the industry’s priorities align with their own, particularly in reducing the cost and environmental impact of flying – two areas where relatively few consumers believe the industry is genuinely committed. Attitudes towards the environment are similar to those seen last year, with widespread concern about the environment, but relatively few consumers are willing to fly less or pay more to offset the environmental impact of flying. As seen last year, consumers tend to see paying for environmental measures as the airline’s responsibility rather than their own. Younger consumers care about the environmental impact of aviation, but results suggest that the affordability of flying may be of greater importance to them.
127 articles in 51 journals by 797 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
Atmospheric circulation to constrain subtropical precipitation projections, Chemke & Yuval Yuval Yuval, Nature Climate Change Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41558-025-02266-5
Distribution Characteristics and Source Analysis of Dissolved Organic Matter with Different Molecular Weights in the Coastal Waters of Zhejiang Province, Sun et al., Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2025.107020
Drivers of Regional Variation in the De-Emergence of Climate Change under Negative Emissions, Douglas et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-24-0257.1
Human contribution to atmosphere-ocean thermodynamic factors affecting the intense tropical cyclones over the Arabian Sea during the post-monsoon season, Pathaikara et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2025.100755
Read more...
0 comments
Posted on 19 February 2025 by Guest Author
This article by Eric Nost, Associate Professor of Geography, University of Guelph and Alejandro Paz, Energy and Environment Librarian, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Information on the internet might seem like it’s there forever, but it’s only as permanent as people choose to make it.
That’s apparent as the second Trump administration “floods the zone” with efforts to dismantle science agencies and the data and websites they use to communicate with the public. The targets range from public health and demographics to climate science.
We are a research librarian and policy scholar who belong to a network called the Public Environmental Data Partners, a coalition of nonprofits, archivists and researchers who rely on federal data in our analysis, advocacy and litigation and are working to ensure that data remains available to the public.
In just the first three weeks of Trump’s term, we saw agencies remove access to at least a dozen climate and environmental justice analysis tools. The new administration also scrubbed the phrase “climate change” from government websites, as well as terms like “resilience.”
Here’s why and how Public Environmental Data Partners and others are making sure that the climate science the public depends on is available forever.
Why government websites and data matter
The internet and the availability of data are necessary for innovation, research and daily life.
Climate scientists analyze NASA satellite observations and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather records to understand changes underway in the Earth system, what’s causing them and how to protect the climates that economies were built on. Other researchers use these sources alongside Census Bureau data to understand who is most affected by climate change. And every day, people around the world log onto the Environmental Protection Agency’s website to learn how to protect themselves from hazards — and to find out what the government is or isn’t doing to help.
If the data and tools used to understand complex data are abruptly taken off the internet, the work of scientists, civil society organizations and government officials themselves can grind to a halt. The generation of scientific data and analysis by government scientists is also crucial. Many state governments run environmental protection and public health programs that depend on science and data collected by federal agencies.
Removing information from government websites also makes it harder for the public to effectively participate in key processes of democracy, including changes to regulations. When an agency proposes to repeal a rule, for example, it is required to solicit comments from the public, who often depend on government websites to find information relevant to the rule.
And when web resources are altered or taken offline, it breeds mistrust in both government and science. Government agencies have collected climate data, conducted complex analyses, provided funding and hosted data in a publicly accessible manner for years. People around the word understand climate change in large part because of U.S. federal data. Removing it deprives everyone of important information about their world.
Read more...
11 comments
Posted on 18 February 2025 by Ken Rice
On November 1, 2024 we announced the publication of 33 rebuttals based on the report "Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles" written by Matthew Eisenson, Jacob Elkin, Andy Fitch, Matthew Ard, Kaya Sittinger & Samuel Lavine and published by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School in 2024. Below is the blog post version of rebuttal #20 based on Sabin's report.
When properly sited, offshore wind farms need not pose a serious risk of harm to whales or other marine life. During installation, the impact from construction noise can be mitigated by implementing seasonal restrictions on certain activities that coincide with whale migration. Once operational, wind turbines generate far less low-frequency sound than ships do, and there is no evidence that noise from turbines causes negative impacts to marine species populations (Tougaard et al. 2020).
There has been considerable attention to how offshore wind development, including noise from pile-driving during construction, affects the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, which has a total population of roughly 360.1 But the main causes of mortality for right whales are vessel strikes (75% of anthropogenic deaths) and entanglements in fishing gear—not anything related to offshore wind development.2 Critically, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has also found no link between offshore wind surveys or development on whale deaths.3
Moreover, any impacts to the North Atlantic right whale can be avoided or greatly minimized through proper planning. For example, in 2019, the developer of the 800-MW Vineyard Wind project entered into an agreement with three environmental organizations, which established seasonal restrictions on pile-driving during construction (to avoid excessive noise when right whales are present), as well as strict limits on vessel speeds during the operational phase (to avoid vessel strikes), among other measures.4 In the final environmental impact statement for the project, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) found that, “[g]iven the implementation of Project-specific measures, BOEM anticipates that vessel strikes as a result of [the project] alone are highly unlikely and that impacts on marine mammal individuals . . . would be expected to be minor; as such, no population-level impacts would be expected.”2 BOEM also found that project installation would be unlikely to cause noise-related impacts to right whales, due to the time of year during which construction activities would take place.2
Offshore wind development can have benefits for other marine species. For example, the base of an offshore wind turbine may function as an artificial reef, creating new habitats for native fish species (Degraer et al. 2020 and here).
By contrast, offshore oil and gas drilling routinely harms marine life, while posing a persistent risk of catastrophic outcomes. Sonar used for offshore oil and gas exploration emits much stronger pulses of sound than sonar used for wind farm surveying. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill killed millions of marine animals, including as many as 800,000 birds.5 More broadly, carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use are making the ocean increasingly acidic, which inhibits shellfish and corals from developing and maintaining calcium carbonate shells and exoskeletons.6 Finally, climate change is expected to have “long-term, high-consequence impacts” on whales and other marine mammals, including “increased energetic costs associated with altered migration routes, reduction of suitable breeding and/or foraging habitat, and reduced individual fitness, particularly juveniles.”2
Read more...
0 comments
Posted on 17 February 2025 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler
“But what about when the sun doesn't shine?!”
Ah yes, the energy debate’s equivalent of “The Earth is flat!” Every time someone mentions solar or wind power, some self-proclaimed energy expert emerges from the woodwork to drop this supposedly devastating truth bomb: “Sure, renewables are cheap... until you need backup power for those cloudy, windless days. Factor in those costs, and suddenly fossil fuels are looking pretty sexy again!”
takes deep breath
Let me explain why this ironclad logic is as scientifically sound as claiming the Earth isn’t warming because it got cold last winter. Not only is the argument wrong — it's so fundamentally wrong that it reveals a complete misunderstanding of how modern power grids work.
Let’s start by imagining a grid that runs entirely on fossil fuels. As an example, here is the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) power load on Aug. 24, 2024:
On a fully fossil-fuel grid, fossil-fuel generators would continuously adjust their output to match total load, which rises in the morning as people wake up, increases through the day with air conditioning use, peaks in the early evening, and declines overnight.
Read more...
4 comments
Posted on 16 February 2025 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
A listing of 34 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, February 9, 2025 thru Sat, February 15, 2025.
This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if you spot any clear misses and/or have suggestions for additional categories, please let us know in the comments. Thanks!
Stories we promoted this week, by category:
Climate Change Impacts
- Climate change is worsening diabetes worldwide Heat waves exacerbate the danger of the disease. by Sanket Jain, Health, Inside Climate News, Feb 4, 2025
- New German Government Report Highlights Growing Climate Security Risks Climate-driven extreme weather disasters and resource conflicts can intensify social and political rifts both domestically and internationally, threatening global stability. by Bob Berwyn, Inside Climate News, Feb 12, 2025
- Women in Science: Climate and Wildfire Researcher Caroline Juang by Adrienne Day, State of the Planet, Feb 14, 2025
- Extreme weather is our new reality. We must accept it and begin planning | Gaia Vince As wildfires, floods, droughts and record-breaking temperatures have shown, the post-climate change era has arrived. Now we need honesty and action from our leaders by Gaia Vince, The Guardian, Feb 15, 2025
Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
- Dollars in the dust: Is outback scrub really saving the planet? The nation (Australia) has made a multi-billion dollar bet that carbon locked in desert scrub will offset emissions elsewhere, but doubters are growing from scientists in the city to the farmers on the land. by by Michael Bachelard, Charlotte Grieve & the Visual Stories Team, Sydney Morning Herald, Feb87, 2025
- More Solar and Battery Storage Were Added to Texas’ Grid Than Any Other Power Source Last Year Texas has become one of the nation’s frontrunners in developing renewable energy. In recent years, the state’s reign came from wind power coupled with utility-scale solar. by Arcelia Martin, Clean Energy, Inside Climate News, Feb 10, 2025
Climate education and communication
Read more...
1 comments
Posted on 15 February 2025 by Sue Bin Park
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.
Is sea level rise exaggerated?
Sea levels are rising at an accelerating rate, not stagnating or decreasing.
Warming global temperatures cause land ice to melt and oceans to thermally expand, elevating sea levels. Since 1880, they’ve risen an estimated 8-9 inches (over 20 cm) based on historical data from coastal tide gauge stations.
In the 1990s, scientists began using satellites to measure sea levels. Since 1993, the global average sea level has risen 4 inches (10 cm).
These satellites send pulses to the ocean and measure the time it takes for the signal to return. Researchers account for factors like land height, resulting in highly accurate measurements with error margins of 1 millimeter. Short-term dips don’t contradict the overall rise, which is exceeding prior predictions.
Sea level rise has already submerged islands and atolls in places like The Solomon Islands and The Marshall Islands, while coasts worldwide have experienced flooding, infrastructure damage, and land loss.
Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact
This fact brief is responsive to quotes such as the one highlighted here.
Sources
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Is sea-level rise exaggerated?
NASA Sea Level
IPCC AR6: Changes in global mean sea level
NOAA Is sea level rising?
Read more...
1 comments
Posted on 13 February 2025 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
A year above 1.5 °C signals that Earth is most probably within the 20-year period that will reach the Paris Agreement limit, Bevacqua et al., Nature Climate Change:
The temperature goals of the Paris Agreement are measured as 20-year averages exceeding a pre-industrial baseline. The calendar year of 2024 was announced as the first above 1.5 °C relative to pre-industrial levels, but the implications for the corresponding temperature goal are unclear. Here we show that, without very stringent climate mitigation, the first year above 1.5 °C occurs within the first 20-year period with an average warming of 1.5 °C.
Twelve months at 1.5 °C signals earlier than expected breach of Paris Agreement threshold, Cannon, Nature Climate Change:
June 2024 was the twelfth month in a row with global mean surface temperatures at least 1.5 °C above pre-industrial conditions, but it is not clear if this implies a failure to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting long-term warming below this threshold. Here we show that in climate model simulations, the long-term Paris Agreement target is usually crossed well before such a string of unusually warm temperatures occurs.
Continued permafrost ecosystem carbon loss under net-zero and negative emissions, Park et al., Science Advances:
The loss of ecosystem carbon (the sum of vegetation, litter, and soil carbon) may occur in a permafrost region under mitigation pathways, which could reduce the efficiency of carbon dioxide removal. Here, we investigate changes in permafrost under net-zero and negative emissions, based on idealized emission-driven simulations using a state-of-the-art Earth system model. While acting as a net ecosystem carbon sink during most of the positive emission phase, permafrost becomes a net ecosystem carbon source just before reaching net-zero and negative emissions. Permafrost slowly recovers, especially in regions with high organic carbon content, and net ecosystem carbon loss persists until the end of simulations, resulting in a cumulative net ecosystem carbon loss of approximately 14 petagrams of carbon (PgC) in both scenarios. In addition, methane emissions increase under net-zero and negative emissions, due to the irreversibility of the inundated areas. We conclude that the permafrost ecosystem carbon loss may continue under net-zero and negative emissions, which could hinder climate change mitigation efforts.
Airspace restrictions due to conflicts increased global aviation’s carbon dioxide emissions in 2023, Dannet et al., Communications Earth & Environment:
As air traffic rebounds from its large drop during the Covid-19 crisis, civil aviation needs to continue addressing its climate impact. Knowledge of aircraft trajectories is essential for an accurate assessment of the CO2 (and non-CO2) climate impact of aviation. Here we combine an aircraft trajectory optimization algorithm and a global database of aircraft movements to quantify the impact of airspace restrictions due to conflict zones on CO2 emissions. Among current restrictions, we show that the Russian ban of its airspace to Western airlines following the invasion of Ukraine has the largest impact. Our analysis reveals an initial reduction of flights to and from East Asia that would have crossed the Russian territory. Routes then gradually reopened by making a detour, which led to an average increase in fuel consumption of 13% on the affected routes, with a greater impact for flights to and from Europe (14.8%) compared to flights to and from North America (9.8%). Although these flights represent only a small fraction of the daily flights, the large detours have increased global aviation CO2 emissions by 1% in 2023, equivalent to a quarter of the yet-to-be-achieved efficiency gain potential from improved air traffic management.
Interactions Between Climate Mean and Variability Drive Future Agroecosystem Vulnerability, Sinha et al., Global Change Biology:
Agriculture is crucial for global food supply and dominates the Earth's land surface. It is unknown, however, how slow but relentless changes in climate mean state, versus random extreme conditions arising from changing variability, will affect agroecosystems' carbon fluxes, energy fluxes, and crop production. We used an advanced weather generator to partition changes in mean climate state versus variability for both temperature and precipitation, producing forcing data to drive factorial-design simulations of US Midwest agricultural regions in the Energy Exascale Earth System Model. We found that an increase in temperature mean lowers stored carbon, plant productivity, and crop yield, and tends to convert agroecosystems from a carbon sink to a source, as expected; it also can cause local to regional cooling in the earth system model through its effects on the Bowen Ratio. The combined effect of mean and variability changes on carbon fluxes and pools was nonlinear, that is, greater than each individual case. For instance, gross primary production reduces by 9%, 1%, and 13% due to change in mean temperature, change in temperature variability, and change in both temperature mean and variability, respectively. Overall, the scenario with change in both temperature and precipitation means leads to the largest reduction in carbon fluxes (−16% gross primary production), carbon pools (−35% vegetation carbon), and crop yields (−33% and −22% median reduction in yield for corn and soybean, respectively).
How will we prepare for an uncertain future? The value of open data and code for unborn generations facing climate change, Gomes, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
As the impacts of climate change continue to intensify, humans face new challenges to long-term survival. Humans will likely be battling these problems long after 2100, when many climate projections currently end. A more forward-thinking view on our science and its direction may help better prepare for the future of our species. Researchers may consider datasets the basic units of knowledge, whose preservation is arguably more important than the articles that are written about them. Storing data and code in long-term repositories offers insurance against our uncertain future. To ensure open data are useful, data must be FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) and be complete with all appropriate metadata. By embracing open science practices, contemporary scientists give the future of humanity the information to make better decisions, save time and other valuable resources, and increase global equity as access to information is made free. This, in turn, could enable and inspire a diversity of solutions, to the benefit of many. Imagine the collective science conducted, the models built, and the questions answered if all of the data researchers have collectively gathered were organized and immediately accessible and usable by everyone. Investing in open science today may ensure a brighter future for unborn generations.
From this week's government/NGO section:
Carbon Capture, Usage, and Storage, Committee of Public Accounts, House of Commons, United Kingdom
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (the Department) considers carbon capture, use, and storage (CCUS) as essential for the UK to meet its net-zero targets. In introducing its current CCUS program, it has learned lessons from two previous failed attempts. Progress in introducing the new program has been slow. The Department will need to find alternative ways of reducing emissions if there are further delays in agreeing support for more projects, or if the technology’s performance is not as good as it expects. If the projects are successful, the Department has not considered how it could maximize the financial benefits for taxpayers and consumers. The Department will need to revisit its value–for–money case for supporting CCUS regularly, taking account of changes in the scientific understanding of carbon capture and storage and the impact this may have on the assumptions underpinning its program.
Climate Obstruction. The State and Spread of Climate Disinformation in Canada, Solomun et al., The Centre for Media, Technology, and Democracy
While climate denial historically defined opposition to climate action, the discourse is increasingly shifting into new territory online: climate delayism. These delay tactics leverage discourses that accept the existence of climate change, but downplay its urgency and sow doubt in potential solutions. What’s more, the rapid spread of mis- and disinformation online—and platforms’ inability and recent overt unwillingness to regulate it has supercharged these climate delay narratives. But climate disinformation is not just a social media problem. It operates through a complex and historically situated network of powerful actors with vested interests and is woven into the fabric of Canadian nationhood and identity itself. We need to understand how climate delay and disinformation narratives circulate and find resonance in our broader information ecosystem. To that end, the authors analyze Canadians’ response to prominent climate delay narratives and presents key findings and policy implications for the burgeoning problem of climate disinformation in Canada.
127 articles in 55 journals by 843 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
Can the Marked Arctic Ocean Freshwater Content Increases of the Last Two Decades Be Explained Within Observational Uncertainty?, Le Bras & Timmermans, Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 10.1029/2024jc021061
Deciphering the role of evapotranspiration in declining relative humidity trends over land, Kim & Johnson Johnson, Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-025-02076-9
Long-term variations in pH in coastal waters along the Korean Peninsula, Lee et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-22-675-2025
Read more...
0 comments
Posted on 12 February 2025 by Guest Author
This story was originally published by Capital & Main and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.
Within just a week, the sheer devastation of the Los Angeles wildfires has pushed to the fore fundamental questions about the impact of the climate crisis that have been largely avoided by lawmakers, influencers and the public.
Among them: What is the future of insurance when people’s homes are increasingly located in areas of climate risk — whether wildfires, hurricanes, flooding or the rising sea levels?
Those questions have bedeviled policy makers in California — where insurance giants like State Farm, Farmers, and Allstate announced last year that they were no longer writing new policies in the state due to the surge in wildfires (in 2024 alone, firefighters across the state battled 8,024 wildfires that burned more than 1 million acres and destroyed 2,148 houses and other structures).
Insurers have long been aware of the risk of climate change — rising premiums, increasing losses. In 1973, the German insurance firm Munich Re published a brochure on flooding that it claims was the first use of the term “climate change” in the industry, warning of the growing risk of rising temperatures and increased carbon dioxide in the air. Some 40 years later, the CEO of French insurance giant AXA said it would be impossible to insure a world that is 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 Fahrenheit) warmer.
Nonetheless, insurance companies have become some of the biggest financiers of fossil fuels, which are the primary cause of climate change — the extraction and burning of oil, gas, and coal are responsible for over 75% of greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90% of carbon dioxide emissions.
Fossil fuel companies made up 4.4% of the investment portfolio of the insurance industry in 2023, up from 3.8% nine years earlier. Two insurance giants, Berkshire Hathaway and State Farm, increased their fossil fuel positions by around $200 billion in that period. Overall, however, more than half of the country’s 238 property and casualty insurers recently surveyed by the Wall Street Journal have reduced their investments in oil, gas, and coal over the past decade. But while insurers around the world have restricted their coverage of fossil fuel projects, U.S. companies continue to write policies for conventional oil and gas projects.
Spokespersons for State Farm and Berkshire Hathaway did not respond to requests for comment.
Read more...
0 comments
Posted on 11 February 2025 by BaerbelW
On November 1, 2024 we announced the publication of 33 rebuttals based on the report "Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles" written by Matthew Eisenson, Jacob Elkin, Andy Fitch, Matthew Ard, Kaya Sittinger & Samuel Lavine and published by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School in 2024. Below is the blog post version of rebuttal #15 based on Sabin's report.
Multiple studies have found that the electromagnetic fields (EMFs) generated by wind turbines are lower than those generated by most common household appliances and that they easily meet rigorous international safety standards (McCallum et al. 2014, Alexias et al. 2020, Karanakis et al. 2021). For context, the average home that is not located near power lines has a background level EMF of roughly 0.2 µT1. However, this value varies greatly depending on proximity to certain household appliances1. For example, from a distance of 4 feet, an electric can opener’s EMF is 0.2 µT, but this value increases to 60 µT from a distance of 6 inches2. A 2020 academic study found that the EMF generated by turbines are approximately 0.44 µT at a distance of 1 meter but less than 0.1 µT at a distance of 4 meters, as shown below (Alexias et al. 2020).
Figure 10: The EMF level, measured in microtesla (µT), is shown to drop dramatically with increase in distance from source. Source: Alexias et al. (2020)
These EMF levels are not dependent on wind speeds.
Read more...
3 comments
Arguments
