Arguments
How much faster than inflation average U.S. home (green) and automobile (red) insurance premiums have risen from 2008 through 2024. (Insurance premium data: 
Flames from the Palisades Fire burn a building at Sunset Boulevard amid a powerful windstorm on January 8, 2025 in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The fast-moving wildfire had destroyed thousands of structures and burned more than 15,000 acres by Thursday, January 9. (Photo by Apu Gomes/Getty Images)[Haz clic aquí para leer en español]
The New Year has rung in with one of the most horrific wildfire events in world history: an urban firestorm in the Los Angeles metro area that has killed at least five people and reduced thousands of homes to smoking rubble. Two major fires in excess of 10,000 acres – the Palisades fire in the western suburbs of Los Angeles, and the Eaton fire in the northern suburbs – were intensified by severe drought and driven by winds gusting up to 100 mph (161 km/hr) from a severe Santa Ana wind event.
Climate scientist Daniel Swain said on CNN that the Pacific Palisades fire alone may end up as the most expensive wildfire in history, and that he expected that collectively, the fires ravaging the region will be the costliest wildfire event in history. According to NOAA, the most expensive wildfire season on record (in 2024 USD, to account for inflation) was the $30 billion 2018 season, mostly because of severe fires in California. This included the most destructive wildfire on record – the November Camp Fire, which devastated Paradise, California, killing 85 and destroying over 18,800 buildings. That fire cost $20 billion (2024 USD), according to EM-DAT, making it the most expensive single fire in world history.
2025 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #02
Posted on 12 January 2025 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom
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
- The Risks of Climate Change to the United States in the 21st Century CBO assesses how climate change will pose risks to the United States through its effects on economic activity, real estate and financial markets, human health, biodiversity, immigration, and national security. by Congressional Budget Office, Congressional Budget Office, December 19, 2024
- Climate crisis `wreaking havoc` on Earth`s water cycle, report finds Global heating is supercharging storms, floods and droughts, affecting entire ecosystems and billions of people by Damian Carrington, The Guardian, Jan 06, 2025
- Climate Change Is Making Plants Less Nutritious by Ellen Welti, New Hampshire Bulletin, Jan 02, 2025
- From Snow to Heat, Extreme Weather Events Pose Outsized Risks for Food Delivery Workers As climate change worsens, the people delivering your food are increasingly exposed to heat, wildfire smoke and other dangerous weather events. by Kiley Price, Inside Climate News, Jan 07, 2025
- The Unusually Strong Force Behind the Apocalyptic Fires in Los Angeles “This is not a typical Santa Ana.” by Umair Irfan, Vox, Inside Climate News, Jan 08, 2025
- Where have all the species gone? Understanding climate change`s toll on nature Why land protection and climate action are both vital to the future of plants and animals. by James Arnott and Kaitlin Sullivan, Yale Climate Connections, Jan 09, 2025
- Hottest year on record sent planet past 1.5C of heating for first time in 2024 Highest recorded temperatures supercharged extreme weather – with worse to come, EU data shows by Damian Carrington, The Guardian, Jan 10, 2025
- State of the climate: 2024 sets a new record as the first year above 1.5C Last year was the hottest the Earth has experienced since the start of global temperature records in the mid-1800s – and likely for many thousands of years before. by Zeke Hausfather, Carbon Brief, Jan 10, 2025
- Climate change, not endangered species protection, is a big culprit in Los Angeles fires Recent drought has left the state vulnerable to wildfires. by Johani Carolina Ponce, Yale Climate Connections, Jan 10, 2025
- ‘We’re in a New Era’: How Climate Change Is Supercharging Disasters Extreme weather events — deadly heat waves, floods, fires and hurricanes — are the consequences of a warming planet, scientists say. by David Gelles and Austyn Gaffney, New York Times, Jan 10, 2025
- 2024 Hindsight To no-one’s surprise 2024 was the warmest year on record – and by quite a clear margin. by Gavin Schmidt, RealClimate, Jan 11, 2025
- How the climate crisis fuels devastating wildfires: `We have tweaked nature and pissed it off` John Vaillant, the author of Fire Weather, explains why fires such as those in Los Angeles are different from those before by Victoria Namkung, Environment The Guardian, Jan 11, 2025
Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
- Interactive: How the world is already adapting to climate change by Carbon Brief Staff, Carbon Brief, Jan 07, 2025
- The promises and challenges of the Philippines` new climate-resilient city New Clark City is being built from scratch to withstand extreme weather. Will it be a beacon of hope or a greenwashed illusion? by Maggie Wang, Grist, Jan 08, 2025
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #2 2025
Posted on 9 January 2025 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Large emissions of CO2 and CH4 due to active-layer warming in Arctic tundra, Torn et al., Nature Communications:
Climate warming may accelerate decomposition of Arctic soil carbon, but few controlled experiments have manipulated the entire active layer. To determine surface-atmosphere fluxes of carbon dioxide and methane under anticipated end-of-century warming, here we used heating rods to warm (by 3.8 °C) to the depth of permafrost in polygonal tundra in Utqia?vik (formerly Barrow), Alaska and measured fluxes over two growing seasons. We show that ecosystem respiration is ~30% higher in warmed plots than in control plots (0.99 μmol m−2 s−1 versus 0.67 μmol m−2 s−1, p < 0.0001, n = 79). Additionally, the observed temperature sensitivity (Q10 of 2.8) is higher than that imposed for soil in Earth system models or reported by arctic experiments warming only the surface. A shoulder-season warming experiment revealed that rapid snow melt, which is becoming a more common event, can result in large methane emissions that may have otherwise been oxidized to carbon dioxide. Thus, warming promotes greenhouse gas emissions from the whole, deepening active layer and may contribute to climate change amplification.
Accelerated Permafrost Thaw Linked to Rising River Temperature and Widening Channels, Zhao & Li, Geophysical Research Letters:
River-controlled permafrost dynamics are crucial for sediment transport, infrastructure stability, and carbon cycle, yet are not well understood under climate change. Leveraging remotely sensed datasets, in-situ hydrological observations, and physics-based models, we reveal overall warming and widening rivers across the Tibetan Plateau in recent decades, driving accelerated sub-river permafrost thaw. River temperature of a representative section (Tuotuohe River) on the central Tibetan Plateau, has increased notably (0.39°C/decade) from 1985 to 2017, facilitating heat transfer into the underlying permafrost via both convection and conduction. Consequently, the permafrost beneath rivers warms faster (0.37°C–0.66°C/decade) and has a ∼0.5 m thicker active layer than non-inundated permafrost (0.17°C–0.49°C/decade). With increasing river discharge, the inundated area expands laterally along the riverbed (16.4 m/decade), further accelerating permafrost thaw for previously non-inundated bars. Under future warmer and wetter climate, the anticipated intensification of sub-river permafrost degradation will pose risks to riverine infrastructure and amplify permafrost carbon release.
On the economic feasibility of tidal range power plants, Pappas et al., Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Science:
The potential energy associated with tides presents a sustainable energy resource that remains largely untapped. Uncertainties on the economic case of tidal range power plants are a known obstacle. Research on tidal range structures suggests energy yield may be maximized through operation strategy optimization, and that impacts can be mitigated through design optimization. While instructive, these perspectives alone are insufficient to support the feasibility of individual projects. We integrate operation optimization and hydrodynamic impact analyses within a cost evaluation framework for tidal range structures focusing on capital costs (CAPEX) and levelized cost of energy (LCOE). Once benchmarked against 11 historic proposal cost projections, we perform a redesign of 18 tidal power plants to deliver a comprehensive comparative basis across a diverse range of sites in the UK. Tidal power plant operation is simulated in regional shallow-water equation models, acknowledging tide variability. The cost evaluation framework demonstrates the impact of geospatial variations on key cost components. The redesign process indicates transformative implications in that equivalent and lower LCOE values can be achieved for designs at a substantially lower CAPEX. Given how the latter hinder development, we show how tidal range schemes could be far more economically feasible than commonly perceived.
Rethinking the “Levelized Cost of Energy”: A critical review and evaluation of the concept, Emblemsvåg, Energy Research & Social Science:
The Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) is frequently used for policymaking worldwide, modeling and in assessing the cost competitiveness of technologies, but its formulation is deceptively simple. The result is that many caveats are obscured, but they are important to understand so that LCOE calculations can become more accurate and communicated more correctly to avoid misleading policymakers and decisionmakers. The paper discusses the approach, and how a handful of influential and reputable organizations calculate and communicate the LCOE. The conclusion is that the introduction of variable renewable energy sources into the grid has made the LCOE questionable towards it initial purpose of providing a sound basis for comparison, and most reputed organizations fail to address the issues both computationally and in their communication. However, significant improvements to regain relevance can be made by using realistic assumptions as shown by presenting a reconceptualized version of LCOE and communicate the unsolved shortcomings to stakeholders.
The changing language and sentiment of conversations about climate change in Reddit posts over sixteen years, Fariello & Jemielniak, Communications Earth & Environment:
Here, we analyze 16 years of Reddit discussions, encompassing 11.5 billion posts, to examine how language surrounding climate change has evolved over time from 2005 to 2021. We applied sentiment analysis, polarity, subjectivity, and readability metrics to discussions of “global warming” and “climate change”. We found that the use of “climate change” surpassed “global warming” in 2013, with “climate change” associated with more negative sentiment and higher subjectivity. Additionally, we observed a decline in the proportion of climate-related discussions over time despite the increasing total number of posts. These findings suggest that public engagement with climate topics on Reddit is waning, and the choice of terminology significantly influences the tone and complexity of the discourse. Our results have important implications for how climate issues are communicated and perceived by the public.
Reversal of the impact chain for actionable climate information, Pfleiderer et al., Nature Geoscience:
Escalating impacts of climate change underscore the risks posed by crossing potentially irreversible Earth and socioecological system thresholds and adaptation limits. However, limitations in the provision of actionable climate information may hinder an anticipatory response. Here we suggest a reversal of the traditional impact chain methodology as an end-user focused approach linking specific climate risk thresholds, including at the local level, to emissions pathways. We outline the socioeconomic and value judgement dimensions that can inform the identification of such risk thresholds. The applicability of the approach is highlighted by three examples that estimate the required CO2 emissions constraints to avoid critical levels of health-related heat risks in Berlin, fire weather in Portugal and glacier mass loss in High Mountain Asia. We argue that linking risk threshold exceedance directly to global emissions benchmarks can aid the understanding of the benefits of stringent emissions reductions for societies and local decision-makers.
From this week's government/NGO section:
Fueling the crisis. Climate consequences of the 2021 infrastructure law, Salerno et al., Transporation for America
In November 15, 2021, President Joe Biden signed the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) into law. The IIJA included a five-year transportation authorization for U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) programs, plus a standalone infrastructure law representing the largest-ever infusion ($643 billion over five years) of federal funding for surface transportation, including highways, roads, and bridges. The White House hailed the IIJA as “a once-in-a-generation investment in our nation’s infrastructure and competitiveness,” along with making lofty promises that it would “repair and rebuild our roads and bridges with a focus on climate change mitigation, resilience, equity, and safety for all users.” Three years into this investment of infrastructure dollars, has that turned out to be the case? The authors extrapolate that states’ federal formula-funded investments made over the course of the IIJA could cumulatively increase emissions by nearly 190 million metric tonnes of emissions over baseline levels through 2040 from added driving. This is the emission equivalent of 500 natural gas-fired power plants or nearly 50 coal-fired power plants running for a year.“
Europe's state of water 2024. The need for improved water resilience, European Environment Agency
Europe's water is under significant pressure, presenting serious challenges to water security, now and in the future. As such, Europe urgently needs to improve its resilience and ensure sustainable freshwater supplies for people and the environment. Water stress is already occurring in Europe. It affects 20% of Europe's territory and 30% of the population every year, figures that are likely to increase in the future due to climate change. As climate change unfolds in Europe, managing flood risk affordably and sustainably will become increasingly important. Intense rainfall has already increased in parts of Europe, leading to floods and growing flood risks. Flooding affects human well-being and ecosystems, with potential loss of life and significant economic losses.
148 articles in 51 journals by 1047 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
Changes in Teleconnection Patterns and Land–Atmosphere Coupling Amplify the Spring–Early Summer Heatwaves Over Southwestern China, Zheng et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.8732
Changes in urban heat island intensity with background temperature and humidity and their associations with near-surface thermodynamic processes, Park et al., Urban Climate Open Access 10.1016/j.uclim.2024.102191
Exploring the drivers of modern global warming
Posted on 8 January 2025 by Zeke Hausfather
This is a re-post from the Climate Brink
Global surface temperatures have risen around 1.3C since the preindustrial (1850-1900) period as a result of human activity.1 However, this aggregate number masks a lot of underlying factors that contribute to global surface temperature changes over time.
These include CO2, which is the primary driver of long-term warming, as well as non-CO2 greenhouse gases like CH4, N2O, and halocarbons. But it also includes planet-cooling aerosols that have masked a sizable portion of the warming of our greenhouse gas emissions to-date. Rounding out the list are other anthropogenic factors (tropospheric ozone, albedo changes due to land use change), and natural forcings (primarily volcanic eruptions and variations in solar output).
To disentangle the respective contributions of each of these requires a climate model. Here I will be using the latest version of FaIR, a reduced complexity climate model that has been used extensively by the community for assessing global-level changes. The implementation of FaIR used here is specifically designed to reproduce both observed climate change since pre-industrial and assessed climate metrics from the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). This approach has the advantage of providing robust uncertainties that reflect the range of relevant parameters (e.g. climate sensitivity, carbon cycle feedback strength, ocean heat uptake rates, etc.) in-line with the ranges in the AR6.
However, unlike the climate simulations featured in the AR6, which only use climate forcings based on real-world observations through 2014 and explore different scenarios (SSPs) thereafter, these simulations use observationally-informed forcing estimate through the end of 2023 from Forster et al 2024. This has the advantage of allowing us to explore how actual changes in real-world emissions (e.g. including factors like rapid Chinese aerosol declines and low-sulfur shipping rules) have impacted global temperatures.
The figure below shows the output of 841 different emission-driven FaIR model runs across the range of constrained parameter values. It simulates both the global surface temperature response to all forcings (in yellow), as well as estimates of each forcing in isolation (calculated by comparing the difference between runs containing all forcings and those excluding one type of forcing).
Sabin 33 #10 - Will utility-scale solar farms destroy the value of nearby homes?
Posted on 7 January 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 #10 based on Sabin's report.
Data across multiple studies show that utility-scale solar projects do not have major impacts on the values of surrounding properties1. Rather, the installation of a solar farm typically has only a minor impact on the value of homes closest to it. The most comprehensive study to date, which examined over 1.8 million home transactions near 1,500 large-scale photovoltaic projects across six states, found relatively minor impacts on property values (Elmallah et al. 2023). Homes located within 0.5 miles of solar farms were found to experience price reductions of 1.5%, compared to properties 2–4 miles away. Homes located more than 1 mile from a solar farm were found to experience no statistically significant effect on its price. Similarly, a 2020 study examining 400,000 transactions around 208 utility-scale solar installations in Massachusetts and Rhode Island found a 1.7% decrease in property value for homes located within 1 mile of a project2. These declines were concentrated in suburban areas, where there is more competition for space. In rural communities there was no impact on property values. Other studies have also found that utility-scale solar farms have a greater impact on property values in areas with higher residential population density3.
Yet other studies have found that solar panels can have a neutral or even a positive impact on home values. A 2018 study of solar farms in Indiana and Illinois found “no consistent negative impact” to the value of adjacent properties “that could be attributed to proximity to the adjacent solar farm4.” Instead, the researchers discovered that properties within 1,320 feet of solar farms sold by an average of 1.92% more than comparable properties that were not located near any solar farms. Another 2018 study examined 956 U.S. solar projects installed before 2016 and found a majority of these projects had a neutral impact on property values.
By contrast, a separate study found that the presence of a fossil fuel fired power plant within 2 miles of one’s home decreased its value by 4–7%, with the largest decreases within 1 mile and for high-capacity plants (Davis 2011). In that study, 92% of the power plants surveyed were fueled by natural gas.
Climate news to watch in 2025
Posted on 6 January 2025 by dana1981
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections
Much like 2023, many climate and energy records were broken in 2024.
It was Earth’s hottest year on record by a wide margin, breaking the previous record that was set just last year by an even larger margin. Human-caused climate-warming pollution and atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations reached new heights. But the record deployment of clean technology solutions in 2024 prevented emissions from rising even higher yet.
Scientists found many other planetary vital signs also at record levels, including ocean acidity, sea level rise, ice cover, heat-related mortality rates, meat production, and loss of forest cover. But they also noted that the level of global deforestation due directly to human activities in places like the Brazilian Amazon is declining, fewer organizations are investing in fossil fuel company stocks, and more countries are charging a price for the climate-warming emissions from an increasing number of economic sectors.
In short, 2024 saw a mixed bag of worrying climate records combined with some advances in policy solutions. But the U.S. election results narrowed the window of possible climate progress in the coming years.
2024 was a hot year for the climate – and clean energy
When the final data is in, 2024 will easily break the record for Earth’s hottest annual average global surface temperature. That record was set in 2023, which easily broke the previous record set in 2016 and tied in 2020. Climate change also played a role in worsening many extreme weather disasters in 2024.
1985–2024 global average surface temperature categorized by years with a significant La Niña cooling influence (blue), El Niño warming influence (red), neutral conditions (black), and those with a cooling influence from a recent large volcanic eruption (orange triangles). (Data: NASA. Graphic: Dana Nuccitelli.)
2025 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #01
Posted on 5 January 2025 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom
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
- A year of extreme weather that challenged billions Climate change has brought record-breaking heat this year, and with it extreme weather, from hurricanes to month-long droughts. by Esme Stellard, BBC News, Dec 29, 2024
- Climate change is the worst. Here's just how bad it got this year. The big news in Earth science this year was all about climate change, with extreme weather, flooding and drought attributed to warming. Scientists also warned about much worse to come if we don't rein in carbon emissions. by Hannah Osborne, Livescience, Dec 27, 2024
- 2024`s most costly climate disasters killed 2,000 people and caused $229bn in damages, data shows Analysis of insurance payouts by Christian Aid reveals three-quarters of financial destruction occurred in US by Jonathan Watts, The Guardian, Dec 30, 2024
- 2024: A Year In Climate Change by Simon Clark, Youtube, Dec 30, 2024
- `Moving to the mountaintops`: rising seas displace tens of thousands in Papua New Guinea Gulf province councillor says growing numbers are leaving, in what climate activist describes as a ‘humanitarian crisis’ by Rebecca Bush, The Guardian, Dec 31, 2024
- Human-induced changes increasing amount of natural carbon released by Rod Minchin, Irish Examiner, Jan 01, 2025
- Climate news to watch in 2025 2024 was a mixed bag for climate change. Here’s what’s on the horizon for 2025. by Dana Nuccitelli, Yale Climate Connections, Jan 02, 2025
- `Ironic`: climate-driven sea level rise will overwhelm major oil ports, study shows Ports including in Saudi Arabia and the US projected to be seriously damaged by a metre of sea level rise by Damian Carrington, The Guardian, Jan 04, 2025
Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
- True Or False? Better Diesel Fuel Economy Is An Efficient Form Of Decarbonization How should we understand claims about better fuel efficiency being ''decarbonization?'' Here's a primer. by Carolyn Fortuna, CleanTechnica, Dec 30, 2024
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #1 2025
Posted on 2 January 2025 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Why Misinformation Must Not Be Ignored, Ecker et al., American Psychologist:
Recent academic debate has seen the emergence of the claim that misinformation is not a significant societal problem. We argue that the arguments used to support this minimizing position are flawed, particularly if interpreted (e.g., by policymakers or the public) as suggesting that misinformation can be safely ignored. Here, we rebut the two main claims, namely that misinformation is not of substantive concern (a) due to its low incidence and (b) because it has no causal influence on notable political or behavioral outcomes. Through a critical review of the current literature, we demonstrate that (a) the prevalence of misinformation is nonnegligible if reasonably inclusive definitions are applied and that (b) misinformation has causal impacts on important beliefs and behaviors. Both scholars and policymakers should therefore continue to take misinformation seriously.
Recent ice melt above a mantle plume track is accelerating the uplift of Southeast Greenland, Weerdesteijn & Conrad Conrad, Communications Earth & Environment:
Around the periphery of the Greenland ice sheet, satellite-based observations of ground uplift record Earth’s response to past and recent unloading of Greenland’s ice mass. On the southeast coast, near the Kangerlussuaq glacier, rapid uplift exceeding 12 mm/yr cannot be explained using current layered Earth deformation models. Here we find that 3D models with a weakened Earth structure, consistent with the passage of Greenland over the Iceland plume, can explain the rapid uplift of Southeast Greenland. This uplift is dominated by a viscous response that is accelerated by the low viscosities of the hot plume track. Recent mass loss, occurring during the last millennium and especially within the past few decades, drives most of the uplift. Holocene indicators recorded similarly rapid uplift following deglaciation that ended the last ice age. Such rapid uplift, occurring beneath marine terminating glaciers, can affect the future stability of entire ice catchment areas and will become increasingly important in the near future as deglaciation accelerates.
An intensification of surface Earth’s energy imbalance since the late 20th century, Li et al., Communications Earth & Environment:
Tracking the energy balance of the Earth system is a key method for studying the contribution of human activities to climate change. However, accurately estimating the surface energy balance has long been a challenge, primarily due to uncertainties that dwarf the energy flux changes induced and a lack of precise observational data at the surface. We have employed the Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) method, integrating it with recent developments in surface solar radiation observational data, to refine the ensemble of CMIP6 model outputs. This has resulted in an enhanced estimation of Surface Earth System Energy Imbalance (EEI) changes since the late 19th century. Our findings show that CMIP6 model outputs, constrained by this observational data, reflect changes in energy imbalance consistent with observations in Ocean Heat Content (OHC), offering a narrower uncertainty range at the 95% confidence level than previous estimates. Observing the EEI series, dominated by changes due to external forcing, we note a relative stability (0.22 Wm−2) over the past half-century, but with a intensification (reaching 0.80 Wm−2) in the mid to late 1990s, indicating an escalation in the adverse impacts of global warming and climate change, which provides another independent confirmation of what recent studies have shown.
A mid-20th century stratigraphical Anthropocene is recognisable in the birth-area of the industrial revolution, Sellers et al., The Anthropocene Review:
The formalisation of the Anthropocene as a subdivision of the Geological Time Scale has been under debate. Its stratigraphic boundary has been proposed as a precise Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) in the mid-20th century, but it is part of an episode of human-induced changes to the Earth System that have unfolded over millennia. Here we attempt to identify stratigraphical patterns of the Anthropocene from a previously well studied lake sedimentary archive from the English Midlands, located in one of the most heavily human-modified landscapes in the UK, and the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. Our analysis is predicated on the sedimentary succession of Groby Pool, a small lake situated to the immediate northwest of Leicester. We have found that whilst proxy signals for biotic change are indicative of significant landscape and consequent ecological changes prior to the 20th century, the signal from radiogenic fallout and rapid increase in spheroidal carbonaceous particles indicative of fossil-fuel combustion yield a clear mid and later 20th century stratigraphical signature that corresponds with the Great Acceleration of the post-WWII period. We therefore demonstrate clear stratigraphical signatures in the oldest Industrial Revolution landscape on Earth that are consistent with a mid-20th century start point for the Anthropocene.
From this week's government/NGO section:
The Risks of Climate Change to the United States in the 21st Century, Nielsen et al., Congressional Budget Office
The economic effects of climate change will depend on the extent of its physical effects. Those effects are highly uncertain. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2100, there is a 5 percent chance that average global temperatures will be more than 4 degrees Celsius (4°C) warmer than they were in the latter half of the 19th century and an equal chance that they will have risen by less than 2°C. In the United States, sea levels have a 5 percent chance of rising by about 4 feet or more by 2100 and an equal chance of rising by about 2 feet or less. Damage from natural disasters is also expected to increase. The uncertainty of climate change’s physical effects implies a wide range of possible economic consequences, ranging from benign to catastrophic. In this report, CBO focuses, where possible, on the 5th and 95th percentiles of the distributions of potential outcomes. The authors examine the possible economic effects of climate change on gross domestic product (GDP), real estate markets, and other areas that influence the economy and the federal budget.
When Risks Become Reality: Extreme Weather In 2024, Otto et al., World Weather Attribution
Every December, we’re asked if it was a bad year for extreme weather. The answer is increasingly clear: yes. The authors look back at 2024, highlighting the devastating consequences of climate change and exposing our collective unpreparedness again and again in the 29 extremes that were studied in depth. Heatwaves continue to claim lives, floods devastate communities, and droughts obliterate crops and livelihoods. Although El Niño made some extreme weather events more likely, its influence on extreme weather was often over-emphasised.
Counting the Cost 2024. A year of climate breakdown, Joe Ware and Oliver Pearce, Christian Aid
This year's Counting the Cost report reveals the shocking cost of the world's worst claimed disasters. These climate disasters serve as a stark warning of what lies ahead if we fail to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels. They also highlight the critical need for adaptation measures, particularly in the Global South, where resources are limited, and communities face heightened vulnerability to extreme weather events. The analysis list features disasters featured in the news from all over the world – from U.S. storms like Hurricane Milton and Helene, to the China, Bavaria, and Valencia floods.
93 articles in 44 journals by 646 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
Future increase in compound soil drought-heat extremes exacerbated by vegetation greening, Li et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-024-55175-0
The forgotten story of Jimmy Carter’s White House solar panels
Posted on 1 January 2025 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by John Wihbey. A version of this article first appeared on Yale Climate Connections on Nov. 11, 2008.
(Image credits: The White House, Jonathan Cutrer / CC BY 2.0; President Jimmy Carter, Trikosko/Library of Congress; Solar dedication, Bill Fitz-Patrick / Jimmy Carter Library; Solar panel installation film, Department of Energy)
The glass, aluminum, and stainless steel panels reclined at low angles and basked in the sun as the men in suits and ties, flanked by reporters, took to the West Wing roof to look at what they thought was the future. That day, June 20, 1979, was clear enough for the sun to bring out a bright reflection on the panels, and for shadows of those on the roof to be drawn dark and tight around them.
For President Jimmy Carter, it had been nearly three years of tough fighting for clean energy. After a long rollout of green tax credits, the creation of a nascent Energy Department, and a pledge to conduct the “moral equivalent of war” (at the time, spoofed by critics as “MEOW”) against an energy crisis, Carter had built up scars. And there would be more to come. He had had battles with Congress and with his political enemies over green issues. But he had some victories, too, and this day brought one more, a small moment of symbolism.
Solar panels, some 32 of them, were on the roof of the White House. The set was just right — the sun had come out for the press as though for a stage call. Tape rolled, the cameras snapped.
Self-conscious about his idealism, or perhaps just realistic, the president gave voice to his doubts about the panels: “A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.”
The point of all this was simple, Carter said. America was to harness “the power of the sun to enrich our lives as we move away from our crippling dependence on foreign oil.”
Carter was a person of simplicity, of conservation; he was also sort of an oddball, a hybrid, an anti-political Christian proto-green who had donned a cardigan sweater, lowered the White House thermostat, and declared “Sun Day” on May 3, 1978.
A year later he had his panels.
Sabin 33 #9 - Will reliance on solar make the United States dependent on China and other countries?
Posted on 31 December 2024 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 #9 based on Sabin's report.
Although the United States still imports a majority of the solar panels it installs, domestic solar manufacturing is on the rise, especially following passage of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)1. In 2022, the United States manufactured approximately 10% more solar panels than in 20212. This share is likely to grow as manufacturers take advantage of IIJA and IRA incentives to open factories in the United States3. In addition, as previously noted, roughly 65% of today’s U.S. solar production jobs are in project development and 6% are in operations or maintenance, most of which cannot be outsourced4.
Finally, to the extent that there are concerns that solar energy will increase the United States’ dependence on China specifically, it bears noting that China is no longer a major source of solar panel imports—at least not directly5. Tariffs imposed by the U.S. government in 2012 on Chinese-sourced solar panels have considerably diminished China’s status as a principal U.S. supplier. In 2022, approximately 77% of U.S. solar panel imports came from four countries: Vietnam (37%), Thailand (17%), Malaysia (16%) and Cambodia (7%). While the U.S. Department of Commerce found that companies in these four countries have been incorporating Chinese-sourced materials without paying corresponding tariffs, the U.S. Government has taken measures to crack down on noncompliance6. In particular, the U.S. Government now requires, as of June 2024, that solar manufacturers exporting from these countries to the U.S. certify their compliance with all relevant trade rules, subject to potential audit7.
2024 in review - a bittersweet year for our team
Posted on 30 December 2024 by BaerbelW
The year 2024 at Skeptical Science has been bittersweet. We are incredibly proud of the progress we've made in debunking climate myths, thanks in large part to the tireless efforts of our late colleague John Mason. John passed away unexpectedly in September, leaving a huge void in our team. This post is a tribute to his immense contributions and the lasting impact he'll have on climate science education for years to come.
As in previous recaps, this one is divided into several sections:
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2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #52
Posted on 29 December 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom
This week's roundup is the second one 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 could create millions of climate migrants by 2050 Droughts, floods, sea level rise, and other climate change impacts are uprooting people from their homes. by YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, Dec 26, 2024
- 2024: A year of extreme heat and growing climate danger This year is set to be the hottest on record – but scientists say there’s still time to limit temperature rise and harm from climate impacts by Megan Rowling, Climate Home News, Dec 27, 2024
- When Risks Become Reality: Extreme Weather In 2024 When Risks Become Reality: Extreme Weather in 2024 is our annual report, published this year for the first time. by WWA-Team, World Weather Attribution, Dec 27, 2024
- California's piers may not be able to withstand climate change by Noah Haggerty, Climate , Dec 28, 2024
Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
- Uruguay, pioneer in renewable energy: a model for the world? The country is a global leader in the transition toward green energy, following a radical transformation of its energy mix. by Johani Carolina Ponce, Yale Climate Connections, Dec 18, 2024
Climate education and communication
- How to teach climate change so 15-year-olds can act OECD’s Pisa program will measure the ability of students to take action in response to climate anxiety and ‘take their position and role in the global world’ by Petra Stock, The Guardian, Dec 23, 2024
- Is silence golden? What a change expert says about family climate conversations at Christmas time Do you engage with climate deniers that come your way this Christmas? And if so, what’s the best way to do it? by Jen Marsden, Euro News, Dec 22, 2024
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #52 2024
Posted on 26 December 2024 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Trends in Oceanic Precipitation Characteristics Inferred From Shipboard Present-Weather Reports, 1950–2019, Tran & Petty, Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres:
Although ship reports are susceptible to subjective interpretation, the inferred distributions of these phenomena are consistent with observations from other platforms such as satellites and coastal surface stations. These distributions highlight widespread 70-year trends that are often consistent across both annual and seasonal frequencies, with statistical significance at 95% confidence. The relative frequency of ship-reported drizzle has largely increased in the tropics annually and seasonally, with linear best-fit relative increases by as much as 15% per decade. Decreased relative frequencies have been observed in parts of the subtropics and at higher latitudes. Heavier precipitation has encompassed a growing fraction of non-drizzle precipitation reports over the subtropical North Pacific and Mediterranean. The relative frequency of thunderstorm reports has declined over the open Atlantic but show positive trends over the Mediterranean and the western Atlantic. The trends in relative frozen precipitation occurrence suggest a poleward retreat of areas receiving frozen precipitation in the Northern Hemisphere. Possible mechanisms for these ship-observed trends are discussed and placed in the context of the modeled effects of climate change on global precipitation.
Increase Asymmetric Warming Rates Between Daytime and Nighttime Temperatures Over Global Land During Recent Decades, Liu et al., Geophysical Research Letters:
Global climate change is causing uneven warming patterns, which significantly affect how ecosystems exchange water and carbon. One important way to understand this is through the diurnal temperature range (DTR), which measures the difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures. In this study, we examined DTR changes globally from 1961 to 2022 using a method called ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD). We discovered that the overall trend in DTR reversed around 1988, changing from a decline to an increase, which affected nearly half of the world's land areas. Subsequent to the reversal, the most pronounced increases were observed in temperate regions, whereas tropical areas exhibited a more subdued rate of rise. Interestingly, we found that the rate of increase in DTR is stronger in southern latitudes compared to northern latitudes.
Near-term carbon dioxide removal deployment can minimize disruptive pace of decarbonization and economic risks towards United States’ net-zero goal, Adun et al., Communications Earth & Environment:
Deep decarbonization is essential for achieving the Paris Agreement goals, and carbon dioxide removal is required to address residual emissions and achieve net-zero targets. However, the implications of delaying the deployment of removal technologies remain unclear. We quantify how different carbon removal methods and their deployment timing affect achieving net zero emissions by 2050 in the United States. Our findings show that postponing novel technologies until mid-century forces accelerated decarbonization of energy-intensive sectors, reducing residual emissions by at least 12% compared with near-term deployment of carbon dioxide removal. This delay increases transition costs, requiring carbon prices 59–79% higher than with near-term deployment. It also heightens the risk of premature fossil fuel retirement in the electricity sector, leading to 128–220 billion USD losses compared to gradual scale up starting now. A balanced, near-term co-deployment of novel removal methods mitigates risks associated with relying on a single approach and addresses sustainability and scalability concerns.
A New Heat Stress Index for Climate Change Assessment, Lanzante, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society:
The heat index (HI), based on Steadman’s model of thermoregulation, estimates heat stress on the human body from ambient temperature and humidity. It has been used widely both in applications, such as the issuance of heat advisories by the National Weather Service (NWS) and for research on possible changes in the future due to climate change. However, temperature/humidity combinations that exceed the applicable range of the model are becoming more common due to climate warming. Recent work by Lu and Romps has produced an extended heat index (EHI), which is valid for values outside the range of the original HI. For these values, the HI can underestimate the EHI by a considerable amount. This work utilizes observed data from 15 U.S. weather stations along with bias-adjusted output from a climate model to explore the spatial and temporal aspects of the disparity between the HI and the EHI from the recent past out to the end of the twenty-first century. The underestimate of human heat stress by the HI is found to be the largest for the most extreme cases (5°–10°C), which are also the most impactful. Conditions warranting NWS excessive heat warnings are found to increase dramatically from less than 5% of days historically at most stations to more than 90% in the future at some stations.
Climate extremes and risks: links between climate science and decision-making, Sillmann et al., Frontiers in Climate
The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) envisions a future where actionable climate information is universally accessible, supporting decision makers in preparing for and responding to climate change. In this perspective, we advocate for enhancing links between climate science and decision-making through a better and more decision-relevant understanding of climate impacts. The proposed framework comprises three pillars: climate science, impact science, and decision-making, focusing on generating seamless climate information from sub-seasonal, seasonal, decadal to century timescales informed by observed climate events and their impacts.
From this weeks government/NGO section:
Balancing Act. Assessing Risks and Governance of Climate Intervention, Porambo et al., Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University
Nations, organizations, and individuals may soon look to climate intervention, also known as geoengineering, as a means to avoid the most severe effects of climate change. Despite the hope that climate intervention may prevent the increasingly dire climate change projections from becoming reality, the efficacy of many climate intervention methods remains uncertain. Moreover, many methods pose their own risks to the environment, global ecosystems, and critical human systems. These uncertainties and risks, when combined with the relatively few barriers to unilateral deployment for many methods, drive the need for national and international regulation of climate intervention research, testing, development, and deployment. The authors summarize the effects of two controversial climate intervention methods—stratospheric aerosol injection and ocean iron fertilization—on national security, considering their abilities to both stop and reverse the effects of climate change and the possible direct, unintended environmental changes. It then examines governance principles for climate intervention from a combined national security and technical perspective, deriving principles for addressing climate intervention research, governance, and possible use and making recommendations for the path forward.
Producer perceptions of environmental sustainability and climate change. 2024 national poll of farmers and ranchers, Leger, Farmers for Climate Solutions
When farmers and ranchers were asked an open-ended question—at the very beginning of the poll—about the top challenge for the agricultural sector for the next decade, climate change was the number one answer. 76% of farmers and ranchers report being impacted by severe weather in the past five years. Producers are worried that climate change will bring more restrictive policies and regulations, reduce income and yields, and negatively affect their mental health. 87% of farmers and ranchers consider themselves good stewards of the land, and 47% feel they can do more to improve environmental outcomes in their operations. Producers want a range of supports to adopt high resilience, low emissions practices, including technical support and training, financial incentives, risk management tools, and price premiums for sustainable products.
139 articles in 52 journals by 858 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
Estimated human-induced warming from a linear temperature and atmospheric CO2 relationship, Jarvis & Forster, Nature Geoscience Open Access 10.1038/s41561-024-01580-5
Impact of Canadian wildfires on aerosol and ice clouds in the early-autumn Arctic, Sato et al., Atmospheric Research Open Access 10.1016/j.atmosres.2024.107893
Irreversible changes in the sea surface temperature threshold for tropical convection to CO2 forcing, Park et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-024-01751-7
Climate Adam: 2024 Through the Eyes of a Climate Scientist
Posted on 25 December 2024 by Guest Author
This video includes personal musings and conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any).
2024 has been a series of bad news for climate change. From scorching global temperatures leading to devastating extreme weather, to the rise of climate denying politicians and directionless negotiations. As global warming approaches 1.5 degrees, I thought it was vital to break down how this year has affected me - a climate scientist working on the topic for over a decade. So I'm sharing some of the lessons I've learned, and why the last thing we should be doing right now is despairing.
Support ClimateAdam on patreon: https://patreon.com/climateadam
Sabin 33 #8 - Will solar development destroy jobs?
Posted on 24 December 2024 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 #8 based on Sabin's report.
Solar development creates significantly more jobs per unit of energy generated than other types of energy production, including natural gas1. Moreover, the number of jobs created by the renewable energy industry, including solar, is expected to far exceed the number lost due to a shift away from fossil fuels. The United States’ Fifth National Climate Assessment predicts that there will be nearly 3,000,000 new solar, wind, and transmission-related jobs by 2050 in a high electrification scenario and 6,000,000 new jobs in a 100% renewable scenario, with less than 1,000,000 fossil fuel-related jobs lost2.
Figure 1: Energy employment from 2020 to 2050 under various U.S. net-zero GHG emissions scenarios. Source: U.S. Global Change Research Program.
As of 2022, the solar industry supported approximately 346,143 U.S. jobs, including 175,302 construction jobs and 44,875 manufacturing jobs, with numbers generally increasing each year3. In addition, most of these jobs cannot be outsourced. Roughly 65% of today’s U.S. solar energy jobs are in project development and 6% are in operations or maintenance, most of which cannot be exported4. The number of jobs in solar energy also exceeds those in the fossil fuel generation industries. In Kentucky, for example, there are now eight times as many jobs in clean energy, including solar, as coal mining5. Throughout the United States, there are roughly 5.4 times as many jobs in solar alone than in coal, and there are roughly 1.78 times as many jobs in solar than in coal, gas, and oil generation combined.
Domestic job growth in solar production and related industries has been further accelerated by recent federal legislation, including the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which collectively provide more than $60 billion to support clean energy manufacturing, primarily with domestic supply chains6. In response, manufacturers have announced plans to build multibillion dollar solar panel manufacturing facilities and related battery manufacturing facilities in the United States that will employ thousands of workers7. At a smaller scale, the emerging solar recycling industry has also begun to create jobs8.
Uruguay, pioneer in renewable energy: a model for the world?
Posted on 23 December 2024 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Johani Carolina Ponce
Tacuarembó, Uruguay. (Image credit: Getty Images)
[Haz clic aquí para leer en español]
It has a population of just under 3.5 million inhabitants, produces nearly 550,000 tons of beef per year, and boasts a glorious soccer reputation with two World Cups in its history and a present full of world-class stars. Uruguay, the country of writer Mario Benedetti and soccer player Luis Suárez, has achieved what many countries have pledged for decades: 98% of its grid runs on green energy.
Luis Prats, 62, is a Uruguayan journalist and contributor to the Montevideo newspaper El País. He remembers that during his childhood, blackouts were common in Uruguay because there were major problems with energy generation.
“At that time, more than 50 years ago, electricity came from two small dams and from generation in a thermal plant,” Prats explained in Spanish by telephone. “If there was a drought in the Negro River basin, where those dams are, there were already cuts and sometimes restrictions on the use of electrical energy.”
Just 17 years ago, Uruguay used fossil fuels for a third of its energy generation, according to the World Resources Institute.
Today, only 2% of the electricity consumed in Uruguay is generated from fossil sources. The country’s thermal power plants rarely need to be activated, except when natural resources are insufficient.
Half of Uruguay’s electricity is generated in the country’s dams, and 10% percent comes from agricultural and industrial waste and the sun. But wind, at 38%, is the main protagonist of the revolution in the electrical grid. But how did the country achieve it? Who were the architects of this energy transition?
2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #51
Posted on 22 December 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
Based on feedback we received, this week's roundup is the first one 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
- How much should you worry about a collapse of the Atlantic conveyor belt? Scientists warned recently that the risk “has so far been greatly underestimated.” by Bob Henson, Yale Climate Connections, Dec 11, 2024
- Shrinking wings, bigger beaks: Birds are reshaping themselves in a warming world by Sara Ryding, Alexandra McQueen and Matthew Symonds, Phys.org - reposted from The Conversation, Dec 16, 2024
- New data shows just how bad the climate insurance crisis has become Two congressional reports make clear that, with increasingly frequent hurricanes, floods, and fires, "the model of insurance as it stands right now isn't working." by Tik Root, Grist, Dec 19, 2024
Climate Law and Justice
- New Report Shows a Surge in European SLAPP Suits as Fossil Fuel Industry Works to Obstruct Climate Action But experts say these “abusive” lawsuits, which are designed to demoralize and drain resources from activists, should be fought, not feared. by Stella Levantesi, DeSmog, Dec 17, 2024
- Montana top court upholds landmark youth climate ruling Montana's Supreme Court upholds a lower court's decision siding with 16 youngsters arguing that the state violated their right to a clean environment. by Max Matza, BBC News, Dec 19, 2024
- Montana Supreme Court backs youth plaintiffs in groundbreaking climate trial by Ellis Juhlin, NPR - Montana Public Radio, Dec 18, 2024
Climate Policy and Politics
- Anxious scientists brace for Trump`s climate denialism: `We have a target on our backs` Experts express fear – and resilience – as they prepare for president-elect’s potential attacks on climate research by Oliver Milman, The Guardian, Dec 15, 2024
- 6 Fracking Billionaires and Climate Denial Groups Behind Trump`s Cabinet Trump’s nominees are backed by major players in the world of climate obstruction – from Project 2025 and Koch network fixtures to oil-soaked Christian nationalists. by Joe Fassler, DeSmog, Dec 16, 2024
- A new podcast explores the `hot mess` of climate politics Podcast from Citizen's Climate Lobby talks about how the world of climate facts bridges political divides. by Flannery Winchester, Citizens' Climate Lobby, Dec 18, 2024
- Tim Ryan is a paid fossil fuel mouthpiece Creating an atmosphere of confusion is a well-rewarded job of work, according to this article. by Emily Atkin, HEATED, Dec 12, 2024
- Carbon tax had 'negligible' impact on inflation, new study says University of Calgary professors find that prices are only 0.5% higher due to carbon tax and other measures by Peter Zimonjic, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Dec 12, 2024
- Nigel Farage Helps to Launch U.S. Climate Denial Group in UK The Heartland Institute, which questions human-made climate change, has established a new branch in London by Sam Bright, DeSmog, Dec 19, 2024
