Peor de lo esperado +

Referencias complementarias a las seleccionadas en el texto-serie «Peor de lo esperado«.

Listado en bruto desde 2005 hasta octubre de 2020 de referencias relacionadas con informaciones o papers referidas a peor de lo esperado relativos a distintos parámetros físicos, biológicos o económicos. Nótese la evolución a peor de muchos de ellos a lo largo de distintos eslabones de empeoramiento.

Nota. La condición “en bruto” significa que algunos conceptos pueden estar repetidos por referirse a la misma cuestión. En estos casos suelen ser informaciones periodísticas referidas a un mismo paper o informe. Significa también que no se han eliminado las que constan en las referencias seleccionadas para el texto.

Última actualización: octubre 2020

Editorial: – Climate change threat may be underestimated – New Scientist – 12/02/2005 – http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18524863.400-editorial-climate-change-threat-may-be-underestimated.html – “The good news for climate sceptics is that a speaker at a major British conference on climate change agreed that arch-sceptic Pat Michaels had a point. The bad news is that it was Myles Allen, the Oxford physicist who recently grabbed the headlines by suggesting that 11 °C of warming could be in the pipeline.”

James C. Orr et al (2005) – Anthropogenic ocean acidification over the twenty-first century and its impact on calcifying organisms – Nature 437:681-668 doi:10.1038/nature04095 – 29/09/2005 – Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, UMR CEA-CNRS – 27 autores “Here we use 13 models of the ocean–carbon cycle to assess calcium carbonate saturation under the IS92a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario for future emissions of anthropogenic carbon dioxide. In our projections, Southern Ocean surface waters will begin to become undersaturated with respect to aragonite, a metastable form of calcium carbonate, by the year 2050. By 2100, this undersaturation could extend throughout the entire Southern Ocean and into the subarctic Pacific Ocean. When live pteropods were exposed to our predicted level of undersaturation during a two-day shipboard experiment, their aragonite shells showed notable dissolution. Our findings indicate that conditions detrimental to high-latitude ecosystems could develop within decades, not centuries as suggested previously.”

Francesco Bostello et al (2006) – Economy-wide estimates of the implications of climate change: Human health – Ecological Economics 58:579–591 – 13/10/2005 – Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei – http://users.ictp.it/~eee/workshops/smr1651b/bosello.pdf – 3 autores «We study the economic impacts of climate-change-induced change in human health, viz. cardiovascular and respiratory disorders, diarrhoea, malaria, dengue fever and schistosomiasis. Changes in morbidity and mortality are interpreted as changes in labour productivity and demand for health care, and used to shock the GTAP-E computable general equilibrium model, calibrated for the year 2050. GDP, welfare and investment fall (rise) in regions with net negative (positive) health impacts. Prices, production, and terms of trade show a mixed pattern. Direct cost estimates, common in climate change impact studies, underestimate the true welfare losses.»

– Titanic sunk faster than thought – Phys Org – 12/12/2005 – http://phys.org/news/2005-12-titanic-sunk-faster-thought.html – “After visiting the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in August 2005, scientists have discovered that Titanic took just five minutes to sink – much faster than previously thought. The scientists also discovered that after hitting an iceberg, the ship split into three pieces. During their visit they found two large pieces of the ship’s hull half a kilometer away from the stern.”

Peter N. Spotts – Little time to avoid big thaw, scientists warn – The Christian Science Monitor – 24/03/2006 – http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0324/p01s03-sten.html – “Ice on Greenland and Antarctica is already thinning faster than it’s being replaced – and faster than scientists thought it would, notes Richard Alley, a paleoclimatologist at Penn State University and member of one of the research teams. Only five years ago, he notes, climate scientists expected the ice sheets to gain mass through 2100, then begin to melt. «We’re now 100 years ahead of schedule,» he says.”

Margaret S. Torn and John Harte (2006) – Missing feedbacks, asymmetric uncertainties, and the underestimation of future warming – Geophysical Research Letters 33 L10703 doi:10.1029/2005GL025540 – 26/05/2006 – Earth Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Energy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley – http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~aaron/docs/Torn.Harte06_vostok_GRL.pdf – “The warming of 1.5–4.5°C associated with anthropogenic doubling of CO2 is amplified to 1.6–6.0°C … Thus, anthropogenic emissions result in higher final GhG concentrations, and therefore more warming, than would be predicted in the absence of this feedback … For both reasons, the omission of key positive feedbacks and asymmetrical uncertainty from feedbacks, it is likely that the future will be hotter than we think.”

Steve Connor – Our worst fears are exceeded by reality – The Independent – 29/12/2006 – http://www.truthout.org/article/our-worst-fears-are-exceeded-reality – “Sensitivity is a measure of how much the surface will warm up if CO2 levels double from pre-industrial levels, and the IPCC has estimated it to have a «likely» range (implying a 66–90% probability) of 2 °C to 4.5 °C, with a «best guess» median of 3 °C. That implies that there is a 5–17% chance of warming above or below those endpoints. The IPCC estimates about 2.5 °C to 6.4 °C as the «likely» range for warming by 2100 under A1FI, so there is a 5–17% chance that temperatures will go up by more than 6.4 °C by 2100.”

Stefan Rahmstorf (2007) – The IPCC sea level numbers – Real Climate – 27/03/2007 – Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research – http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/the-ipcc-sea-level-numbers/ – «The main conclusion of this analysis is that sea level uncertainty is not smaller now than it was at the time of the TAR, and that quoting the 18-59 cm range of sea level rise, as many media articles have done, is not telling the full story. 59 cm is unfortunately not the “worst case”. It does not include the full ice sheet uncertainty, which could add 20 cm or even more. It does not cover the full “likely” temperature range given in the AR4 (up to 6.4 ºC) – correcting for that could again roughly add 20 15 cm. It does not account for the fact that past sea level rise is underestimated by the models for reasons that are unclear. Considering these issues, a sea level rise exceeding one metre can in my view by no means ruled out.»

Julienne Stroeve et al (2007) – Arctic sea ice decline: Faster than forecast – Geophysical Research Letters 34 L09501doi:10.1029/2007GL029703 – 01/05/2007 – National Snow and Ice Data Center, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder – http://www.ualberta.ca/~eec/Stroeve2007.pdf – 5 autores «If the multi-model ensemble mean time series provides a true representation of forced change by greenhouse gas (GHG) loading, 33–38% of the observed September trend from 1953–2006 is externally forced, growing to 47–57% from 1979–2006. Given evidence that as a group, the models underestimate the GHG response, the externally forced component may be larger. While both observed and modeled Antarctic winter trends are small, comparisons for summer are confounded by generally poor model performance.»

Anne M. Stark – Ocean temperatures and sea level increases 50 percent higher than previously estimated – Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory – 08/06/2007 – https://publicaffairs.llnl.gov/news/news_releases/2008/NR-08-06-07.html – “The ocean warming and thermal expansion rates are more than 50 percent larger than previous estimates for the upper 300 meters of oceans … The oceans store more than 90 percent of the heat in the Earth’s climate system and act as a temporary buffer against the effects of climate change. The ocean warming and thermal expansion rates are 50 percent larger than previous estimates for the upper 700 meters of oceans, and greater than that for the upper 300 meters.”

Joseph Romm – Are Scientists Overestimating – or Underestimating – Climate Change, Part I – Climate Progress – 21/08/2007 – http://climateprogress.org/2007/08/21/are-scientists-overestimating-or-underestimating-climate-change-part-i/ – «There is both a simple reason and a more complicated reason why I firmly believe that IPCC scientists are underestimating future climate change (and hence that Schwartz is very wrong). First, the simple reason — Scientists have underestimated current climate change: “The recent [Arctic] sea-ice retreat is larger than in any of the (19) IPCC [climate] models” — and that was a Norwegian expert in 2005. The retreat has accelerated in the past two years. The ice sheets appear to be shrinking “100 years ahead of schedule.” That was Penn State climatologist Richard Alley in March 2006. In 2001, the IPCC thought that neither Greenland nor Antarctica would lose significant mass by 2100. They both already are. The temperature rise from 1990 to 2005 — 0.33°C — was “near the top end of the range” of IPCC climate model predictions. Sea-level rise from 1993 and 2006 — 3.3 millimetres per year as measured by satellites — was higher than the IPCC climate models predicted. The subtropics are expanding faster than the models project. Since 2000, carbon dioxide emissions have grown faster than any IPCC model had projected.»

Joseph Romm – Are Scientists Overestimating – or Underestimating – Climate Change, Part II – Climate Progress – 22/08/2007 – http://climateprogress.org/2007/08/22/are-scientists-overestimating-or-underestimating-climate-change-part-ii/ – «What are these “missing feedbacks” in the global carbon cycle? They include four key carbon sinks: The oceans — which likely become less able to take up carbon dioxide as they heat up and become more acidic. The soil — which also takes up less CO2 and starts emitting CO2 as it heats up. The tundra — which contains more carbon than the atmosphere does (much of it in the form of methane, a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2) and which is poised to release that carbon as we warm the planet. Tropical forests — which store carbon but in places like Brazil and Indonesia are being cut down. Deforestation coupled with warming-induced drought could lead to the complete collapse of the Amazon rain forest.»

Joseph Romm – Are Scientists Overestimating – or Underestimating – Climate Change, Part III – Climate Progress – 23/08/2007 – http://climateprogress.org/2007/08/23/are-scientists-overestimating-or-underestimating-climate-change-part-iii/ – «IPCC: Climate-carbon cycle coupling is expected to add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as the climate system warms, but the magnitude of this feedback is uncertain. This increases the uncertainty in the trajectory of carbon dioxide emissions required to achieve a particular stabilization level of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. Based on current understanding of climate carbon cycle feedbacks, model studies suggest that to stabilize at 450 ppm carbon dioxide could require the cumulative emissions over the 21st-century be reduced from an average of approximately 670 gigatons carbon to approximately 490 GtC.»

Givan Sampaio et al (2018) – Regional climate change over eastern Amazonia caused by pasture and soybean cropland expansion – Geophysical Research Letters 34: L17709 doi:10.1029/2007GL030612 – 13/09/2007 – Center for Weather Forecasting and Climate Studies, Brazilian Space Research Institute, Cachoeira Paulista – 6 autores «Field observations and numerical studies revealed that large scale deforestation in Amazonia could alter the regional climate significantly, projecting a warmer and somewhat drier post-deforestation climate. In this study we employed the CPTEC-INPE AGCM to assess the effects of Amazonian deforestation on the regional climate, using simulated land cover maps from a business-as-usual scenario of future deforestation in which the rainforest was gradually replaced by degraded pasture or by soybean cropland. The results for eastern Amazonia, where changes in land cover are expected to be larger, show increase in near-surface air temperature, and decrease in evapotranspiration and precipitation, which occurs mainly during the dry season. The relationship between precipitation and deforestation shows an accelerating decrease of rainfall for increasing deforestation for both classes of land use conversions. Continued expansion of cropland in Amazonia is possible and may have important consequences for the sustainability of the region’s remaining natural vegetation.»

The Associated Press – CO2 levels rising faster as oceans trap less of greenhouse gas – CBC News Canada – 23/10/2007 – http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/10/23/science-carbon-sink.html – “Carbon dioxide emissions were 35 per cent higher in 2006 than in 1990, a much faster growth rate than anticipated, researchers led by Josep G. Canadell, of Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, report in Tuesday’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences … «In addition to the growth of global population and wealth, we now know that significant contributions to the growth of atmospheric CO2 arise from the slowdown» of nature’s ability to take the gas out of the air, said Canadell.”

Greenpeace – CO2 levels rising faster than predicted – Greenpeace – 23/10/2007 – http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/releases/co2-levels-rising-faster-than – “[Hansen] may well be right again that 450 ppm is the limit of safety for atmospheric CO2. The drawback to setting that as a goal, however, is that it is probably not attainable. Right now every four gigatons of carbon we put into the atmosphere adds 1 ppm to the CO2 concentration. The size of the carbon pie that takes us to 450 ppm, 70 ppm above the current level, is thus only 280 gigatons.”

Reuters – Climate expert Stern ‘underestimated problem’. – The Age – 17/04/2008 – https://www.theage.com.au/environment/weather/climate-expert-stern-underestimated-problem-20080417-ge6z7a.html – “Climate change expert Nicholas Stern says he under-estimated the threat from global warming in a major report 18 months ago when he compared the economic risk to the Great Depression of the 1930s. Latest climate science showed global emissions of planet-heating gases were rising faster and upsetting the climate more than previously thought, Stern said in a Reuters interview today. For example, evidence was growing that the planet’s oceans – an important «sink» – were increasingly saturated and couldn’t absorb as much as previously of the main greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2), he said. ”

David Adam – I underestimated the threat, says Stern – The Guardian – 18/04/2008 – http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/18/climatechange.carbonemissions – «He pointed to last year’s reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and new research which shows that the planet’s oceans and forests are soaking up less carbon dioxide than expected. He said: «Emissions are growing much faster than we’d thought, the absorptive capacity of the planet is less than we’d thought, the risks of greenhouse gases are potentially bigger than more cautious estimates and the speed of climate change seems to be faster.» Stern said the new findings vindicated his report, which has been criticised by climate sceptics and some economists as exaggerating the possible damage. «People who said I was scaremongering were profoundly wrong,» he told a conference in London.»

Joseph Romm – Humans boosting CO2 14,000 times faster than nature, overwhelming slow negative feedbacks – Climate Progress – 28/04/2008 – http://climateprogress.org/2008/04/28/human-driven-co2-rise-14000-times-faster-than-nature-overwhelming-the-slow-negative-feedbacks/ – “These feedbacks operate so slowly that they will not help us in terms of climate change … that we’re going to see in the next several hundred years,” Zeebe said by telephone from the University of Hawaii. “Right now we have put the system entirely out of equilibrium.”

Richard A. Kerr (2008) – Seas to Rise Faster This Century – ScienceNOW Daily News – 04/09/2008 – http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/904/1 – “Warming glaciers raise sea level in two main ways. They add more water as they melt, and they also add water when ice breaks off from glacial flows. The incidence of this latter phenomenon has soared in recent years for some glaciers draining the southern Greenland Ice Sheet, much to the mystification of glaciologists. Unable to model such accelerated ice losses, members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declined to include them in their widely cited projection of up to 60 centimeters of sea level rise by 2100. Glaciologist W. Tad Pfeffer of the University of Colorado, Boulder, and his colleagues tackled glacier flow anyway. They calculated how fast glaciers would have to flow in order to raise sea level by a given number of meters and then considered whether those flow rates were plausible or even physically possible.”

Ashley Cox – Ocean’s Acidity Rising Much Quicker Than Expected – Science 2.0 – 01/12/2008 – https://www.science20.com/variety_tap/oceans_acidity_rising_much_quicker_expected – “pH is a very sensitive thing, and anyone who’s ever had a fish tank knows this delicate cycle of acids and bases. When water becomes either too acidic or basic, marine organisms cannot handle the change, but if pH levels change loosely over a span of time, organisms are usually able to adapt. The only problem with that is current research showing ocean acidity growing 10x faster than predicted, signaling a massive potential problem. The study on oceanic pH change titled «Dynamical Patterns and Ecological Impacts of Declining Ocean pH in a High-Resolution Multi-Year Dataset,» was conducted for over eight years off the coast of Washington near the Tatoosh Island. Over 24,500 samples were taken from this location and were used to plot the changing cycle in oceanic acidity levels. The findings are to be published in the Dec. 2 issue of PNAS. ”

Peter N. Spotts – World’s oceans turning acidic faster than expected – The Christian Science Monitor – 18/12/2008 – https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Global-Warming/2008/1218/world-s-oceans-turning-acidic-faster-than-expected – “Scientists over the past decade have detected a clear shift toward acidity since preindustrial times. But that “is not really telling you the story” as it unfolds on smaller but ecologically important scales, says David Archer, a researcher at the University of Chicago who studies the global carbon cycle. The new research draws on long-term data on changes in ocean chemistry and the effect of those changes on marine life. The data are giving scientists their first clear look at the importance of natural swings in sea-water acidification in estimating overall acidification trends and tipping points. But even these new studies may be conservative. Recent global CO2 emissions have been outstripping so-called business-as-usual emissions scenarios, which assume that no country adopts climate-specific limits on emissions. ”

Will Steffen (2009) – Climate Change 2009: Faster Change & More Serious Risks – Commonwealth of Australia – 01/01/2009 – http://www.climatechange.gov.au/~/media/publications/science/cc-faster_change.ashx – «Long-term feedbacks in the climate system may be starting to develop now; the most important of these include dynamical processes in the large polar ice sheets, and the behaviour of natural carbon sinks and potential new natural sources of carbon, such as the carbon stored in the permafrost of the northern high latitudes. Once thresholds in ice sheet and carbon cycle dynamics are crossed, such processes cannot be stopped or reversed by human intervention, and will lead to more severe and ultimately irreversible climate change from the perspective of human timeframes.»

Tina Tin – Climate change: faster, stronger, sooner. An European update of climate science. An overview of the climate science published since the UN IPCC Fourth Assessment Report – WWF 2009 – 01/01/2009 – – “However, even with an 80% emissions cut, damages will be significant, and much more substantial adaptation efforts than those currently planned will be required to avoid much of the damage.”

Katsumasa Tanaka et al (2009) – Insufficient forcing uncertainty underestimates the risk of high climate sensitivity – Geophysical Research Letters 36 L16709 doi:10.1029/2009GL039642 – Int – 01/01/2009 – International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, International Max Planck Research School on Earth System Modelling, Hamburg, Germany – “Here we show that the probability of high climate sensitivity is higher than previously thought because uncertainty in historical radiative forcing has not been sufficiently considered. The greater the uncertainty that is considered for radiative forcing, the more difficult it is to rule out high climate sensitivity, although low climate sensitivity (<2°C) remains unlikely.”

Andrew Glikson (2009) – The world at 4 ºC: last call on climate – 01/01/2009 – School of Archaeology and Anthropology and Research School of Earth Science, Australian National University – «At 389 ppm CO2 the energy level of the atmosphere has reached a range consistent with recent warm geological periods in the history of Earth (early to mid-Pliocene 5.2–2.8 million years) when CO2 concentration rose to c. 350 – 410 ppm, global temperatures were about 2.4–4.0 Celsius above the 18th century and sea levels were 25+/-12 meters higher than at the outset of current global warming. Since the 18th century the rise of polar temperatures by 3 to 4 degrees C, inducing advanced melting of the Arctic Sea ice, Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets, is tracking toward similar conditions as the mid-Pliocene. The rise in sea level from c. 1 mm/year early in the 20th century to c. 3.5 mm/year suggests climate change lag effects are accelerating. Deep cuts in emissions of several percent per-year and global application of clean energy technologies, accompanied with a massive emergency program including draw-down of atmospheric CO2 through fast-track reforestation, biochar and chemical sequestration, may have a chance of mitigating runaway climate change.»

G.J. van Oldenborgh et al (2009) – Western Europe is warming much faster than expected – Climate of the Past 5:1-12 doi:10.5194/cp-5-1-2009 – 01/01/2009 – – 8 autores «The warming trend of the last decades is now so strong that it is discernible in local temperature observations. This opens the possibility to compare the trend to the warming predicted by comprehensive climate models (GCMs), which up to now could not be verified directly to observations on a local scale, because the signal-to-noise ratio was too low. The observed temperature trend in western Europe over the last decades appears much stronger than simulated by state-of-the-art GCMs. The difference is very unlikely due to random fluctuations, either in fast weather processes or in decadal climate fluctuations. In winter and spring, changes in atmospheric circulation are important; in spring and summer changes in soil moisture and cloud cover. A misrepresentation of the North Atlantic Current affects trends along the coast. Many of these processes continue to affect trends in projections for the 21st century. This implies that climate predictions for western Europe probably underestimate the effects of anthropogenic climate change.»

Joseph Romm – AAAS: Climate change is coming much harder, much faster than predicted – Climate Progress – 15/02/2009 – http://climateprogress.org/2009/02/15/aaas-climate-change-is-coming-much-harder-much-faster-than-predicted/ – “Okay, this is what I’ve been saying for a few years now, but it’s good to hear more and more leading climate scientists besides James Hansen and John Holdren being blunt with the public on this … In this case, it’s Christopher Field, founding director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University… Field said the U.N. panel’s next assessment of Earth’s climate trends, scheduled for release in 2014, will for the first time incorporate policy proposals. It will also include complicated models of interconnected ecosystem feedbacks.”

Erika Check Hayden – AAAS: Climate issue getting «more complicated» – Climate Feedback – 16/02/2009 – http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2009/02/aaas_climate_issue_getting_mor_1.html – “A leader of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change told the AAAS annual meeting in Chicago on Saturday that the world’s climate is likely to change much faster than predicted… «We are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything we’ve considered seriously in climate model simulations,» said Chris Field,”

Mark Shwartz – Global warming damage could be worse than predicted – Stanford Report – 18/02/2009 – http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2009/february18/aaas-field-global-warming-ipcc-021809.html – “Chris Field at AAAS: Higher temperatures could ignite tropical forests and melt the Arctic tundra, releasing billions of tons of greenhouse gas that could raise global temperatures even more—a vicious cycle that could spiral out of control by the end of the century.”

James Lovelock (2009) – The Vanishing Face of Gaia. A Final Warning – Allen Lane Penguin Books – 01/04/2009 – – “Pessimism is justified by the difference between the forecasts of the IPCC and what observers find in the real world”

– Key Messages from the Congress – Climate Change: Global Risks Challenges and Decisions doi:10.1088/1755-1307/6/8/082001 – 12/03/2009 – International Alliance of Research Universities – http://climatecongress.ku.dk/newsroom/congress_key_messages/ – “Recent observations confirm that, given high rates of observed emissions, the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised. For many key parameters, the climate system is already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which our society and economy have developed and thrived.”

Katherine Richardson et al (2009) – Synthesis Report from Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions – International Scientific Congress Climate Change – 12/03/2009 – University of Copenhagen – http://www.climatecongress.ku.dk – 12 autores «Recent observations confirm — the worst case IPCC scenarios are being realised. For many key parameters, the climate system is already moving beyond the bounds of natural variability within which our society and economy have developed and thrived. —- There is a significant risk that many of the trends will accelerate, leading to an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts».

Joseph Romm – Why the world’s top scientists underestimated how fast we’re destroying the climate – Climate Progress – 16/03/2009 – http://climateprogress.org/2009/03/16/ipcc-consensus-global-warming-underestimate-impacts/ – “There is a political and diplomatic incentive to low-ball emissions predictions because lower numbers make the task ahead appear less onerous … The overly optimistic predictions in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment, released in 2007, appear to have been driven, in part, by the political dynamics involved in the international effort”

Richard Monastersky (2009) – A Burden Beyond Bearing. “The climate situation may be even worse than you think” – Nature 458:1091-1094 doi:10.1038/4581091a – 30/04/2009 – Features editor for Nature in Washington DC – http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090429/full/4581091a.html – “The world would have to limit emissions of all greenhouse gases to the equivalent of 400 gigatonnes of carbon in order to stand a 75% chance of avoiding more than 2 °C of warming … If we want to have a smooth landing and to decrease emissions in a smooth way, our options are essentially exhausted”

Richard Monastersky (2009) – The Climate Crunch. A burden beyond bearing – Nature 458:1091-1094 doi:10.1038/4581091a – 30/04/2009 – https://www.nature.com/news/2009/090429/pdf/4581091a.pdf – ”The climate situation may be even worse than you think (…) evidence that keeping carbon dioxide beneath dangerous levels is tougher than previously thought”.

Stephen Schneider (2009) – The Climate Crunch: The worst-case scenario – Nature 458:1104-1105 doi:10.1038/4581104a – 30/04/2009 – Professor of interdisciplinary environmental studies and biology, and a senior fellow in the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University, Stanford – http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7242/full/4581104a.html – “Sensitivity is a measure of how much the surface will warm up if CO2 levels double from pre-industrial levels, and the IPCC has estimated it to have a «likely» range (implying a 66–90% probability) of 2 °C to 4.5 °C, with a «best guess» median of 3 °C. That implies that there is a 5–17% chance of warming above or below those endpoints. The IPCC estimates about 2.5 °C to 6.4 °C as the «likely» range for warming by 2100 under A1FI, so there is a 5–17% chance that temperatures will go up by more than 6.4 °C by 2100.”

Will Steffen (2009) – Climate Change 2009: Faster Change & More Serious Risks – Commonwealth of Australia – 01/05/2009 – Department of Climate Change, Australian Government – http://www.climatechange.gov.au/~/media/publications/science/cc-faster_change.ashx – «This document reviews and synthesises the science of climate change since the publication of the IPCC’s AR4, with an emphasis on rapidly changing areas of science of direct policy relevance. In that regard, the report is selective; it highlights a small number of critical issues rather than attempting to be comprehensive across the full range of climate science. Also, the report is focused more strongly on issues of importance to Australia, although it places these in a global context.»

David Chandler – Climate change odds much worse than thought. New analysis shows warming could be double previous estimates – Massachussets Institute of Technology – 19/05/2009 – http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/roulette-0519.html – “The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth’s climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago – and could be even worse than that.”

Science News – Climate Change Odds Much Worse Than Thought – Science Daily – 20/05/2009 – Massachusetts Institute of Technology – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090519134843.htm – «The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth’s climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago – and could be even worse than that … The study uses the MIT Integrated Global Systems Model, a detailed computer simulation of global economic activity and climate processes that has been developed and refined by the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change since the early 1990s. The new research involved 400 runs of the model.»

David Chandler – Climate change odds much worse than thought. New analysis shows warming could be double previous estimates – Massachussets Institute of Technology – 20/05/2009 – http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/roulette-0519.html – “The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth’s climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago – and could be even worse than that.”

Joseph Romm – Hurricanes are getting fiercer – and it’s going to get much worse – Grist – 01/06/2009 – http://www.grist.org/article/nature-hurricanes-are-getting-fiercer-and-its-going-to-get-much-worse – “In short, the North Atlantic hurricane-forming region is on track to get much warmer in the coming decades.”

Editorial – Worse Than Fiction – The Wall Street Journal – 06/06/2009 – http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124424567009790525.html#mod=djemEditorialPage – “Yet new research «questions the notion that El Niños have been getting stronger because of global warming,» according to Ben Giese of Texas A&M. We could go on, except we’re worried about the blood pressure of readers who are climate-change true believers. Our only question is, if the case for global warming is so open and shut, why the need for a report as disingenuous as Mr. Annan’s?”

Science News – Greenland Ice Sheet Melting Faster Than Expected; Larger Contributor To Sea-Level Rise Than Thought – Science Daily – 13/06/2009 – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090612092741.htm – “According to Mernild’s new data, since 1995 the ice sheet lost an average of 265 cubic kilometers per year, which has contributed to about 0.7 millimeters per year in global sea level rise.”

Joseph Romm – Our hellish future: Definitive NOAA-led report on U.S. climate impacts warns of scorching 9 to 11°F warming over most of inland U.S. by 2090 with Kansas above 90°F some 120 days a year — and that isn’t the worst case, it’s business as usual! – Climate Progress – 15/06/2009 – http://climateprogress.org/2009/06/15/us-global-change-research-program-noaa-global-climate-change-impacts-in-united-states/ – “The thermometer in this landmark U.S. government report puts warming at 9 to 11°F over the vast majority of the inland U.S. — and that is only the average around 2090 (compared to 1961-1979 baseline).”

Joseph Romm – U.S. media largely ignores latest warning from climate scientists: “Recent observations confirm … the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised” — 1000 ppm – Climate Progress – 17/06/2009 – http://climateprogress.org/2009/03/17/media-copenhagen-global-warming-impacts-worst-case-ipcc/ – “The A1F1 scenario takes us to atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide of 1000 ppm in 2100 — otherwise known as the end of human civilization as we have known it. Actually it’s worse than that. The 2001 IPCC report largely failed to model amplifying carbon cycle feedbacks. The 2007 IPCC report, which began to consider such feedbacks, warns that even averaging 11 GtC (billion metric tons of carbon) a year this century could take us to 1000 ppm (see “Nature publishes my climate analysis and solution“). The A1F1 scenario averages well above 15 GtC a year through 2100 as you can see from the figure on the left.”

Paul A.T. Higgins (2009) – Carbon cycle amplification: how optimistic assumptions cause persistent underestimates of potential climate damages and mitigation needs. An Editorial Comment – Climatic Change 95:363-368 doi:10.1007/s10584-00 – 23/06/2009 – American Meteorological Society – “Biological systems constitute a critical, but sometimes overlooked, component of the climate system because they influence key physical characteristics of the land surface and atmosphere …Unfortunately, it’s difficult to include these feedbacks accurately in climate projections because future responses of vegetation are hard to constrain using past observations and field experiments.”

Tina Tin (WWF) – Climate Change: Stronger, Faster, Sooner – Architecture Week – 01/07/2009 – http://www.architectureweek.com/2009/0107/news_5-1.html – “Much of the scientific evidence that has emerged since the publication of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report has rung the alarm bell about the speed and scale of the changes affecting the global climate. In addition, numerical modelling studies are showing us more of what it is to come if we do not urgently and decisively address the causes of climate change, and develop more robust measures to adapt to those changes that are now unavoidable.”

Anil Ananthaswamy – Sea level rise: It’s worse than we thought – New Scientist – 01/07/2009 – http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327151.300-sea-level-rise-its-worse-than-we-thought.html?full=true – “The biggest uncertainty for those trying to predict future changes is how humanity will behave. Will we start to curb our emissions of greenhouse gases sometime soon, or will we continue to pump ever more into the atmosphere?”

Duncan Clark – World will warm faster than predicted in next five years, study warns – The Guardian – 27/07/2009 – http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/27/world-warming-faster-study – “1998: Hottest year of the millennium. Caused by a major El Niño event. The climate phenomenon results from warming of the tropical Pacific and causes heatwaves, droughts and flooding around the world. The 1998 event caused 16% of the world’s coral reefs to die; 1957: Most sunspots in a year since 1778. The sun’s activity waxes and wanes on an 11-year cycle. The late 1950s saw a peak in activity and were relatively warm years for the period; 1601: Coldest year of the millennium. Ash from the huge eruption the previous year of a Peruvian volcano called Huaynaputina blocked out the sun. The volcanic winter caused Russia’s worst famine, with a third of the population dying, and disrupted agriculture from China to France.”

Ian Dunlop (2009) – The Perfect Storm – ALP Fringe Program – 31/07/2009 – Independent Governance & Sustainability Advisor + Former Chair, Australian Coal Association & CEO, Australian Institute of Company Directors – http://cpd.org.au/article/its-time-heed-evidence-climate-change-full-paper – “Urgency – time for realism. Current global negotiations on climate change are based on science which is 6-7 years out-of-date. As a result, the current scientific and political debates are like two ships passing in the night with minimal communications.”

Sharon Begley – Climate-Change Calculus – Newsweek – 03/08/2009 – http://www.newsweek.com/id/208164 – “Why it’s even worse than we feared … Among the phrases you really, really do not want to hear from climate scientists are: “that really shocked us,” “we had no idea how bad it was,” and “reality is well ahead of the climate models.” Yet in speaking to researchers who focus on the Arctic, you hear comments like these so regularly they begin to sound like the thumping refrain from Jaws: annoying harbingers of something that you really, really wish would go away.”

Katsumasa Tanaka et al (2009) – Insufficient forcing uncertainty underestimates the risk of high climate sensitivity – Geophysical Research Letters 36 L16709 – doi:10.1029/2009GL039642 – 29/08/2009 – International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, International Max Planck Research School on Earth System Modelling, Hamburg, Germany – “Uncertainty in climate sensitivity is a fundamental problem for projections of the future climate. Equilibrium climate sensitivity is defined as the asymptotic response of global-mean surface air temperature to a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration from the preindustrial level (≈280 ppm). In spite of various efforts to estimate its value, climate sensitivity is still not well constrained. Here we show that the probability of high climate sensitivity is higher than previously thought because uncertainty in historical radiative forcing has not been sufficiently considered. The greater the uncertainty that is considered for radiative forcing, the more difficult it is to rule out high climate sensitivity, although low climate sensitivity (<2°C) remains unlikely. We call for further research on how best to represent forcing uncertainty.”

– Study: ‘Runaway’ melt on Antarctica, Greenland Experts find more ‘pervasive, enduring’ thinning than previously realized – msnbc – 23/09/2009 – http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32985250/ns/us_news-environment/ – “The most detailed satellite information available shows that ice sheets in Greenland and western Antarctica are shrinking faster than scientists thought and in some places are already in runaway melt mode, a new study found … Using 50 million laser readings from a NASA satellite, scientists for the first time calculated changes in the height of the vulnerable but massive ice sheets and found them especially worse at their edges. That’s where warmer water eats away from below. In some parts of Antarctica, ice sheets have been losing 30 feet a year in thickness since 2003, according to the study.”

Richard A. Kerr (2009) – Both of the World’s Ice Sheets May Be Shrinking Faster and Faster – Science 326:217 doi:10.1126/science.326_217a] – 09/10/2009 – – ”Whatever is driving ice loss—warmer oceans, warmer air, or both—is persisting, he says. Glaciologist Waleed Abdalati of the University of Colorado, Boulder, says Velicogna’s analysis “suggests—that’s the key word—that there’s been an acceleration in the period examined. We have to be careful to not overinterpret and speculate about the future.” The record is too short to be extrapolated into the future, Abdalati says. And at least in Greenland, it was affected by the extreme warmth and resulting melting in 2007, a loss surge that might not be repeated in the next 7 years. If bursts of ice loss do occur soon, GRACE may not be around to record it. Its two satellites will fall from orbit around 2013, dragged down after a decade of orbiting through Earth’s outermost atmosphere. No replacement gravity mission is yet planned.”

Seth Borenstein – Global Warming’s Impacts Have Sped Up, Worsened since Kyoto – The Huffington Post – 22/11/2009 – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/22/global-warmings-impacts-h_n_366994.html – “Since the 1997 international accord to fight global warming, climate change has worsened and accelerated – beyond some of the grimmest of warnings made back then.”

Joseph Romm – AP: Since 1997 ‘climate change has worsened and accelerated beyond some of the grimmest of warnings made back then.’ – Climate Progress – 23/11/2009 – http://climateprogress.org/2009/11/23/ap-since-1997-climate-change-has-worsened-and-accelerated-%E2%80%94-beyond-some-of-the-grimmest-of-warnings-made-back-then/ – “As the world has talked for a dozen years about what to do next, new ship passages opened through the once frozen summer sea ice of the Arctic. In Greenland and Antarctica, ice sheets have lost trillions of tons of ice. Mountain glaciers in Europe, South America, Asia and Africa are shrinking faster than before. And it’s not just the frozen parts of the world that have felt the heat in the dozen years leading up to next month’s climate summit in Copenhagen.”

Joseph Romm – Climate Projections Underestimate CO2 impact – Climate Progress – 07/12/2009 – http://climateprogress.org/2009/12/07/energy-and-global-warming-news-for-december-7-climate-projections-underestimate-co2-impact-usgs-white-house-raises-climate-summit-stakes/ – “The climate may be 30–50 percent more sensitive to atmospheric carbon dioxide in the long term than previously thought, according to a study published in Nature Geoscience yesterday. Projections over the next hundreds of years of climate conditions, including global temperatures, may need to be adjusted to reflect this higher sensitivity.”

– Earth’s response to CO2 underestimated – Environmental Research Web – 10/12/2009 – http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/research/41212 – «The researchers discovered that the model gave the correct retrospective temperature predictions only when ice-sheet and vegetation data for the mid-Pliocene period were included. Surprisingly, when they ran the model with more modern ice-sheet and vegetation data, the retrospective predictions underestimated the mid-Pliocene period’s global warming by 30–50%. Although this result highlights how integral some slow systems are for accurate long-term predictions, Lunt is quick to point out that his group cannot say how these factors could affect short-term predictions. «We’re not saying that in a decade the temperature will be 30–50% more than old predictions would be,» he says. «What we are saying is that the predictions of the climate’s equilibrium state are likely to be underestimates by that much.»

Joe Romm – Sea levels may rise 3 times faster than IPCC estimated, could hit 6 feet by 2100 – Think Progress – 10/12/2009 – http://climateprogress.org/2009/12/09/sea-level-rise-six-feet-three-times-faster-than-the-ipcc-estimat/ – «While that 2008 study was quite comprehensive for its time, it projects under 15 cm (6 inches) of SLR from Antarctica in its 0.8 m case and 62 cm (2 feet) in its 2.0 m case. Yet WAIS alone could exceed that, see “Q: How much can West Antarctica plausibly contribute to sea level rise by 2100?” [A: 3 to 5 feet]. See also Satellite data stunner: “Our data suggest that EAST Antarctica is losing mass…. Antarctica may soon be contributing significantly more to global sea-level rise.” The other study referenced in the news article is from the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, which endorsed Dr Rahmstorf’s 2007 assessment of future sea level rise. SCAR — a perfect acronymn if ever there was one — explains in their news release here:…»

Suzanne Taylor Muzzin – Global Temperatures Could Rise More than Expected – NASA Earth Observatory – 20/12/2009 – http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?id=42184&src=eorss-manews – “The kinds of increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide taking place today could have a significantly larger effect on global temperatures than previously thought, according to a new study led by Yale University geologists. Their findings appear December 20 in the advanced online edition of Nature Geoscience. The team demonstrated that only a relatively small rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) was associated with a period of substantial warming in the mid- and early-Pliocene era, between three to five million years ago, when temperatures were approximately 3 to 4 degrees Celsius warmer than they are today. Climate sensitivity—the mean global temperature response to a doubling of the concentration of atmospheric CO2—is estimated to be 1.5 to 4.5 degrees Celsius, using current models. «These models take into account only relatively fast feedbacks, such as changes in atmospheric water vapor and the distribution of sea ice, clouds and aerosols,» said Mark Pagani, associate professor of geology and geophysics at Yale and lead author of the paper. «We wanted to look at Earth-system climate sensitivity, which includes the effects of long-term feedbacks such as change in continental ice-sheets, terrestrial ecosystems and greenhouse gases other than CO2.»”

Joseph Romm – The year climate science caught up with what top scientists have been saying privately for years – Climate Progress – 04/01/2010 – http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/04/the-year-in-climate-science-scientists/ – “Key aspects of the climate are changing faster than expected and if we stay on our current emissions path, we face catastrophe”

James Hrynyshyn – Is the Earth even more sensitive to CO2 levels than we thought? – The Island of Doubt – 07/01/2010 – http://scienceblogs.com/islandofdoubt/2010/01/is_the_earth_even_more_sensiti.php – “It is entirely possible then, that keeping CO2 levels to no more than 450 ppm — or keeping our cumulative carbon emissions to no more than a trillion tonnes — will be insufficient to ensure the temperature increase over pre-industrial times stays below 2°C. Which only highlights the need to begin the transition to a low- or zero-carbon economy sooner rather than later.”

Relax News – Climate change impact of soil underestimated: study – The Independent – 13/02/2010 – http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-impact-of-soil-underestimated-study-1898767.html – «Finnish researchers called for a revision of climate change estimates Monday after their findings showed emissions from soil would contribute more to climate warming than previously thought. «A Finnish research group has proved that the present standard measurements underestimate the effect of climate warming on emissions from the soil,» the Finnish Environment Institute said in a statement. «The error is serious enough to require revisions in climate change estimates,» it said, adding that all climate models used soil emission estimates based on measurements received using an erroneous method.»

Joseph Romm – Nature Geoscience study: Oceans are acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred – Climate Progress – 18/02/2010 – http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2010/02/18/205525/ocean-acidification-study-mass-extinction-of-marine-life-nature-geoscience/ – “Marine life face some of the worst impacts. We now know that global warming is “capable of wrecking the marine ecosystem and depriving future generations of the harvest of the seas” (see 2009 Nature Geoscience study concludes ocean dead zones “devoid of fish and seafood” are poised to expand and “remain for thousands of years”). The acidification of the ocean in particular is a grave threat — for links to primary sources and recent studies, see “Imagine a World without Fish: Deadly ocean acidification “” hard to deny, harder to geo-engineer, but not hard to stop” (and below). A new Nature Geoscience study, “Past constraints on the vulnerability of marine calcifiers to massive carbon dioxide release” (subs. req’d) provides a truly ominous warning. The release from the researchers at the University of Bristol is “Rate of ocean acidification the fastest in 65 million years.””

Joseph Romm – The IPCC lowballs likely impacts with its instantly out-of-date reports and is clearly clueless on messaging – should it be booted or just rebooted? And should IPCC chief Pachauri stay or go? – Climate Progress – 18/02/2010 – http://climateprogress.org/2010/02/18/ipcc-lowballs-impacts-pachauri-disband/ – “The Fourth Assessment should have been sufficient to jumpstart serious action. But to update what I wrote last year, it ended up be out of date the minute the ink was dry for several reasons: Most of the climate models had not yet incorporated many if any of the amplifying carbon cycle feedbacks (see Study: Water-vapor feedback is “strong and positive,” so we face “warming of several degrees Celsius”). Indeed, not a single one of the climate models they rely on incorporates the single most dangerous feedback, the defrosting of the permafrost. The IPCC stops taking scientific input a year or two before the year the report comes out and the science is moving fast. It published too soon to capture the China-driven explosion in emissions, so its emissions scenarios were DOA (see “Recent observations confirm “¦ the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised” “” 1000 ppm). It published too soon to capture the new analyses of likely sea level rise this century based on the startling fact that both the Greenland Ice Sheet and the Antarctic Ice Sheet were both losing mass. Heck, Penn State climatologist Richard Alley said in March 2006, the ice sheets appear to be shrinking “100 years ahead of schedule” — the IPCC schedule, that is. And so half a dozen major studies in the past 3 years find far higher likely SLR rise this century on our current emissions path (see “Sea levels may rise 3 times faster than IPCC estimated, could hit 6 feet by 2100”). The consensus-based process in which every member government signs off on every word in the synthesis reports leads to a least-common-denominator set of statements that further waters down the science. ”

– Methane Releases From Arctic Shelf May Be Much Larger and Faster Than Anticipated – National Science Foundation – 05/03/2010 – http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_images.jsp?cntn_id=116532&org=NSF – «The permafrost of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (an area of about 2 million kilometers squared) is more porous than previously thought. The ocean on top of it and the heat from the mantle below it warm it and make it perforated like Swiss cheese. This allows methane gas stored under it under pressure to burst into the atmosphere. The amount leaking from this locale is comparable to all the methane from the rest of the world’s oceans put together. Methane is a greenhouse gas more than 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide.»

Tim R. McVicar et al (2010) – Observational evidence from two mountainous regions that near-surface wind speeds are declining more rapidly at higher elevations than lower elevations: 1960–2006 – Geophysical Research Letters 37 L06402doi:10.1029/2009GL042255 – 16/03/2010 – CSIRO Land and Water, Canberra – 7 autores «Coupling recent observed declines of terrestrial mid-latitude near-surface wind speed (u) with knowledge that high-elevation sites rapidly experience climate change led to an assessment of the regional near-surface elevation dependence of u (uZ) at two mountainous regions (central China and Switzerland). The monthly uZ were calculated from 1960–2006. In both regions uZ were higher in winter (∼2.25 m s−1 km−1) compared to summer (∼1.25 m s−1 km−1). For the first time uZ trends were calculated, the results were strongly seasonal, ranging from ∼−0.025 m s−1 km−1 a−1 in winter to ∼−0.005 m s−1 km−1 a−1 in summer. For both regions uZ trend results showed that u has declined more rapidly at higher than lower elevations, even though different u dynamics were observed. The uZ trends have important implications for climatic changes of coupled land-surface/boundary-layer processes (such as evapotranspiration) at high-elevation regions where much of the globe’s fresh water is derived. »

George Monbiot – The IPCC messed up over ‘Amazongate’ – the threat to the Amazon is far worse – The Guardian – 02/07/2010 – – autores

Chris Martenson – Prediction: Things Will Unravel Faster Than You Think – Chris Martenson – 01/10/2010 – http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/prediction-things-will-unravel-faster-than-you-think/45297 – «Which means that although we cannot predict the size (exactly how much) or the timing (precisely when) of economic shifts or world-changing events, we can certainly understand the risks and the dimensions of what might happen. Just as we cannot predict when an avalanche will release from steep slope, or even where or how big it will be, we can readily predict that constant snowfall coupled with the right temperature conditions will lead to an avalanche sooner or later, and more likely in this gully than that one. Given certain conditions, we might expect one that is larger or smaller than normal. Although we don’t know exactly when or how much, we do know that when snow accumulates, so do the risks of more frequent and/or larger avalanches.»

Eli Kintisch – Caribbean Coral Die-Off Could Be Worst Ever – Science online – 14/10/2010 – – «Bleaching occurs when crucial microorganisms leave coral reefs during stress. Corals, which shelter a quarter or more of all marine species, get bleached, and may die, after prolonged heating. A few weeks of water temperatures a few degrees above normal can be fatal. During the 2005 die-off, for example, water temperatures off the Virgin Islands rose just 3°C above the average in August—but stayed that way until November. “There has been little recovery in the Caribbean since,” says reef specialist C. Mark Eakin of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Silver Spring, Maryland.»

Joseph Romm – Scientists: Caribbean coral die-off may be worst ever, Southeast Asia and Indian Ocean bleaching “may prove to be the worst such event known to science.” – Climate Progress – 20/10/2010 – – autores

Jeremy B. C. Jackson (2010) – The future of the oceans past – Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 365:3765-3778 doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0278 – 08/11/2010 – Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation, Scripps Institution of Oceanography – “Vertical stratification is increasing because of surface warming, which decreases upwelling of cool, nutrient-rich waters so that surface waters warm even faster (Roemmich & McGowan 1995), which in turn further accelerates warming as well as causing a drop in productivity of vast areas of the ocean (Polovina et al. 2008). Similar nonlinearities occur because of positive feedbacks among biological factors, which in turn affect the resilience of organisms and ecosystems to environmental events (Scheffer et al. 2001; Knowlton 2004). ”

Robert J. Nicholls et al (2011) – Sea-level rise and its possible impacts given a ‘beyond 4°C world’ in the twenty-first century – Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A 369:161-181 doi:10.1098/rsta.2010.0291 – 29/11/2010 – School of Civil Engineering and the Environment + Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Southampton – 8 autores «The range of future climate-induced sea-level rise remains highly uncertain with continued concern that large increases in the twenty-first century cannot be ruled out. The biggest source of uncertainty is the response of the large ice sheets of Greenland and west Antarctica. Based on our analysis, a pragmatic estimate of sea-level rise by 2100, for a temperature rise of 4◦C or more over the same time frame, is between 0.5m and 2m— the probability of rises at the high end is judged to be very low, but of unquantifiable probability. However, if realized, an indicative analysis shows that the impact potential is severe, with the real risk of the forced displacement of up to 187 million people over the century (up to 2.4% of global population). This is potentially avoidable by widespread upgrade of protection, albeit rather costly with up to 0.02 per cent of global domestic product needed, and much higher in certain nations. The likelihood of protection being successfully implemented varies between regions, and is lowest in small islands, Africa and parts of Asia, and hence these regions are the most likely to see coastal abandonment.»

Pete Harrison – Watchdog warns of higher Mediterranean temperatures – Reuters – 30/11/2010 – http://in.mobile.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-53238020101130 – «Unless those countries on the southern part of the Mediterranean can solve the issue of water in particular, generations will be looking to move to places where they can be more secure for food and ultimately employment,» [McGlade] said.»

Dirk Messner and Stefan Rahmstorf (2009) – Tipping Points in the Earth System and their Implications for World Politics and Economy – Bonn Simposium – 01/12/2010 – Director of the German Development Institute/ Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik + Vice-chairman of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU); Potsdam Instutute for Climate Change Research – http://www.bonn-symposium.de/fileadmin/Redaktion/PDF_GT_2010/GT-2010_world-economy_tipping-points.pdf – “The probable economic, social and political implications of each tipping point for world regions and the international system as a whole must therefore be included on the international research agenda as a matter of urgency in the interests of prevention. This is the only way to create the scientific bases for responsible global risk management. The social sciences have also not been able to make any precise statements as to when these tipping points could be reached, under which conditions, and in which subsystems of the world economy and politics, nor have they addressed the issue of the robustness or fragility of societies’ adaptive capacities in the face of this impending Earth system transformation.”

Joseph Romm – The deniers were half right: The Met Office Hadley Centre had flawed data — but it led them to UNDERestimate the rate of recent global warming – Climate Progress – 02/12/2010 – «Of course, everybody but the anti-science disinformers have known for a long time that the Hadley/CRU (Climatic Research Unit) temperature data UNDERestimates “” not OVERestimates “” the recent global temperature rise. Their data excludes “the place on Earth that has been warming fastest” (see “Why are Hadley and CRU withholding vital climate data from the public?” and “What exactly is polar amplification and why does it matter?”). NASA’s James Hansen has made this point for years.» – autores

Science News – Dust Shatters Like Glass: Several Times More Dust Particles in Atmosphere Than Previously Thought – Science Daily – 09/12/2010 – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101227203436.htm – «Clues to future climate may be found in the way that an ordinary drinking glass shatters. A study appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that microscopic particles of dust, emitted into the atmosphere when dirt breaks apart, follow similar fragment patterns to broken glass and other brittle objects.»

Ross Garnaut (2011) – Garnaut Climate Change Review – Update 2011: Update Paper 5: The science of climate change – Australian Government – 10/03/2011 – http://www.garnautreview.org.au/update-2011/update-papers/up5-the-science-of-climate-change.pdf – «My own experience and observations of related phenomena suggest that the source of bias is scholarly reticence. It is not optimism that is unscholarly, but being too far away from the mainstream. That could potentially cut either way on climate change. However, in circumstances in which the mainstream has been moving steadily towards more certain views that human-induced climate change is substantial and potentially damaging, and towards expectations of more severe damage, not being too far away from the mainstream has been associated with understatement of the risks … There must be a possibility that scholarly reticence, extended by publications lags, has led to understatement of the risks.»

Bryan Walker – Garnaut: no reticence on risk – Hot Topic – 14/03/2011 – http://hot-topic.co.nz/garnaut-no-reticence-on-risk/ – «The risks accompanying a 4 degree rise are considerable. There would be an 85 per cent probability of initiating large-scale melt of the Greenland ice sheet. 48 per cent of species would be at risk of extinction. 90 per cent of coral reefs would be above critical limits for bleaching. Accelerated disintegration of the west Antarctic ice sheet and changes to the variability of the El Niño Southern Oscillation would be triggered. Terrestrial sinks such as the Amazon Rainforest would be endangered, becoming sources of carbon rather than sinks. Severe weather events would intensify. Immense changes in the capacity of parts of the earth’s surface to support substantial populations would place great strain on national and global political systems. He notes that recent science suggests that severe and catastrophic climate change outcomes may be triggered at lower temperatures than previously thought, further increasing the risks of catastrophic outcomes in a 4 degrees warmer world.»

Joseph Romm – NOAA: Monster crop-destroying Russian heat wave to be once-in-a-decade event by 2060s (or sooner) – Climate Progress – 14/03/2011 – http://climateprogress.org/2011/03/14/noaa-russian-heat-wave-trenberth-attribution/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+climateprogress%2FlCrX+%28Climate+Progress%29 – «Unfortunately, this got lost in all the noise about the main “finding” of the study itself. For some strange reason, the authors, Randall Dole et al., posed this titular question: “Was There a Basis for Anticipating the 2010 Russian Heat Wave?”.»

Giorgi et al (2011) – Higher hydroclimatic intensity with global warming – Journal of Climate 24:5309-5324 doi:10.1175/2011JCLI3979.1 – 01/04/2011 – Earth System Physics Section, International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste – https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2011JCLI3979.1 – 7 autores «Our analysis identifies increasing hydroclimatic intensity as a robust integrated response to global warming, implying increasing risks for systems that are sensitive to wet and dry extremes and providing a potential target for detection and attribution of hydroclimatic changes.»

Wendy Zukerman – Warmer oceans release CO2 faster than thought – New Scientist – 25/04/2011 – http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20413-warmer-oceans-release-co2-faster-than-thought.html – «And while more precise than the others, the team’s study also comes with significant uncertainty: plus or minus 200 years, meaning there could actually be no lag time between rising temperatures and gases being released from the atmosphere.»

Fiona Harvey – Worst ever carbon emissions leave climate on the brink – The Guardian – 29/05/2011 – http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/29/carbon-emissions-nuclearpower – «About 80% of the power stations likely to be in use in 2020 are either already built or under construction, the IEA found. Most of these are fossil fuel power stations unlikely to be taken out of service early, so they will continue to pour out carbon – possibly into the mid-century. The emissions from these stations amount to about 11.2Gt, out of a total of 13.7Gt from the electricity sector. These «locked-in» emissions mean savings must be found elsewhere.»

Joseph Romm – World’s oceans in ‘shocking’ decline, report finds ‘speeds of many negative changes … are tracking the worst-case scenarios’ – Think Progress – 21/06/2011 – http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/06/21/249470/worlds-oceans-in-shocking-decline-worst-‐case-scenarios-from-ipcc/ – «A “shocking” report from the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) comes from the “first inter-disciplinary international meeting of marine scientists of its kind and was designed to consider the cumulative impact of multiple stressors on the ocean, including warming, acidification, and overfishing.”»

Alex Morales (2011) – West Antarctica’s Biggest Glacier Is Melting 50% Faster Than 17 Years Ago – Bloomberg – 27/06/2011 – http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-26/antarctica-s-pine-glacier-melting-50-faster-study-indicates.html – «West Antarctica’s biggest glacier is melting 50 percent faster than in 1994, adding to a global increase in sea levels, U.S. and U.K. scientists found. The Pine Island glacier is losing about 78 cubic kilometers (30 cubic miles) of ice per year, the researchers at Columbia University in New York and the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, England, said today. That’s up from 53 cubic kilometers in 1994. The study in the journal Nature Geoscience is based on data from a 2009 expedition. »

Joseph Romm – Arctic Ice Thinning 4 Times Faster Than Predicted by IPCC Models, Semi-Stunning M.I.T. Study Finds – Climate Progress – 11/08/2011 – http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/08/11/294403/arctic-ice-thinning-4-times-faster-than-predicted-by-models-semi-stunning-m-i-t-study-finds/ – «According to new research from MIT, the most recent global climate report fails to capture trends in Arctic sea-ice thinning and drift, and in some cases substantially underestimates these trends…. After comparing IPCC models with actual data, [lead author Pierre] Rampal and his collaborators concluded that the forecasts were significantly off: Arctic sea ice is thinning, on average, four times faster than the models say, and it’s drifting twice as quickly.»

Joseph Romm – Global Warming May Cause Far Higher Extinction of Biodiversity Than Previously Thought – Climate Progress – 20/09/2011 – http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/09/20/323639/global-warming-extinction-of-biodiversity/ – «If global warming continues as expected, it is estimated that almost a third of all flora and fauna species worldwide could become extinct. Scientists … discovered that the proportion of actual biodiversity loss should quite clearly be revised upwards: by 2080, more than 80% of genetic diversity within species may disappear in certain groups of organisms, according to researchers in the title story of the journal Nature Climate Change. The study is the first world-wide to quantify the loss of biological diversity on the basis of genetic diversity.»

Science News – Future Forests May Soak Up More Carbon Dioxide Than Previously Believed – Science Daily – 13/10/2011 – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111013153955.htm – «It appears that the extra carbon dioxide allowed trees to grow more small roots and «forage» more successfully for nitrogen in the soil, Zak said. At the same time, the rate at which microorganisms released nitrogen back to the soil, as fallen leaves and branches decayed, increased. «The greater growth has been sustained by an acceleration, rather than a slowing down, of soil nitrogen cycling,» Zak said. «Under elevated carbon dioxide, the trees did a better job of getting nitrogen out of the soil, and there was more of it for plants to use.»

Douglas Fischer – Far from being «alarmist,» predictions from climate scientists in many cases are proving to be more conservative than observed climate-induced impacts – The Daily Climate – 18/10/2011 – http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2011/10/climate-alarmism – «It’s a trend he recognizes even in his work: Maclean and his co-author, Robert Wilson, also a researcher at the University of Exeter, were careful to exclude any studies and factors they could not definitively link to climate change. That meant excluding a «fairly large» body of work from their analysis, he said. Their standards, he acknowledges, were probably a little too conservative. But the main point of the paper wasn’t to highlight the gap between predictions and observations, he said. They simply wished to show the predictions were reasonable, not alarmist. In an interview, Maclean was willing to «go beyond the message of the paper» and flatly state that the extinction predictions are too conservative. But, he added, «I can’t say it definitively.»

Nina Chestney – Climate-driven migration challenge underestimated – Reuters – 19/10/2011 – http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/19/us-climate-migration-idUSTRE79I89720111019 – «The challenges of human migration due to climate change have been underestimated as millions of people will either move into or be trapped in areas of risk by 2060, rather than migrating away, a British government report showed on Thursday.»

Joseph Romm – Nature: “Dynamic thinning of Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheet ocean margins is more sensitive, pervasive, enduring and important than previously realized” – Climate Progress – 26/10/2011 – http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2009/10/26/204800/nature-dynamic-thinning-of-greenland-and-antarctic-ice-sheets-glacier/ – “The release notes that this “dynamic thinning”: reaches all latitudes in Greenland; has intensified on key Antarctic coastlines; is penetrating far into the ice sheets’ interior; and is spreading as ice shelves thin by ocean-driven melt.”

Science News – Scientists Predict Faster Retreat for Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier; Underwater Ridge Critical to Future Flow – Science Daily – 26/10/2011 – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111026162707.htm – «The goal of NASA’s Ice Bridge campaign is to map the topography of vulnerable regions like this in Antarctica and Greenland by flying over the ice sheets with ice-penetrating radar and other instruments. The discovery that Thwaites is losing its grip on a previously unknown ridge has helped scientists understand why the glacier seems to be moving faster than it used to.»

Science News – Climate Sensitivity Greater Than Previously Believed – Science Daily – 20/12/2011 – University of Gothenburg – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111220133542.htm – «Many of the particles in the atmosphere are produced by the natural world, and it is possible that plants have in recent decades reduced the effects of the greenhouse gases to which human activity has given rise. One consequence of this is that the climate may be more sensitive to emissions caused by human activity than we have previously believed. Scientists at the University of Gothenburg (Sweden) have collected new data that may lead to better climate models.

Rolf Schuttenhelm – ‘No, climate sensitivity is not smaller, it is higher than we thought’ – because organic aerosol feedbacks mask warming – Bits of Science – 21/12/2011 – http://www.bitsofscience.org/climate-sensitivity-organic-aerosol-feedbacks-warming-4479/ – «The authors argue that climate sensitivity could be ‘greater than previously believed’ because in the initial phases of the current CO2-induced warming plant life has emitted larger amounts of precursor gases that lead to the formation of reflective or blocking* secondary organic aerosols (SOA) in the atmosphere, thereby acting as a negative climate feedback, and masking part of the ‘warming’ that’s occurring underneath.»

Joseph Romm – Climate Sensitivity Higher Than We Thought, Researchers Find – Climate Progress – 22/12/2011 – http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/12/22/394496/climate-sensitivity-higher-organic-aerosol-feedbacks-researchers-find/ – «There’s been a lot of confusion this year on how sensitive the climate is to greenhouse gases (see Media Misleads On Flawed Climate Sensitivity Study: Avoiding “Drastic Changes Over Land” Requires Emissions Cuts ASAP). Given all the media attention given to one (flawed) study, a little attention to other studies seems worthwhile.»

– Climate Outlook Looking Much The Same, or Even Worse – Science 334:1616 doi10.1126/science.334.6063.1616-a – 23/12/2011 – http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6063/1616.1.full – «So Bamber surveyed 28 colleagues, half of whom responded. Making judgments on how warm it will get and how ice sheets will react to that warming, the experts came up with a mean best estimate of 32 centimeters of sea level rise by 2100 from ice sheet losses, he said at the meeting. That puts their collective judgment distinctly above the IPCC’s conservative estimate but below some earlier estimates of a meter and more. Sea level rise from all sources—including mountain glacier melting and ocean water expansion—will surely continue and will accelerate, the experts conclude, until it reaches a total of 61 to 73 centimeters by 2100. That’s enough to inundate large parts of South Florida and Bangladesh, but it’s not the looming catastrophe foreseen by some. »

Matthew McDermott – Peru’s Glaciers Melting, Decreasing Water Supply 20 Years Earlier Than Expected – Tree Hugger – 27/12/2011 – http://www.treehugger.com/climate-change/peru-glaciers-melting-20-years-earlier-expected.html – «A new study in the Journal of Glaciology shows that the glaciers in Peru’s Cordillera Blanca mountain range are melting so quickly that the water they supply to the arid region is being threatened 20-30 years earlier than expected. Lead researcher Michel Baraer, from McGill University, told IPS News that the time needed for the region to adapt to the coming water shortages, previously thought to be decades off, «those years don’t exist». Baraer said that the glaciers feeding the Rio Santo watershed are now too small to maintain past flows of water. During the dry season water availability is expected to be 30% lower than historic levels. In the 1930s glaciers in the Cordillera Blanca covered 850 square kilometers. Today they cover less than 600 sq km.»

Science News – Biodiversity Crisis Is Worse Than Climate Change, Experts Say – Science Daily – 20/01/2012 – University of Copenhagen – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120120010357.htm – «The world is losing species at a rate that is 100 to 1000 times faster than the natural extinction rate.»

Science News – Thickest Parts of Arctic Ice Cap Melting Faster – Science Daily – 29/02/2012 – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120229190000.htm – «»The average thickness of the Arctic sea ice cover is declining because it is rapidly losing its thick component, the multi-year ice. At the same time, the surface temperature in the Arctic is going up, which results in a shorter ice-forming season,» Comiso said. «It would take a persistent cold spell for most multi-year sea ice and other ice types to grow thick enough in the winter to survive the summer melt season and reverse the trend.»»

Louise Gray – Met Office: World warmed even more in last ten years than previously thought when Arctic data added – The Telegraph – 19/03/2012 – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9153473/Met-Office-World-warmed-even-more-in-last-ten-years-than-previously-thought-when-Arctic-data-added.html – autores

Science News – Orangutans Smarter Than Previously Thought: Orangutan Nest Building Highly Sophisticated – Science Daily – 17/04/2012 – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120417080346.htm – «Orangutans may be smarter than previously thought if a new study into the sophisticated way they build nests is any indication.»

Jasper van Vliet et al (2012) – Copenhagen Accord Pledges imply higher costs for staying below 2°C warming – Climatic Change 113:551-561 doi:10.1007/s10584-012-0458-9 – 20/04/2012 – Climate, Air and Energy, Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency – 8 autores “We find that for a ‘Copenhagen Potential’ scenario, emissions by 2020 are higher (47 GtCO2eq/yr) than for a least-cost pathway for 2°C (43 GtCO2eq/yr with a 40– 46 GtCO2eq/yr literature range). In the ‘Copenhagen Potential’ scenario the 2°C target can still be met with a likely chance, although discounted mitigation costs over 2010–2100 could be 10 to 15 % higher, and up to 60 % in the 2040–2050s, than for least-cost pathways. For the ‘Current Copenhagen’ scenario, maintaining an equally low probability of exceeding 2° C becomes infeasible in our model, implying higher costs due to higher climate risks. We conclude that there is some flexibility in terms of 2020 emissions compared to the optimal pathways but this is limited. The 2020 emission level represents a trade-off between shortterm emission reductions and long-term dependence on rapid reductions through specific technologies (like negative emission reductions). Higher 2020 emissions lead to higher overall costs and reduced long-term flexibility, both leading to a higher risk of failing to hold warming below 2°C.”

Matt McGrath – Plants flower faster than climate change models predict – BBC News – 02/05/2012 – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17924653 – «Researchers found in long-term studies that some are flowering up to eight times faster than models anticipate. The authors say that poor study design and a lack of investment in experiments partly account for the difference. They suggest that spring flowering and leafing will continue to advance at the rate of 5 to 6 days per year for every degree celsius of warming. The results are published in the journal Nature.»

John Atcheson – Faster Than We Thought’: An Epitaph for Planet Earth – Common Dreams – 23/05/2012 – http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/05/23-5 – “As she pieces together this saga, she’ll encounter the usual suspects. The army of paid politicians who carried the water of the fossil fuel plutocrats. A press that, for the most part, failed to cover the most important story in history, and put “balance” above accuracy, context, facts, and reality when they did. Economists, who used bizarre abstractions like discounting the future to make it seem like saving the world wasn’t cost-effective. Environmentalists, who were loath to speak the truth because they didn’t want to be accused of spreading “doom and gloom.” Scientists who mumbled warnings under their breath until it was too late because they thought warnings were somehow unseemly. The IPCC and their infrequent and out-of-date on date-of-issue reports, an organization that, by design, was intended to slow-walk the science and muddle it with misguided neoclassical economic incantations.”

Ronald van Haren et al (2013) – SST and circulation trend biases cause an underestimation of European precipitation trends – Climate Dynamics – 30/05/2012 – Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) – 5 autores «Clear precipitation trends have been observed in Europe over the past century. In winter, precipitation has increased in north-western Europe. In summer, there has been an increase along many coasts in the same area. Over the second half of the past century precipitation also decreased in southern Europe in winter. An investigation of precipitation trends in two multi-model ensembles including both global and regional climate models shows that these models fail to reproduce the observed trends. In many regions the model spread does not cover the trend in the observations. In contrast, regional climate model (RCM) experiments with observed boundary conditions reproduce the observed precipitation trends much better. The observed trends are largely compatible with the range of uncertainties spanned by the ensemble, indicating that the boundary conditions of RCMs are responsible for large parts of the trend biases. We find that the main factor in setting the trend in winter is atmospheric circulation, for summer sea surface temperature (SST) is important in setting precipitation trends along the North Sea and Atlantic coasts. The causes of the large trends in atmospheric circulation and summer SST are not known. For SST there may be a connection with the well-known ocean circulation biases in low-resolution ocean models. A quantitative understanding of the causes of these trends is needed so that climate model based projections of future climate can be corrected for these precipitation trend biases.»

Umair Irfan – Forest fires, wood-burning stoves may have stronger climate impacts than previously thought – E&E Publishing – 06/07/2012 – http://www.eenews.net/public/climatewire/2012/07/06/1 – «To find out, the researchers used satellite data along with ground-based aerosol sensors and aircraft measurements to determine how much heat brown carbon can soak up. The researchers found that organic matter emissions roughly break even with their light scattering offsetting their absorption so their net climate impact is close to zero. This means that climate forcing from black carbon is 85 percent higher than what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated. This is troubling, since it means that organic matter does not offset warming, enhancing impacts from black carbon, and brown carbon may contribute 20 percent of solar absorption from carbon aerosols. As a result, both black and brown carbon emissions have a synergistic climate impact. «What our work means is that our carbonaceous aerosols would heat the planet more and dry out the planet more,» Ramanathan said.»

Michael D. Lemonick – Sea Level Rise: It Could Be Worse than We Think – Climate Central – 12/07/2012 – http://www.climatecentral.org/news/sea-level-rise-it-could-be-worse-than-we-think/ – «A new analysis released Thursday in the journal Science implies that the seas could rise dramatically higher over the next few centuries than scientists previously thought — somewhere between 18-to-29 feet above current levels, rather than the 13-to-20 feet they were talking about just a few years ago … Twenty-nine feet of sea-level rise, by contrast, or even 18, would put hundreds coastal cities around the globe entirely under water, displacing many hundreds of millions of people and destroying untold trillions in property. It would, in short, be a disaster of unimaginable proportions.»

James Hansen – Climate change is here — and worse than we thought – The Washington Post – 04/08/2012 – NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies – http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/climate-change-is-here–and-worse-than-we-thought/2012/08/03/6ae604c2-dd90-11e1-8e43-4a3c4375504a_story.html – «When I testified before the Senate in the hot summer of 1988 , I warned of the kind of future that climate change would bring to us and our planet. I painted a grim picture of the consequences of steadily increasing temperatures, driven by mankind’s use of fossil fuels. But I have a confession to make: I was too optimistic. My projections about increasing global temperature have been proved true. But I failed to fully explore how quickly that average rise would drive an increase in extreme weather.»

Robin McKie – Rate of Arctic summer sea ice loss is 50% higher than predicted – The Guardian – 11/08/2012 – http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/11/arctic-sea-ice-vanishing – «Preliminary results from the European Space Agency’s CryoSat-2 probe indicate that 900 cubic kilometres of summer sea ice has disappeared from the Arctic ocean over the past year.»

Xinhua – Pollution causing glacier to melt even faster – Shangai Daily – 16/08/2012 – http://www.shanghaidaily.com/nsp/National/2012/08/16/Pollution%2Bcausing%2Bglacier%2Bto%2Bmelt%2Beven%2Bfaster/ – «The No. 1 glacier in the Tianshan Mountains in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, has been retreating by more than four meters every year and its thickness has shrunk by more than 15 meters from 1958 to 2010, said Li Zhongqin, head of the Tianshan Mountains Glacier Observation Station under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.»

Becky Oskin – Hurricanes Whip Up Faster in Warming World, Study Suggests – Live Science – 07/09/2012 – https://www.livescience.com/23003-hurricanes-increase-intensity-global-warming.html – “Global warming may fuel stronger hurricanes whose winds whip up faster, new research suggests. Hurricanes and other tropical cyclones across the globe reach Category 3 wind speeds nearly nine hours earlier than they did 25 years ago, the study found. In the North Atlantic, the storms have shaved almost a day (20 hours) off their spin-up to Category 3, the researchers report. (Category 3 hurricanes have winds between 111 and 129 mph, or 178 and 208 kph.) «Storms are intensifying at a much more rapid pace than they used to 25 years back,» said climatologist Dev Niyogi, a professor at Purdue University in Indiana and senior author of the study. The work helps support the theory that rising ocean temperatures have shifted the intensity of tropical cyclones, which include hurricanes and typhoons, to higher levels. In the past century, sea surface temperatures have risen 0.9 degree Fahrenheit (0.5 degree Celsius) globally. Scientists continue to debate whether this increase in temperature will boost the intensity or the number of storms, or both. Globally, about 90 tropical cyclones, on average, occur every year. ”

Laurie Johnson – How The Federal Government Greatly Underestimates The True Cost Of Carbon Pollution – Climate Progress – 18/09/2012 – http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/09/18/866441/how-the-federal-government-greatly-underestimates-the-true-cost-of-carbon-pollution/ – «In the article, my coauthor Chris Hope (Judge Business School, University of Cambridge) and I show how regulatory agencies are using a faulty model to estimate carbon pollution damages that all but ignores the economic damages climate change will inflict on future generations.»

John Carey (2012) – Global Warming Happening: Faster Than Expected? – Scientific American – 29/10/2012 – http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-global-warming-happening-faster-than-expected – «The latest data from across the globe show that the planet is changing faster than expected. More sea ice around the Arctic Ocean is disappearing than had been forecast. Regions of permafrost across Alaska and Siberia are spewing out more methane, the potent greenhouse gas, than models had predicted. Ice shelves in West Antarctica are breaking up more quickly than once thought possible, and the glaciers they held back on adjacent land are sliding faster into the sea. Extreme weather events, such as floods and the heat wave that gripped much of the U.S. in the summer of 2012 are on the rise, too. The conclusion? “As scientists, we cannot say that if we stay below two degrees of warming everything will be fine,” says Stefan Rahmstorf, a professor of physics of the oceans at the University of Potsdam in Germany.»

Michael Le Page – Climate change: It’s even worse than we thought – New Scientist 2893 – 28/11/2012 – http://www.newscientist.com/special/worse-climate – “Five years ago, the last report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change painted a gloomy picture of our planet’s future. As climate scientists gather evidence for the next report, due in 2014, Michael Le Page gives seven reasons why things are looking even grimmer … 1. The thick sea ice in the Arctic Ocean was not expected to melt until the end of the century. If current trends continue, summer ice could be gone in a decade or two; 2. We knew global warming was going to make the weather more extreme. But it’s becoming even more extreme than anyone predicted; 3. Global warming was expected to boost food production. Instead, food prices are soaring as the effects of extreme weather kick in; 4. Greenland’s rapid loss of ice mean we’re in for a rise of at least 1 metre by 2100, and possibly much more; 5. The planet currently absorbs half our CO2emissions. All the signs are it won’t for much longer; 6. If we stopped emitting CO2 tomorrow, we might be able to avoid climate disaster. In fact we are still increasing emissions; 7. If the worst climate predictions are realised, vast swathes of the globe could become too hot for humans to survive. ”

Glenn Scherer and DailyClimate.org – Climate Science Predictions Prove Too Conservative – Scientific American – 06/12/2012 – http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-science-predictions-prove-too-conservative/ – «Across two decades and thousands of pages of reports, the world’s most authoritative voice on climate science has consistently understated the rate and intensity of climate change and the danger those impacts represent, say a growing number of studies on the topic. »

Glenn Scherer – Eight examples of where the IPCC has missed the mark on its predictions and projections – The Daily Climate – 06/12/2012 – http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2012/12/ipcc-prediction-fact-check – “Emissions; Temperature; Arctic Meltdown; Ice Sheets; Sea-Level Rise; Ocean Acidification; Thawing Tundra; Tipping points ”

Glenn Scherer – How the IPCC Underestimated Climate Change – Scientific American – 06/12/2012 – https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-ipcc-underestimated-climate-change/ – «Scientists will tell you: There are no perfect computer models. All are incomplete representations of nature, with uncertainty built into them. But one thing is certain: Several fundamental projections found in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports have consistently underestimated real-world observations, potentially leaving world governments at doubt as to how to guide climate policy.»

Chris Hope (2013) – Critical issues for the calculation of the social cost of CO2: why the estimates from PAGE09 are higher than those from PAGE2002 – Climatic Change doi:10.1007/s10584-012-0633-z – 12/12/2012 – University of Cambridge – «PAGE09 is an updated version of the PAGE2002 integrated assessment model (Hope 2011a). The default PAGE09 model gives a mean estimate of the social cost of CO2 (SCCO2) of $106 per tonne of CO2, compared to $81 from the PAGE2002 model used in the Stern review (Stern 2007). The increase is the net result of several improvements that have been incorporated into the PAGE09 model in response to the critical debate around the Stern review: the adoption of the A1B socio-economic scenario, rather than A2 whose population assumptions are now thought to be implausible; the use of ranges for the two components of the discount rate, rather than the single values used in the Stern review; a distribution for the climate sensitivity that is consistent with the latest estimates from IPCC 2007a; less adaptation than in PAGE2002, particularly in the economic sector, which was criticised for possibly being over-optimistic; and a more theoretically-justified basis of valuation that gives results appropriate to a representative agent from the focus region, the EU. The effect of each of these adjustments is quantified and explained.»

National Center for Atmospheric Research – West Antarctica Warming Three Times Faster Than Global Average, Threatening To Destabilize This Unstable Ice Sheet – Climate Progress – 27/12/2012 – http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/12/27/1377751/west-antarctica-warming-three-times-faster-than-global-average-threatening-to-destabilize-this-unstable-ice-sheet/ – “Our results indicate that temperature increases during the past half century have been almost twice what we previously thought, placing West Antarctica among the fastest warming regions on Earth,” says NCAR scientist Andrew Monaghan, a co-author. “A growing body of research shows that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is changing at an alarming rate, with pressure coming from both a warming ocean and a warming atmosphere.”

Joseph Romm – Black Carbon Larger Cause Of Climate Change Than Previously Assessed – Climate Progress – 16/01/2013 – http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/01/16/1452741/black-carbon-larger-cause-of-climate-change-than-previously-assessed/ – “In economics, market clearing refers to either a simplifying assumption made by the new classical school that markets always go to where the quantity supplied equals the quantity demanded; or the process of getting there via price adjustment. ”

Heather Stewart and Larry Elliott – Nicholas Stern: ‘I got it wrong on climate change – it’s far, far worse’ – The Guardian – 26/01/2013 – http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/27/nicholas-stern-climate-change-davos – «In an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Stern, who is now a crossbench peer, said: «Looking back, I underestimated the risks. The planet and the atmosphere seem to be absorbing less carbon than we expected, and emissions are rising pretty strongly. Some of the effects are coming through more quickly than we thought then.».»

Heather Stewart and Larry Elliott – Nicholas Stern: “I got it wrong on climate change – it’s far, far worse” – The Guardian – 27/01/2013 – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jan/27/nicholas-stern-climate-change-davos – «In an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Stern, who is now a crossbench peer, said: «Looking back, I underestimated the risks. The planet and the atmosphere seem to be absorbing less carbon than we expected, and emissions are rising pretty strongly. Some of the effects are coming through more quickly than we thought then.».»

News Service – Melting ‘Permafrost’ Releases Climate-Warming CO2 Even Faster Than We Thought – Climate Progress – 12/02/2013 – University of Michigan – http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/02/12/1575941/melting-permafrost-releases-climate-warming-co2-even-faster-than-we-thought/ – “What we can say now is that regardless of how fast the thawing of the Arctic permafrost occurs, the conversion of this soil carbon to carbon dioxide and its release into the atmosphere will be faster than we previously thought,” Kling said. “That means permafrost carbon is potentially a huge factor that will help determine how fast the Earth warms.”

Nathan (2013) – Greenland’s Peripheral Glaciers Contributing More To Sea-Level Rise Than Previously Thought – Planet Save – 20/03/2013 – Planet Save – http://planetsave.com/2013/03/20/greenlands-peripheral-glaciers-contributing-more-to-sea-level-rise-than-previously-thought/ – «Greenland’s peripheral glaciers, those that are not directly connected to the primary ice sheet, are contributing much more to global sea-level rise than was previously thought. Researchers discovered that these peripheral glaciers, while only making up 5-7 % of total ice coverage on the land mass, are causing up to 20% of the rise in sea level created by the Greenland’s melting.»

– Scientists find Antarctic ice is melting faster – Reuters – 15/04/2013 – http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/04/15/us-antarctica-ice-idUKBRE93E08D20130415 – «The summer ice melt in parts of Antarctica is at its highest level in 1,000 years, Australian and British researchers reported on Monday, adding new evidence of the impact of global warming on sensitive Antarctic glaciers and ice shelves.»

J.M. Gregory et al (2013) – Climate models without preindustrial volcanic forcing underestimate historical ocean thermal expansion – Geophysical Research Letters 40:1600–1604 doi:10.1002/grl.50339 – 28/04/2013 – NCAS-Climate, University of Reading and Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter – http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50339/abstract – 14 autores » Episodic explosive volcanic eruptions are a natural part of the climate system but are often omitted from atmosphere-ocean general circulation model (AOGCM) preindustrial spin-up and control experiments. This omission imposes a negative bias on ocean heat uptake in simulations of the historical period. In models of a range of complexity, we find that global-mean sea level rise due to thermal expansion during the last ∼ 150 years is consequently underestimated by 5–30 mm, which is a substantial proportion of the model mean of 50 mm in Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 3 AOGCMs with anthropogenic forcing only, and is therefore important in accounting for 20th century sea level rise. We test and recommend a procedure for removing the bias.»

Science News – Methane Emissions Higher Than Thought Across Much of U.S. – Science Daily – 15/05/2013 – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130515165021.htm – «After taking a rented camper outfitted with special equipment to measure methane on a cross-continent drive, a UC Santa Barbara scientist has found that methane emissions across large parts of the U.S. are higher than currently known, confirming what other more local studies have found. Their research is published in the journal Atmospheric Environment.»

Greg Laden – Why Global Warming’s Effects Will Be Worse Than You Were Thinking – Greg Laden – 20/05/2013 – http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2013/05/20/why-global-warmings-effects-will-be-worse-than-you-were-thinking/ – «We have some very fancy models based on physics of ice melting and a few other variables that can be used to estimate ice melt and sea level rise. The problem is, these unpredictable and large scale catastrophic events have never been observed to happen. Yet, we think that they can happen in part because the rate of sea level rise thousands of years ago at the end of the last glacial maximum was so fast at times that it must have involved some pretty rapid events, more rapid than our models are able to predict. Our models can’t predict these events not because the events can not happen but because the models have no way of dealing with them.»

Science News – Wildfires May Contribute More to Global Warming Than Previously Predicted – Science Daily – 09/07/2013 – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130709124153.htm – “Why is this important for climate? Dubey noted that, «Most climate assessment models treat fire emissions as a mixture of pure soot and organic carbon aerosols that offset the respective warming and cooling effects of one another on climate. However Las Conchas results show that tar balls exceed soot by a factor of 10 and the soot gets coated by organics in fire emissions, each resulting in more of a warming effect than is currently assumed.» «Tar balls can absorb sunlight at shorter blue and ultraviolet wavelengths (also called brown carbon due to the color) and can cause substantial warming,» he said. «Furthermore, organic coatings on soot act like lenses that focus sunlight, amplifying the absorption and warming by soot by a factor of 2 or more. This has a huge impact on how they should be treated in computer models.»”

Hartmann – Climate Change is Worse than You Have Ever Imagined – TheBigPictureRT – 22/08/2013 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp1OEmntNsM&feature=youtu.be&noredirect=1 – «Climate change is real – deadly – and worse than you have ever imagined.»

Joseph Romm – How IPCC Climate Reports Are Like The Surgeon General’s Cigarette Warnings – Climate Progress – 22/08/2013 – http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/08/22/2510791/climate-report-smoking/ – «Back in the ’60s, the Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee Reviewed all the scientific literature on smoking. It was very clear that cigarette smoking was hazardous to your health. They put out a caution, “cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health.” It was only several years later that they said cigarette smoke, we’ve determined. “is dangerous to your health.” And then finally it wasn’t until the 1980s that they said, if you stop smoking, it’s going to reduce risks to your health.»

Dionne Hamil – East Antarctic Ice Sheet could be more vulnerable to climate change than previously thought – Eurekalert! – 28/08/2013 – http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-08/du-eai082713.php – autores

Nick Collins – Lord Stern: IPCC report will underestimate climate change – The Telegraph – 24/09/2013 – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/10331898/Lord-Stern-IPCC-report-will-underestimate-climate-change.html – «It means that models which will be used to inform the latest international assessment of climate science, to be revealed on Friday, “substantially underestimate” the scale of the problem, Lord Stern of Brentford claimed … Many economic models also “grossly underestimate the risks” because they assume that growth will continue unabated in the face of climate change and that the costs will be small, he said.»

Joseph Romm – Alarming IPCC Prognosis: 9°F Warming For U.S., Faster Sea Rise, More Extreme Weather, Permafrost Collapse – Climate Progress – 27/09/2013 – http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/09/27/2691471/ipcc-report-warming-extreme-weather/ – “In the no-action case, the top 10 feet of permafrost are headed towards oblivion. Given that the permafrost contains twice as much carbon as the atmosphere does today, you’d think team IPCC would warn us about this more bluntly. You’d certainly think that they would factor in some of that carbon in their prognosis. But, like I said, they are super-cautious (see “IPCC’s Planned Obsolescence: Fifth Assessment Report Will Ignore Crucial Permafrost Carbon Feedback”). Last fall, a major study found that the carbon feedback from thawing permafrost will likely add 0.4°F to 1.5°F to total global warming by 2100.”

John Abraham – Oceans heating up faster now than in the past 10,000 years, says new study – Skeptical Science – 05/11/2013 – http://www.skepticalscience.com/oceans-heating-up-faster-than-past-10000-years.html – «If the latest research is correct, our oceans are heating up much faster now than they have in the past 10,000 years. This is one of the conclusions that is drawn from a recently published paper in Science. The researchers (Yair Rosenthal, Braddock Linsley, and Delia Oppo) cleverly traveled back in time to explore how ocean temperatures have changed. Comparison of those temperatures to today’s helped them quantify the impact that human greenhouse gas emissions are having on the planet.»

Gavin Schmidt – Global Warming Since 1997 Underestimated by Half – Real Climate – 13/11/2013 – http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/11/global-warming-since-1997-underestimated-by-half/ – “The surprising result Cowtan and Way apply their method to the HadCRUT4 data, which are state-of-the-art except for their treatment of data gaps. For 1997-2012 these data show a relatively small warming trend of only 0.05 °C per decade – which has often been misleadingly called a “warming pause”. The new IPCC report writes: Due to natural variability, trends based on short records are very sensitive to the beginning and end dates and do not in general reflect long-term climate trends. As one example, the rate of warming over the past 15 years (1998–2012; 0.05 [–0.05 to +0.15] °C per decade), which begins with a strong El Niño, is smaller than the rate calculated since 1951 (1951–2012; 0.12 [0.08 to 0.14] °C per decade).’ But after filling the data gaps this trend is 0.12 °C per decade and thus exactly equal to the long-term trend mentioned by the IPCC.”

Robert U. Ayres et al (2013) – The underestimated contribution of energy to economic growth – Structural Change and Economic Dynamics 27: 79–88 doi:10.1016/j.strueco.2013.07.004 – 01/12/2013 – European School of Business Administration, INSEAD + International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis – https://sites.insead.edu/facultyresearch/research/doc.cfm?did=52984 – 4 autores «Standard economic theory regards capital and labour as the main factors of production that satisfy the “cost-share theorem”. This paper argues that when a third factor, namely energy, is added physical constraints on substitution among the factors arise. We show that energy is a much more important factor of production than its small cost share may indicate. This implies that continued economic growth along the historical trend cannot safely be assumed, notably in view of considerably higher energy prices in the future due to peak oil and climate policy.»

John L. Hallock Jr. et al (2014) – Forecasting the limits to the availability and diversity of global conventional oil supply: Validation – Energy 64:130–153 doi:10.1016/j.energy.2013.10.075 – 18/12/2013 – Department of Environmental and Forest Biology, Graduate Program in Environmental Sciences, State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF) – 5 autores «Oil and related products continue to be prime enablers of the maintenance and growth of nearly all of the world’s economies. The dramatic increase in the price of oil through mid-2008, along with the coincident (and possibly resultant) global recession, highlight our continued vulnerability to future limitations in the supply of cheap oil. The very large differences between the various estimates of the original volume of extractable conventional oil present on earth (EUR) have, at best, fostered uncertainty of the risk of future supply limitations among planners and policy makers, and at worse lulled the world into a false sense of security. In 2002 we modeled future oil production in 46 nation-units and the world by using a three-phase, Hubbert-based approach that produced trajectories dependent on settings for EUR (extractable ultimate resource), demand growth, percent of oil resource extracted at decline, and maximum allowable rates of production growth. We analyzed the sensitivity of the date of onset of decline for oil production to changes in each of these input parameters. In this current effort, we compare the last eleven years of empirical oil production data to our earlier forecast scenarios to evaluate which settings of EUR and other input parameters had created the most accurate projections. When combined with proper input settings, our model consistently generated trajectories for oil production that closely approximated the empirical data at both the national and the global level. In general, the lowest EUR scenarios were the most consistent with the empirical data at the global level and for most countries, while scenarios based on the mid and high EUR estimates overestimated production rates by wide margins globally. The global production of conventional oil began to decline in 2005, and has followed a path over the last 11 years very close to our scenarios assuming low estimates of EUR (1.9 Gbbl). Production in most nations is declining, with historical profiles generally consistent with Hubbert’s premises. While new conventional oil discoveries and production starts are expected in the near term, the magnitudes necessary to increase our simulated production trajectories by even 1.0% per year over the next 10 years would represent a large departure from current trends. Our now well-validated simulations are at significant variance from many recent «predictions» of extensive future availability of conventional oil.»

– How the IPCC is more likely to underestimate the climate response – Skeptical Science – 01/01/2014 – http://skepticalscience.net/pdf/rebuttal/ipcc-scientific-consensus-intermediate.pdf – “One characterisation of the IPCC is that it is politically motivated to exaggerate the dangers of global warming and the level of human influence on climate change. When IPCC predictions are compared to observed data, the opposite is shown to be the case.”

Science News – Fish biomass in the ocean may be 10 times higher than estimated: Stock of mesopelagic fish changes from 1,000 to 10,000 million tons – Science Daily – 07/02/2014 – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140207083830.htm – «With a stock estimated at 1,000 million tons so far, mesopelagic fish dominate the total biomass of fish in the ocean. However, scientists have found that their abundance could be at least 10 times higher. The results are based on the acoustic observations conducted during the circumnavigation of the Malaspina Expedition.»

Gayathri Vaidyanathan – Wide-ranging review sees much higher methane leakage from natural gas operations – E&E Publishing – 14/02/2014 – http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059994614 – «The study found that U.S. EPA’s greenhouse gas inventory is underestimating the amount of methane emitted in the United States by about 50 percent. Some of that excess is from the natural gas sector.»

Science News – Africa’s air pollution underestimated in climate change models – Science Daily – 13/03/2014 – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140313092406.htm – «Human activity in Africa significantly contributes to air pollution. However, no detailed data regarding country-by-country pollutant emissions in the continent was available until now. To remedy this scientists mapped these emissions in Africa for 2005, before estimating them for 2030, using three scenarios. The researchers showed that the climate change models used by the IPCC underestimate Africa’s emissions, which could account for 20-55% of global anthropogenic emissions of gaseous and particulate pollutants by 2030.»

Stephanie Paige Ogburn – Climate change acidifying tropical Pacific Ocean more than expected — study – E&E – 27/03/2014 – https://www.eenews.net/stories/1059996806 – “Measurements by atmospheric scientists at NOAA show that atmospheric CO2 is increasing at a rate of about 2 parts per million per year. But in parts of the tropical Pacific, the rate of change in CO2 concentrations measured by the researchers reached 3.3 ppm per year. «It was a big surprise. We were not expecting to see rates that strong,» Sutton said. Current models do not predict such large increases in carbon dioxide concentrations in that part of the ocean, which is one of the reasons those findings were unexpected. The data were collected from a set of seven buoys in the tropical Pacific, starting in 1998. ”

Emily Atkin – The Pacific Ocean Is Turning Sour Much Faster Than Expected, Study Shows – Climate Progress – 28/03/2014 – http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/03/28/3420290/ocean-acidifying-quickly/ – “It’s common knowledge among the scientific community that climate change will eventually acidify the oceans and turn them sour. What’s less common knowledge is when exactly it will happen. In the tropical Pacific Ocean, however, the answers are getting a little clearer — and they’re not pretty. According to a study released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and University of Washington scientists on Wednesday, the amount of carbon dioxide in the tropical Pacific has increased much faster than expected over the past 14 years, making that part of the ocean much more acidic than previously believed.”

Forbes Tompkins and Kelly Levin – 4 Takeaways from IPCC Report Reveal Worsening Impacts of Climate Change – World Resources Institute – 30/03/2014 – http://www.wri.org/blog/4-takeaways-ipcc-report-reveal-worsening-impacts-climate-change – “1) Climate change now affects every part of the planet. 2) Climate change will increase the frequency and severity of extreme weather 3) Meeting the scale of the challenge requires adaptation andmitigation. 4) Rapid and steep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions can reduce risks and costs—and the timing matters.”

Douglas J. Arent, Richard S.J. Tol et al (2014) – Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Chapter 10. Key Economic Sectors and Services – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – 31/03/2014 – https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WGIIAR5-Chap10_FINAL.pdf – 16 autores «Figure 10-1 | Estimates of the total impact of climate change plotted against the assumed climate change (proxied by the increase in the global mean surface air temperature); studies published since IPCC AR4 are highlighted as diamonds; see Table SM10-1.» (p. 690)

Howard Lee – Alarming new study makes today’s climate change more comparable to Earth’s worst mass extinction – Skeptical Science – 02/04/2014 – http://www.skepticalscience.com/Lee-commentary-on-Burgess-et-al-PNAS-Permian-Dating.html – “In “High-precision timeline for Earth’s most severe extinction,” published in PNAS on February 10, authors Seth Burgess, Samuel Bowring, and Shu-zhong Shen employed new dating techniques on Permian-Triassic rocks in China, bringing unprecedented precision to our understanding of the event. They have dramatically shortened the timeframe for the initial carbon emissions that triggered the mass extinction from roughly 150,000 years to between 2,100 and 18,800 years. This new timeframe is crucial because it brings the timescale of the Permian Extinction event’s carbon emissions shorter by two orders of magnitude, into the ballpark of human emission rates for the first time. How does this relate to today’s global warming? ”

Science News – Why Arctic ice is disappearing more rapidly than expected: River ice reveals new twist on Arctic melt – Science Daily – 02/04/2014 – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140402212601.htm – «A new study has discovered unexpected climate-driven changes in the mighty Mackenzie River’s ice breakup. This discovery may help resolve the complex puzzle underlying why Arctic ice is disappearing more rapidly than expected.»

Science News – Tibetan Plateau was larger than previously thought, geologists say – Science Daily – 11/04/2014 – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140411091949.htm – «The Tibetan Plateau — the world’s largest, highest, and flattest plateau — had a larger initial extent than previously documented, Earth scientists have demonstrated. Known as the «Roof of the World,» the Tibetan Plateau covers more than 970,000 square miles in Asia and India and reaches heights of over 15,000 feet. The plateau also contains a host of natural resources, including large mineral deposits and tens of thousands of glaciers, and is the headwaters of many major drainage basins.»

Kees Jan van Groenigen et al (2014) – Faster Decomposition Under Increased Atmospheric CO2 Limits Soil Carbon Storage – Science 344:508-509 doi:10.1126/science.1249534 – 24/04/2014 – Center for Ecosystem Science and Society, Northern Arizona University + Department of Botany, School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin – 5 autores «Soils contain the largest pool of terrestrial organic carbon (C) and are a major source of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). Thus, they may play a key role in modulating climate change. Rising atmospheric CO2 is expected to stimulate plant growth and soil C input but may also alter microbial decomposition. The combined effect of these responses on long-term C storage is unclear. Combining meta-analysis with data assimilation, we show that atmospheric CO2 enrichment stimulates both the input (+19.8%) and the turnover of C in soil (+16.5%). The increase in soil C turnover with rising CO2 leads to lower equilibrium soil C stocks than expected from the rise in soil C input alone, indicating that it is a general mechanism limiting C accumulation in soil.»

Science News – Modern ocean acidification is outpacing ancient upheaval: Rate may be ten times faster – Science Daily – 02/05/2014 – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140602170341.htm – «Scientists estimate that surface ocean acidity increased by about 100 percent during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum in a few thousand years or more, and stayed that way for the next 70,000 years. Scientists have long suspected that ocean acidification caused the crisis — similar to today, as humanmade CO2 combines with seawater to change its chemistry. Now, for the first time, scientists have quantified the extent of surface acidification from those ancient days, and the news is not good: the oceans are on track to acidify at least as much as they did then, only at a much faster rate.»

John Abraham – Global warming and the vulnerability of Greenland’s ice sheet – Skeptical Science – 30/05/2014 – University of Saint Thomas School of Engineering – http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-vulnerability-greenland-ice-sheet.html – “These findings allow a few conclusions. Aside from the importance of deep troughs to ice motion, the extension inland means that glaciers will have to retreat further than anticipated inland in order to reach a position above sea level. “Some of them will stay in contact with the ocean for centuries, when we thought that in a couple of decades they would stabilize.” said Mathieu Morlighem. The ice sheet is therefore more vulnerable than predicted, and existing projections of sea level rise contribution from Greenland are too conservative and need to be revised.”

Becky Oskin – Worst Spots for Weather Extremes Found – Live Science – 22/06/2014 – http://www.livescience.com/46445-weather-extremes-from-air-waves.html – «Fear a cold winter? Then avoid eastern North America. Hate floods? Stay out of western Asia. Enjoy a long shower? Then drought-prone central North America, Europe and central Asia aren’t for you. Can’t stand the heat? Rule out heat-wave-prone western North America and central Asia, according to findings published today (June 22) in the journal Nature Climate Change.»

Emily Atkin – BP Oil Spill Is Much Worse Than People Think, Scientists Say – Climate Progress – 29/07/2014 – http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/07/29/3465261/bp-oil-spill-coral-reefs/ – “Scientists at Penn State University have discovered two new coral reefs near the site of BP’s historic 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the impacts to those reefs from the spill have been greater than expected, according to research released Monday. The two additional reefs found by the PSU team were both farther away and deeper than the one coral reef that had previously been found to have been impacted by the spill. That indicates not only that marine ecosystems may be more greatly affected, but that some of the 210 million gallons of oil that BP spilled into the Gulf is making its mark in the deep sea. “The footprint of the impact of the spill on coral communities is both deeper and wider than previous data indicated,” PSU biology professor Charles Fisher, who led the study, said.”

Simran Khosla – Global warming is so much worse than we thought. Here’s the chart that proves it – Global Post – 10/09/2014 – http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/science/global-warming/140909/chart-Greenhouse-gases-in-the-atmosphere – «The chart below shows just how bad our greenhouse problem really is. The dotted lines on the chart show the impact of reducing anthropogenic emissions (i.e emissions caused by people) by 80 percent, a goal that is extremely ambitious, given the low priority we give to environmental issues. »

Paul J. Durack et al (2014) – Quantifying underestimates of long-term upper-ocean warming – Nature Climate Change 4:999–1005 doi:10.1038/nclimate2389 – 05/10/2014 – Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory – https://media.nature.com/original/nature-assets/nclimate/journal/v4/n11/extref/nclimate2389-s1.pdf – 4 autores «The global ocean stores more than 90% of the heat associated with observed greenhouse-gas-attributed global warming1, 2, 3, 4. Using satellite altimetry observations and a large suite of climate models, we conclude that observed estimates of 0–700 dbar global ocean warming since 1970 are likely biased low. This underestimation is attributed to poor sampling of the Southern Hemisphere, and limitations of the analysis methods that conservatively estimate temperature changes in data-sparse regions5, 6, 7. We find that the partitioning of northern and southern hemispheric simulated sea surface height changes are consistent with precise altimeter observations, whereas the hemispheric partitioning of simulated upper-ocean warming is inconsistent with observed in-situ-based ocean heat content estimates. Relying on the close correspondence between hemispheric-scale ocean heat content and steric changes, we adjust the poorly constrained Southern Hemisphere observed warming estimates so that hemispheric ratios are consistent with the broad range of modelled results. These adjustments yield large increases (2.2–7.1 × 1022 J 35 yr−1) to current global upper-ocean heat content change estimates, and have important implications for sea level, the planetary energy budget and climate sensitivity assessments.»

Michael Slezak (2014) – The world is warming faster than we thought – New Scientist – 05/10/2014 – http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26317-the-world-is-warming-faster-than-we-thought.html – «Comparisons of direct measurements with satellite data and climate models suggest that the oceans of the southern hemisphere have been sucking up more than twice as much of the heat trapped by our excess greenhouse gases than previously calculated. This means we may have underestimated the extent to which our world has been warming.»

Michael Slezak (2014) – The world is warming faster than we thought – New Scientist – 05/10/2014 – http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26317-the-world-is-warming-faster-than-we-thought.html – “The study covers the period from 1970 to 2003. Cai says that, during that time, while the northern hemisphere has been well sampled by cargo ships and projects led by wealthy countries north of the equator, very few direct measurements have been taken in the south. So it’s not surprising that the in-situ measurements have been wrong. «But this is huge,» says Cai. «One could say that global warming is ocean warming,» Gregory Johnson and John Lyman at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wrote in a commentary accompanying Durack’s paper. «Quantifying how fast, and where, the ocean is warming is vital to understanding how much and how fast the atmosphere will warm, and seas will rise.» Since around 2000, a network of buoys called the Argo floats have been collecting more accurate global ocean data, so more recent measurements of the southern hemisphere are more reliable.”

Joseph Romm – Earth Is Heating Faster Than We Realized, Making 2°C Limit For Global Warming More Urgent – Climate Progress – 06/10/2014 – http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/10/06/3576154/2c-limit-global-warming/ – «There is a solid scientific basis for concluding that humanity should be working as hard as possible to keep total warming under 2°C. And no obviously superior metric to 2°C has been proposed, as I’ll demonstrate below. Furthermore, the debate over whether there are superior metrics appears to be a sideshow to the far more important debate of whether the 2°C limit is too high, reasonable, or too low.»

Josep G. Canadell and E. Detlef Schulze (2014) – Global potential of biospheric carbon management for climate mitigation – Nature Communications 5:5282 doi:10.1038/ncomms6282 – 19/11/2014 – Global Carbon Project, CSIRO Oceans and Atmospheric Flagship; Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry – https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms6282.pdf – “The N emission conversion factor (to N2O) is the fraction of N2O-N that is emitted for a given amount of N fertilizer applied or biologically fixed N. The IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories93 has set this quantity, as a default value, to 1% for direct emissions and to 0.34–0.40% for indirect emissions (emissions from volatilization, leaching and runoff). However, more recent estimates show that food-based high-input biofuel crops have N conversion factors between 2 and 7% for sugarcane85, rapeseed86 and corn94. Two recent global estimates of the N conversion factor range from 2.5 to 5% (refs 95,96), which is about 2–3 times higher than the ones used in the IPCC Guidelines93. On the basis of these new global estimates, current bioenergy cropping for diesel–rapeseed and ethanol–corn would provide little climate benefits or even net warming, while other crops would have climate benefits below what has been reported. ”

Dahr Jamail – Are Humans Going Extinct? – Truth Out – 01/12/2014 – http://truth-out.org/news/item/27714-are-humans-going-extinct – «Scientific American has said of the IPCC: «Across two decades and thousands of pages of reports, the world’s most authoritative voice on climate science has consistently understated the rate and intensity of climate change and the danger those impacts represent.».»

Rajendra K. Pachauri, Leo Meyer et al (2014) – Cambio Climático 2014: Informe de Síntesis. Contribución de los Grupos de trabajo I, II y III al Quinto Informe de Evaluación del Grupo Intergubernamental de Expertos sobre el Cambio Climático – Panel Intergubernamental sobre Cambio Climático (IPCC) – 01/01/2015 – https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/SYR_AR5_FINAL_full_es.pdf – 51 autores “Si se utilizan los valores más recientes de potencial de calentamiento global a 100 años (PCG100) del Quinto Informe de Evaluación {GTI 8.7}, en lugar de los valores de PCG100 del Segundo Informe de Evaluación del IPCC, los totales de las emisiones mundiales de gases de efecto invernadero serían ligeramente superiores (52 GtCO2-eq/ año) y los porcentajes de emisiones distintas al CO2 serían del 20% para el metano (CH4), el 5% para el óxido nitroso (N2O) y el 2,2% para los gases fluorados … IPCC. A menos que se indique de otro modo, las emisiones de CO2-equivalente en el presente informe incluyen los gases citados en el Protocolo de Kyoto (CO2, CH4, N2O y los gases fluorados) calculados sobre la base de valores del potencial de calentamiento global con un horizonte temporal de 100 años (PCG100) procedentes del Segundo Informe de Evaluación (véase el glosario). La utilización de valores de PCG100 más recientes del Quinto Informe de Evaluación (barras de la derecha) daría un mayor nivel de emisiones anuales totales de gases de efecto invernadero (52 GtCO2-eq/año) a raíz de una mayor contribución del metano, pero ello no cambiaría la tendencia a largo plazo de manera significativa. ”

Science News – Greenland Ice: The warmer it gets the faster it melts – Science Daily – 20/01/2015 – Penn State – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150120151221.htm – «Melting of glacial ice will probably raise sea level around the globe, but how fast this melting will happen is uncertain. In the case of the Greenland Ice Sheet, the more temperatures increase, the faster the ice will melt, according to computer model experiments by geoscientists.»

Guy McPherson – The Other Reason We’re Doomed – Nature Bats Last – 04/02/2015 – http://guymcpherson.com/2015/02/the-other-reason-were-doomed/ – “8. Scientists who do argue that global warming is occurring are often too cautious in their pronouncements. They fail to convey to the hearer or reader just how serious a problem global warming actually is. 9. Some of those engaged in environmental activism are individualistic in their approach, believing that if more and more people “go green,” the global warming problem will go away. They may be right in believing this, but in not recognizing that “time is short,” they are misguided. 10. Some may have developed solutions of a more global nature, but in not having the resources, etc., to act on their ideas, those solutions remain in the category “on paper” solutions.”

Nick Breeze – Survivable IPCC projections are based on science fiction – the reality is much worse – The Ecologist – 27/02/2015 – http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/2772427/survivable_ipcc_projections_are_based_on_science_fiction_the_reality_is_much_worse.html – «It is quite clear that we have no carbon budget whatsoever. The account, far from being in surplus, is horrendously overdrawn. To claim we have a few decades of safely burning coal, oil and gas is an utter nonsense.»

Science News – Earth’s climate is starting to change faster, new research shows – Science Daily – 09/03/2015 – Pacific Northwest National Laboratory – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150309134642.htm – «In these climate model simulations, the world is just now starting to enter into a new place, where rates of temperature change are consistently larger than historical values over 40-year time spans,» said Smith. «We need to better understand what the effects of this will be and how to prepare for them.»

Science News – Amazon’s carbon uptake declines as trees die faster – Science Daily – 16/03/2015 – University of Leeds – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150318145416.htm – «The Amazon is losing its capacity to absorb carbon from the atmosphere, reveals he most extensive land-based study of the Amazon to date. From a peak of two billion tons of carbon dioxide each year in the 1990s, the net uptake by the forest has halved and is now for the first time being overtaken by fossil fuel emissions in Latin America.»

– Whoa: 13 Ways Global Warming Is Worse Than Previously Thought – Buzz Feed – 19/03/2015 – – “1. “Global warming’s effects are coming on faster than previously thought.” … 2. “Sea Levels Are Rising Faster Than Previously Thought” … 3. “Tropical forests may be vanishing even faster than previously thought” … 4. “Scientists warn Antarctic melting more extensive than previously thought” … 5. “Arctic Sea Ice Thinning Faster Than Previously Thought” … 6. “Greenland’s Ice Sheet Could Melt Faster Than Previously Thought, Studies Suggest” … 7. “Methane Emissions From Natural Gas Industry Higher Than Previously Thought” … 8. “Climate change could impact the poor much more than previously thought”” … 9. “East Antarctica’s largest glacier melting: Totten region more vulnerable to climate change than previously thought” … 10. “Wildfires And ‘Biomass Burning’ Are Bigger Climate Change Threats Than Previously Thought, Stanford Study Says” … 11. “Social cost of climate change much higher than previously thought” … 12. “The Earth’s Soils Could Contribute More To Climate Change Than Previously Thought” … 13. “Squirrels and beavers contributing to global warming more than previously thought” … The good news: solar and wind power are being deployed much faster than expected, and the global fossil-fuel divestment movement is growing faster than any divestment movement before in history.

John Abraham – One satellite data set is underestimating global warming – The Guardian – 25/03/2015 – http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/mar/25/one-satellite-data-set-is-underestimating-global-warming – “Finally, biases can occur because the satellite orbits drift during their lifetime and the influence of diurnal temperature variation can affect the global temperature trends. Of these three errors, the last one (probably the most important one), was the focus of the just-published paper.”

David Ray Griffin – The climate is ruined. So can civilization even survive? – CNN – 14/04/2015 – Professor Emeritus, Claremont School of Theology + Director of the Center for Process Studies – http://edition.cnn.com/2015/01/14/opinion/co2-crisis-griffin/ – “Moreover, many scientists believe that runaway global warming could occur much more quickly, because the rising temperature caused by CO2 could release massive amounts of methane (CH4), which is, during its first 20 years, 86 times more powerful than CO2. Warmer weather induces this release from carbon that has been stored in methane hydrates, in which enormous amounts of carbon — four times as much as that emitted from fossil fuels since 1850 — has been frozen in the Arctic’s permafrost. And yet now the Arctic’s temperature is warmer than it had been for 120,000 years — in other words, more than 10 times longer than civilization has existed. According to Joe Romm, a physicist who created the Climate Progress website, methane release from thawing permafrost in the Arctic «is the most dangerous amplifying feedback in the entire carbon cycle.» The amplifying feedback works like this: The warmer temperature releases millions of tons of methane, which then further raise the temperature, which in turn releases more methane. The resulting threat of runaway global warming may not be merely theoretical. ”

Science News – Global warming more moderate than worst-case models, empirical data suggest – Science Daily – 21/04/2015 – Duke University – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150421105629.htm – «A study based on 1,000 years of temperature records suggests global warming is not progressing as fast as it would under the most severe emissions scenarios outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Natural decade-to-decade variability in surface temperatures can account for some much-discussed recent changes in the rate of warming. Empirical data, rather than climate models, were used to estimate this variability.»

Science News – High mountains warming faster than expected – Science Daily – 23/04/2015 – University of Massachusetts at Amherst – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150423085456.htm – «High elevation environments around the world may be warming much faster than previously thought, according to members of an international research team. They call for more aggressive monitoring of temperature changes in mountain regions and more attention to the potential consequences of warming.»

– Gravity data show that Antarctic ice sheet is melting increasingly faster – Phys Org – 30/04/2015 – http://phys.org/news/2015-04-gravity-antarctic-ice-sheet-increasingly.html – «The vast majority of that loss was from West Antarctica, which is the smaller of the continent’s two main regions and abuts the Antarctic Peninsula that winds up toward South America. Since 2008, ice loss from West Antarctica’s unstable glaciers doubled from an average annual loss of 121 billion tons of ice to twice that by 2014, the researchers found. The ice sheet on East Antarctica, the continent’s much larger and overall more stable region, thickened during that same time, but only accumulated half the amount of ice lost from the west, the researchers reported.»

Dana Nuccitelli – Overlooked evidence – global warming may proceed faster than expected – Skeptical Science – 30/04/2015 – http://www.skepticalscience.com/overlooked-evidence-gw-may-proceed-faster-than-expected.html – “There have been a few recent studies using what’s called an “energy balance model” approach, combining simple climate models with recent observational data, concluding that climate sensitivity is on the low end of IPCC estimates. However, subsequent research has identified some potentially serious flaws in this approach. These types of studies have nevertheless been the focus of disproportionate attention. ”

Michael E. Mann and Lee Kump (2008) – Dire Predictions: : The Visual Guide to the Findings of the IPCC – DK/Pearson 2nd edition – 02/05/2015 – Professor in the meteorology department at Penn State University and director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center – “The projections for global sea level rise have fallen firmly within the projected ranges for each of the IPCC assessments. The pace of sea level rise has sped up in recent years as models predicted it would, as greater and greater amounts of land ice begin to melt. As evidence mounts that substantial melting of continental ice sheets has begun earlier than expected, the upper end of the projected range has been revised significantly upward in the most recent assessments (⁄pp.110–111). ”

Michael E. Mann and Lee Kump (2008) – Dire Predictions: : The Visual Guide to the Findings of the IPCC – DK/Pearson 2nd edition – 02/05/2015 – Professor in the meteorology department at Penn State University and director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center – “The observed decline in the sea ice left at the end of the summer melting season is greater than the range of AR4 projections. In 2012, the area fell to 3.3 million square kilometers (1.3 million square miles) of ice, a roughly 60% drop relative to mid 20th century levels. IPCC projections indicated that such lows shouldn’t be observed until well in the latter half of this century (the model projected rate of decrease is slightly greater in the AR5 model simulations, but the basic discrepancy with observations still exists; ⁄pp.110–111). ”

Eli Rabett – Biodiversity loss is an order of magnitude worse than other climate impacts…. – Rabett Run – 05/05/2015 – http://rabett.blogspot.com.es/2015/05/biodiversity-loss-is-order-of-magnitude.html – “…if you measure by recovery time. Full recovery of the climate from anthropogenic GHG emissions will take hundreds of thousands of years. Recovery from mass extinctions, like the one that climate change is exacerbating for 1 out of 6 species, can take 10 million years (orlonger). The biodiversity crisis seems underemphasized to me.”

Science News – Ethanol refining may release more of some pollutants than previously thought – Science Daily – 05/05/2015 – American Geophysical Union – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150505182626.htm – «Ethanol fuel refineries could be releasing much larger amounts of some ozone-forming compounds into the atmosphere than current assessments suggest, a new study finds. Airborne measurements downwind from an ethanol fuel refinery in Decatur, Illinois, show that ethanol emissions are 30 times higher than government estimates. The measurements also show emissions of all volatile organic compounds, which include ethanol, were five times higher than government numbers, which estimate emissions based on manufacturing information.»

Lisa Song – Flawed Methane Monitor Underestimates Leaks at Oil and Gas Sites – InsideClimate News – 05/05/2015 – http://insideclimatenews.org/news/05052015/flawed-methane-monitor-underestimates-leaks-oil-and-gas-sites – «Researchers find there may be drastically more methane in the air than is being reported to industry and government.»

Joe Romm – Carbon Pollution’s Harm To Sea Life Coming Faster Than Expected – Think Progress – 12/05/2015 – https://thinkprogress.org/carbon-pollutions-harm-to-sea-life-coming-faster-than-expected-b63ba2a2a12c/ – «Recent research finds that the threat to marine life posed by human-caused carbon pollution is coming faster than expected. And that’s a problem because as 70 Academies of Science warned in a 2009 joint statement on acidification: “Marine food supplies are likely to be reduced with significant implications for food production and security in regions dependent on fish protein, and human health and wellbeing.” … As the ocean absorbs more carbon dioxide, more and more places are becoming undersaturated with these minerals, thereby threatening calcifying organisms. Besides a decline in calcification, the World Meteorological Organization explained in 2014, “Other impacts of acidification on marine biota include reduced survival, development and growth rates, as well as changes in physiological functions and reduced biodiversity.”.»

Joe Romm – Carbon Pollution’s Harm To Sea Life Coming Faster Than Expected – Think Progress – 12/05/2015 – https://thinkprogress.org/carbon-pollutions-harm-to-sea-life-coming-faster-than-expected-b63ba2a2a12c/ – “But a December 2014 study of Pacific oyster and Mediterranean mussel larvae in Nature Climate Change determined that “the earliest larval stages are directly sensitive to saturation state, not carbon dioxide (CO2) or pH” (acidity). So what matters most is how much calcium carbonate is in the ocean water relative to the total amount it could hold. This finding has dramatic consequences for the speed at which rising carbon dioxide levels will harm ocean life. Lead author George Waldbusser, an Oregon State University marine ecologist and biogeochemist explains why: Larval oysters and mussels are so sensitive to the saturation state (which is lowered by increasing CO2) that the threshold for danger will be crossed “decades to centuries” ahead of when CO2 increases (and pH decreases) alone would pose a threat to these bivalve larvae. “At the current rate of change, there is not much more room for the waters off the Oregon coast to absorb more CO2 without crossing the threshold we have identified with respect to saturation state,” he said. That means some of the worst impacts of rising carbon dioxide levels in the ocean may come sooner than expected. ”

Peter Sinclair – Sea Level Rising Faster. Ice Loss Speeding Up. – Climate Denial Crock of the Week – 12/05/2015 – http://climatecrocks.com/2015/05/12/sea-level-rising-faster-ice-loss-speeding-up/ – autores

Lindsay Abrams – Climate school hits home: Why warming’s impacts will be so much worse than deniers believe – Salon – 27/05/2015 – http://www.salon.com/2015/05/27/climate_school_hits_home_why_warmings_impacts_will_be_so_much_worse_than_deniers_believe/ – «Try not to get too excited, climate deniers, but sometimes people do exaggerate certain risks. Andy Skuce, an independent geoscience consultant, explains that methane gas trapped in clathrates — cages of water molecules below seabeds and the Arctic permafrost — certainly sound worrisome: they contain more carbon than can be found in the entire atmosphere, and the release of a fraction of one percent of them would double the amount of methane, a greenhouse gas, in the atmosphere. However, he continues, it’s probably going to take a long time, on the order of thousands of years, before the effects of climate change cause the large scale destabilization of the clathrates. Our time is better spent, for now, worrying about fossil fuels, which are already causing catastrophic warming on their own.»

Tom Bawden – Climate change will ‘cost world far more than estimated’ – The Independent – 16/06/2015 – http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/climate-change-will-cost-world-far-more-than-estimated-9539147.html – “Lord Stern, who wrote a hugely influential review on the financial implications of climate change in 2006, says the economic models that have been used to calculate the fiscal fallout from climate change are woefully inadequate and severely underestimate the scale of the threat. As a result, even the recent and hugely authoritative series of reports from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are significantly flawed, he said.”

– “Faster Than Previously Expected”–A Fun Google Game! – Brooklyn Culture Jammers – 17/07/2015 – http://brooklynculturejammers.com/2015/07/17/faster-than-previously-expected-a-fun-google-game/ – «The above is Kevin Hester. He’s a longtime activist out of Kiwi Land, and he has been instrumental in getting out the message about climate calamity (specifically near term extinction) in his part of the world. Back in March, he conducted a little experiment on the old Google Machine. He typed something into Google’s search block and just noted the results. I did the same a few days ago, and Kevin’s original work is still true. I thought it might be of interest to readers.»

James Hansen et al (2016) – Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2 °C global warming is highly dangerous – Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 15:3761–3812 doi:10.5194/acp-16-3761-2016 – 23/07/2015 – Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions, Columbia University Earth Institute – https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/16/3761/2016/acp-16-3761-2016.pdf – 19 autores «There is evidence of ice melt, sea level rise to +5–9 m, and extreme storms in the prior interglacial period that was less than 1 °C warmer than today. Human-made climate forcing is stronger and more rapid than paleo forcings, but much can be learned by combining insights from paleoclimate, climate modeling, and on-going observations. We argue that ice sheets in contact with the ocean are vulnerable to non-linear disintegration in response to ocean warming, and we posit that ice sheet mass loss can be approximated by a doubling time up to sea level rise of at least several meters. Doubling times of 10, 20 or 40 years yield sea level rise of several meters in 50, 100 or 200 years. Paleoclimate data reveal that subsurface ocean warming causes ice shelf melt and ice sheet discharge. Our climate model exposes amplifying feedbacks in the Southern Ocean that slow Antarctic bottom water formation and increase ocean temperature near ice shelf grounding lines, while cooling the surface ocean and increasing sea ice cover and water column stability. Ocean surface cooling, in the North Atlantic as well as the Southern Ocean, increases tropospheric horizontal temperature gradients, eddy kinetic energy and baroclinicity, which drive more powerful storms. We focus attention on the Southern Ocean’s role in affecting atmospheric CO2 amount, which in turn is a tight control knob on global climate. The millennial (500–2000 year) time scale of deep ocean ventilation affects the time scale for natural CO2 change, thus the time scale for paleo global climate, ice sheet and sea level changes. This millennial carbon cycle time scale should not be misinterpreted as the ice sheet time scale for response to a rapid human-made climate forcing. Recent ice sheet melt rates have a doubling time near the lower end of the 10–40 year range. We conclude that 2 °C global warming above the preindustrial level, which would spur more ice shelf melt, is highly dangerous. Earth’s energy imbalance, which must be eliminated to stabilize climate, provides a crucial metric.»

Chinese Academy of Sciences – Data Study Says Oceans Warming Faster Than Thought – Reporting Climate Science – 27/07/2015 – http://www.reportingclimatescience.com/news-stories/article/data-study-says-oceans-warming-faster-than-thought.html – «A new study by Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) proposed a new estimate on upper 0-700m ocean warming rate from 1970 to 2014: 0.55 ± 0.14 × 1022 J yr−1 (168TW). This estimate indicates a quicker upper ocean warming than previous estimates (i.e. the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report, IPCC-AR5).»

Michael E. Mann – The ‘Fat Tail’ of Climate Change Risk – The Huffington Post – 11/09/2015 – Penn State Earth System Science Center – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-e-mann/the-fat-tail-of-climate-change-risk_b_8116264.html – «Roughly 68 percent of the area falls within the region bounded by 1 standard deviation below (-1 sigma) and above (+1 sigma) the “mean” or “average”, and a substantially greater 96% of the area falls between two standard deviations below (-2 sigma) and above (+2 sigma) the mean. So given this statistical distribution, we would expect values to fall above the +2 sigma (two standard deviation) limit only about 2 percent of the time. Call that the positive “tail” of the distribution.»

Michael E. Mann – The ‘Fat Tail’ of Climate Change Risk – The Huffington Post – 11/09/2015 – Penn State Earth System Science Center – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-e-mann/the-fat-tail-of-climate-change-risk_b_8116264.html – «Indeed, we have historically tended to underestimate the rate of climate change impacts. We reviewed the evidence in Dire Predictions: Understanding Climate Change, showing that many aspects of climate change — e.g. the melting of Arctic sea ice and the ice sheets, and the rise in sea level — have proceeded faster than the models had predicted on average. Uncertainty is not our friend when it comes to the prospects for dangerous climate change.»

Mari N. Jensen and Stacy Morford – Horn of Africa Drying Ever Faster as Climate Warms – Yhe University of Arizona – 09/10/2015 – UA College of Science; Columbia University – http://uanews.org/story/horn-of-africa-drying-ever-faster-as-climate-warms – «The findings from a UA-led study suggest a worsening future for the conflict-troubled region, which includes Somalia, Djibouti and Ethiopia.»

Chelsea Harvey – Climate change is getting worse — and U.N. climate reports are getting harder to understand – The Washington Post – 12/10/2015 – http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/10/12/even-as-climate-change-gets-worse-u-n-climate-reports-are-getting-harder-to-read/ – «But although the IPCC’s reach has been expanding, its reports have not necessarily become easier for the layperson to understand — in fact, just the opposite, argues a new study, published today in Nature Climate Change. The study uses analysis software to find that the readability of the IPCC’s SPMs has generally deteriorated over time, even as media coverage of it has become increasingly readable.»

Science News – Changing climate in the polar regions can affect rest of world far quicker than previously thought – Science Daily – 14/10/2015 – University of Cambridge – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151014121111.htm – «A new study of the relationship between ocean currents and climate change has found that they are tightly linked, and that changes in the polar regions can affect the ocean and climate on the opposite side of the world within one to two hundred years, far quicker than previously thought.»

Kevin Anderson – The hidden agenda: how veiled techno-utopias shore up the Paris Agreement – Kevin Anderson – 14/10/2015 – https://kevinanderson.info/blog/category/articles/ – «The deepest challenge to whether the Agreement succeeds or fails, will not come from the incessant sniping of sceptics and luke-warmers or those politicians favouring a literal reading of Genesis over Darwin. Instead, it was set in train many years ago by a cadre of well-meaning scientists, engineers and economists investigating a Plan B. What if the international community fails to recognise that temperatures relate to ongoing cumulative emissions of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide? What if world leaders remain doggedly committed to a scientifically illiterate focus on 2050 (“not in my term of office”)? By then, any ‘carbon budget’ for even an outside chance of 2°C will have been squandered – and our global experiment will be hurtling towards 4°C or more. Hence the need to develop a Plan B.»

Marshall Burke, Solomon M. Hsiang and Edward Miguel (2015) – Global non-linear effect of temperature on economic production – Nature 527:235–239 doi:10.1038/nature15725 – 21/10/2015 – Department of Earth System Science + Center on Food Security and the Environment, Stanford University; Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley + National Bureau of Economic Research; National Bureau of Economic Research + Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley – https://web.stanford.edu/~mburke/climate/BurkeHsiangMiguel2015.pdf – «Growing evidence demonstrates that climatic conditions can have a profound impact on the functioning of modern human societies1, 2, but effects on economic activity appear inconsistent. Fundamental productive elements of modern economies, such as workers and crops, exhibit highly non-linear responses to local temperature even in wealthy countries3, 4. In contrast, aggregate macroeconomic productivity of entire wealthy countries is reported not to respond to temperature5, while poor countries respond only linearly5, 6. Resolving this conflict between micro and macro observations is critical to understanding the role of wealth in coupled human–natural systems7, 8 and to anticipating the global impact of climate change9, 10. Here we unify these seemingly contradictory results by accounting for non-linearity at the macro scale. We show that overall economic productivity is non-linear in temperature for all countries, with productivity peaking at an annual average temperature of 13 °C and declining strongly at higher temperatures. The relationship is globally generalizable, unchanged since 1960, and apparent for agricultural and non-agricultural activity in both rich and poor countries. These results provide the first evidence that economic activity in all regions is coupled to the global climate and establish a new empirical foundation for modelling economic loss in response to climate change11, 12, with important implications. If future adaptation mimics past adaptation, unmitigated warming is expected to reshape the global economy by reducing average global incomes roughly 23% by 2100 and widening global income inequality, relative to scenarios without climate change. In contrast to prior estimates, expected global losses are approximately linear in global mean temperature, with median losses many times larger than leading models indicate.»

Christian Breyer – Why does the IEA keep underestimating solar and wind? – Energy Desk – 11/11/2015 – http://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2015/11/11/why-does-the-iea-keep-underestimating-solar-and-wind/ – “The fundamental basis for solar PV and wind is excellent, therefore the zero growth assumption of annual installations in the WEO seems highly unrealistic. That brings us to the central question: what are the real reasons for these incorrect assumptions? The WEO has an illustrious history of faulty projections for solar PV and wind as recently documented and discussed by Berlin-based Energy Watch Group and London-based Carbon Tracker. The new WEO is only the latest example in this legacy of misleading estimates.”

Reese Jones – The Worsening Spectre of Global Dimming: A New Interview With Dr. McPherson – Nature Bats Last – 14/11/2015 – http://guymcpherson.com/2015/11/the-worsening-spectre-of-global-dimming-a-new-interview-with-dr-mcpherson/ – “Thom Hartmann interviewed climate scientist Michael Mann on 10 November 2015. At the 23-minute mark of this video, they briefly discuss me and my views. At 24:30, Mann claims we haven’t passed a single tipping point, thereby ignoring the dozens of self-reinforcing feedback loops I mention in my long essay. And Mann is still sticking to the 2 C political target while claiming it’s a scientific target. He also claims we’re on our way to the Sixth Great Extinction event, thus failing to recognize the abundant literature pointing out the Sixth Mass Extinction on Earth has begun. Mann is the face of the ultra-conservative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He’s either ignorant about climate science or he’s lying. Either way, this interview reveals his malpractice.”

Michael Le Page – The real climate conspiracy: What you’re not being told – New Scientist – 27/11/2015 – https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28562-the-real-climate-conspiracy-what-youre-not-being-told/ – “Some climate change deniers are convinced that global warming is a massive conspiracy. Ironically, there is a sort of conspiracy – but one that downplays how serious the consequences could be and exaggerates the impact of action to limit them. It involves everyone from scientists and politicians to activists and journalists. At the research level, there is what renowned climate scientist James Hansen calls the John Mercer effect. In the 1970s, Mercer published the first paper that suggested the West Antarctic ice sheet could collapse in response to warming. Afterwards, he struggled to get funding, and those who criticised his work were regarded as more authoritative than those who praised it. Others, including Hansen, had similar problems. This is still an issue. Many climate scientists are censoring their own work to please their political paymasters, according to Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the UK. In particular, he says, they are not being honest about our prospects of limiting warming to 2 °C above pre-industrial temperatures. It is hard to prove such claims, but there is evidence that climate scientists are generally too conservative, rather than alarmist as deniers assert. A 2013 paper that compared past predictions with outcomes found that the majority underestimated changes. And Mercer was right – the collapse he predicted has begun.”

Erik van Sebille et al (2015) – A global inventory of small floating plastic debris – Environmental Research Letters 10:124006 doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/10/12/124006 – 08/12/2015 – Grantham Institute & Department of Physics, Imperial College London + ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales – https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/12/124006/pdf – 10 autores «Microplastic debris floating at the ocean surface can harm marine life. Understanding the severity of this harm requires knowledge of plastic abundance and distributions. Dozens of expeditions measuring microplastics have been carried out since the 1970s, but they have primarily focused on the North Atlantic and North Pacific accumulation zones, with much sparser coverage elsewhere. Here, we use the largest dataset of microplastic measurements assembled to date to assess the confidence we can have in global estimates of microplastic abundance and mass. We use a rigorous statistical framework to standardize a global dataset of plastic marine debris measured using surface-trawling plankton nets and coupled this with three different ocean circulation models to spatially interpolate the observations. Our estimates show that the accumulated number of microplastic particles in 2014 ranges from 15 to 51 trillion particles, weighing between 93 and 236 thousand metric tons, which is only approximately 1% of global plastic waste estimated to enter the ocean in the year 2010. These estimates are larger than previous global estimates, but vary widely because the scarcity of data in most of the world ocean, differences in model formulations, and fundamental knowledge gaps in the sources, transformations and fates of microplastics in the ocean.»

– Climate outlook may be worse than feared – The University of Edimburgh – 09/12/2015 – http://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2015/climate-091215 – “Research at the University of Edinburgh first created a simple algorithm to determine the key factors shaping climate change and then estimated their likely impact on the world’s land and ocean temperatures. The method is more direct and straightforward than that used by the IPCC, which uses sophisticated, but more opaque, computer models. The study was based on historical temperatures and emissions data. It accounted for atmospheric pollution effects that have been cooling Earth by reflecting sunlight into space, and for the slow response time of the ocean. Its findings, published in Earth and Environmental Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, may also help resolve debate over temporary slow-downs in temperature rise.”

Sue Mitchell – North Slope permafrost thawing sooner than expected – University of Alaska Fairbanks – 10/12/2015 – http://news.uaf.edu/north_slope_permafrost_agu15/ – “New projections of permafrost change in northern Alaska suggest far-reaching effects will come sooner than expected, scientists reported this week at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. “The temperature of permafrost is rapidly changing,” said Vladimir Romanovsky, head of the Permafrost Laboratory at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute. “For the last 30 years, the mean annual ground temperature at the top of permafrost on the North Slope has been rising,” Romanovsky said. The mean annual ground temperature — an average of all of the years’ highs and lows at the Deadhorse research site — was 17.6 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 8 degrees Celsius) in 1988, and now it’s 28.5 F (minus 2 C). Researchers expect the average annual ground temperature to reach 32 F (0 C), the melting point of ice, in many areas. “We believe this will be before 2100 at many locations within the North Slope,” Romanovsky said.”

Science News – Greenhouse gas emissions from freshwater higher than thought – Science Daily – 15/12/2015 – University of Wisconsin-Madison – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151215185914.htm – «The world’s rivers and streams pump about 10 times more methane into our atmosphere than scientists estimated in previous studies, new research shows. Like carbon dioxide, methane is a greenhouse gas that traps heat at Earth’s surface. It is less prevalent than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere but also more potent: A molecule of methane results in more warming than a molecule of carbon dioxide.»

Eli Kintisch (2015) – Earth’s lakes are warming faster than its air – Science 350:1449 doi:10.1126/science.350.6267.1449 – 18/12/2015 – – “The world’s lakes are warming faster than both the oceans and the air around them, a global survey of hundreds of lakes shows. The rapid temperature rise could cause widespread damage to lake ecosystems, say scientists who presented the findings this week at the American Geophysical Union meeting here. The global effects could be even more serious, because higher lake temperatures could trigger the conversion of billions of tons of carbon stored in lake sediments to methane and carbon dioxide (CO2), in a feedback effect that could accelerate global warming. The temperature increase—a summertime warming of about a third of a degree per decade over 25 years—is “pretty modest,” says lake biologist Peter Leavitt of the University of Regina in Canada, who did not participate in the study. “But you don’t need 2° to 3° increases in lake temperatures to have profound impacts.” ”

– Methane emissions in Arctic cold season higher than expected – Phys.org – 21/12/2015 – http://phys.org/news/2015-12-methane-emissions-arctic-cold-season.html – «The amount of methane gas escaping from the ground during the long cold period in the Arctic each year and entering Earth’s atmosphere is likely much higher than estimated by current climate change models, concludes a major new study led by San Diego State University.»

Peter Sinclair – Greenland Will Lose Mass Faster due to Ice “Lid” – Climate Denial Crock of the Week – 06/01/2016 – http://climatecrocks.com/2016/01/06/greenland-will-lose-mass-faster-due-to-ice-lid/ – «Dark Snow Project Chief Scientist Jason Box contributed to a new study of Greenland mass loss that is getting attention.»

Vincent S. Saba et al (2016) – Enhanced warming of the northwest Atlantic Ocean under climate change – Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans doi:10.1002/2015JC011346 – 08/01/2016 – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service, Northeast Fisheries Science Center, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton University – 11 autores «The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fifth assessment of projected global and regional ocean temperature change is based on global climate models that have coarse (∼100 km) ocean and atmosphere resolutions. In the Northwest Atlantic, the ensemble of global climate models has a warm bias in sea surface temperature due to a misrepresentation of the Gulf Stream position; thus, existing climate change projections are based on unrealistic regional ocean circulation. Here we compare simulations and an atmospheric CO2 doubling response from four global climate models of varying ocean and atmosphere resolution. We find that the highest resolution climate model (∼10 km ocean, ∼50 km atmosphere) resolves Northwest Atlantic circulation and water mass distribution most accurately. The CO2 doubling response from this model shows that upper-ocean (0–300 m) temperature in the Northwest Atlantic Shelf warms at a rate nearly twice as fast as the coarser models and nearly three times faster than the global average. This enhanced warming is accompanied by an increase in salinity due to a change in water mass distribution that is related to a retreat of the Labrador Current and a northerly shift of the Gulf Stream. Both observations and the climate model demonstrate a robust relationship between a weakening Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and an increase in the proportion of Warm-Temperate Slope Water entering the Northwest Atlantic Shelf. Therefore, prior climate change projections for the Northwest Atlantic may be far too conservative. These results point to the need to improve simulations of basin and regional-scale ocean circulation.»

– Faster Than Expected – Faster Than Expected – 08/01/2016 – http://www.fasterthanexpected.com/ – «The world, she is a-changing, faster than expected.»

Science News – Northwest Atlantic Ocean may get warmer, sooner – Science Daily – 14/01/2016 – NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/01/160114113637.htm – “Future warming of ocean waters off the Northeastern US may be greater and occur at an even faster rate than previously projected, new research suggests. These findings, based on output from four global climate models of varying ocean and atmospheric resolution, indicate that ocean temperature in the US Northeast Shelf is projected to warm twice as fast as previously projected and almost three times faster than the global average. A new study by NOAA researchers suggests future warming of ocean waters off the Northeastern U.S. may be greater and occur at an even faster rate than previously projected.”

Mark Harrington – Oil credit crunch could be worse than the housing crisis – CNBC – 14/01/2016 – http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/14/oil-credit-crunch-could-be-worse-than-the-housing-crisis-commentary.html – «A staggering $2 trillion of debt was meant to generate a 3-to-1 increase in value. That value today is definitively less than half of what was spent. Overinflated year-end 2015 reserve values and hard-defaulted credit facilities will combine with an absence of private and public equity markets. The contagion through the expanding and loosely regulated derivative market is surely destined for surprises. Leases will be forfeited and meaningful plugging and abandonment liabilities will build. If the company cannot pay, the banks will be forced to do so.»

John Upton – Ocean Warming is Making Floods Worse, Study Finds – Climate Central – 25/01/2016 – http://www.climatecentral.org/news/rapid-ocean-warming-making-floods-worse-19955 – “Floodwaters that washed icy brine into streets and homes along the eastern seaboard during Saturday’s blizzardreached heights in some places not experienced since Hurricane Sandy. “I just hope it isn’t a sign of things to come,” Pam Bross told a local newspaper as she mopped up the market she operates on a New Jersey street not normally reached by storm surges. With tides and storm surges inching upward and inward, worsening floods are harbingers of even soggier times ahead. As the weekend’s winter storm hurtles across the Atlantic Ocean, bringing its flood risks to Europe, new research is pointing to an outsized role that ocean warming has been playing in raising sea levels — a problem normally associated with melting land ice.”

Chris Mooney – Seas are now rising faster than they have in 2,800 years, scientists say – Desdemona Despair – 22/02/2016 – http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2016/02/seas-are-now-rising-faster-than-they.html – “A group of scientists says it has now reconstructed the history of the planet’s sea levels arcing back over some 3,000 years — leading it to conclude that the rate of increase experienced in the 20th century was “extremely likely” to have been faster than during nearly the entire period. “We can say with 95 percent probability that the 20th-century rise was faster than any of the previous 27 centuries,” said Bob Kopp, a climate scientist at Rutgers University who led the research with nine colleagues from several U.S. and global universities. Kopp said it’s not that seas rose faster before that – they probably didn’t – but merely that the ability to say as much with the same level of confidence declines. The study was published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Seas rose about 14 centimeters (5.5 inches) from 1900 to 2000, the new study suggests, for a rate of 1.4 millimeters per year. The current rate, according to NASA, is 3.4 millimeters per year, suggesting that sea level rise is still accelerating.”

Robert Scribbler – 2 C Coming On Faster Than We Feared — Atmospheric Methane Spikes to Record 3096 Parts Per Billion – Robert Scribbler – 26/02/2016 – http://robertscribbler.com/2016/02/26/2-c-coming-on-faster-than-we-feared-atmospheric-methane-spikes-to-record-3000-parts-per-billion/ – “Here we can see the range of surface methane readings according to Copernicus. A higher resolution image that may provide us with a better idea of the point-source location for daily global methane spikes. Here we see that the major methane sources are predominantly China, Russia, the Middle East, Europe, the United States, India, Indonesia, Fires in Africa and the Amazon, and, finally, the Arctic. Though the Copernicus measure doesn’t show the same level of Arctic overburden as what has tended to show up in the METOP measure, it’s a confirmation that something in the near Arctic environment is generating local spikes in above 1940 parts per billion for large regions of this sensitive zone. The Copernicus measure, as noted above, also shows that the human spikes are quite intense, remaining the dominant source of methane emissions globally despite a continued disturbing overburden in the Arctic. Spikes in Africa, the Amazon, and Indonesia also indicate that declining rain forests and related fires in these tropical zones are also probably providing an amplifying feedback to the overall human emission. Given this month’s spikes and the overall disposition of surface methane readings around the globe, it does appear that the large human base methane emission is being enhanced by feedbacks from local emissions from carbon stores both in the tropics and in the Arctic.”

Mollie Bloudoff-Indelicato – Faster-Merging Snow Crystals Speed Greenland Ice Sheet Melting – EOS – 08/03/2016 – https://eos.org/articles/faster-merging-snow-crystals-speed-greenland-ice-sheet-melting – “Although snow falls as the spiky ice crystals we call snowflakes, those tiny grains of ice tend to become rounded and merge together to form bigger grains once they’ve landed. As Greenland’s climate warms, merging of grains happens quicker, Doherty explained. Because larger grains don’t have as many crystal boundaries or as rough textures, they bounce sunlight back into space less effectively than finer-grained snow would, especially sunlight in the invisible, near-infrared wavelengths (700 to 2500 nanometers) that make up half the solar energy Earth receives. Instead, the light gets absorbed as heat, which melts the ice. “When you have larger snow grains, you end up with a darker snowpack—it is actually absorbing more sunlight, which accelerates melting.”“You have a self-reinforcing mechanism,” said Doherty. “When you have larger snow grains, you end up with a darker snowpack—it is actually absorbing more sunlight, which accelerates melting.” ”

Joshua Robertson – Dangerous global warming will happen sooner than thought – study – The Guardian – 09/03/2016 – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/10/dangerous-global-warming-will-happen-sooner-than-thought-study – «Australian researchers say a global tracker monitoring energy use per person points to 2C warming by 2030 … University of Queensland and Griffith University researchers have developed a “global energy tracker” which predicts average world temperatures could climb 1.5C above pre-industrial levels by 2020. That forecast, based on new modelling using long-term average projections on economic growth, population growth and energy use per person, points to a 2C rise by 2030.»

Joshua Robertson – Dangerous global warming will happen sooner than thought – study – The Guardian – 10/03/2016 – http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/10/dangerous-global-warming-will-happen-sooner-than-thought-study – “The new modelling is the brainchild of Ben Hankamer from UQ’s institute for molecular bioscience and Liam Wagner from Griffith University’s department of accounting, finance and economics, whose work was published in the journal Plos One on Thursday. It is the first model to include energy use per person – which has more than doubled since 1950 – alongside economic and population growth as a way of predicting carbon emissions and corresponding temperature increases. The researchers said the earlier than expected advance of global warming revealed by their modelling added a newfound urgency to the switch from fossil fuels to renewables.”

Oliver Milman – Climate guru James Hansen warns of much worse than expected sea level rise – The Guardian – 22/03/2016 – https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/mar/22/sea-level-rise-james-hansen-climate-change-scientist – “Michael Mann, a prominent climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University, said the revised paper still has the same issues that initially “caused me concern”. “Namely, the projected amounts of meltwater seem … large, and the ocean component of their model doesn’t resolve key wind-driven current systems (e.g. the Gulf Stream) which help transport heat poleward,” Mann said in an email to the Guardian. “I’m always hesitant to ignore the findings and warnings of James Hansen; he has proven to be so very prescient when it comes to his early prediction about global warming. That having been said, I’m unconvinced that we could see melting rates over the next few decades anywhere near his exponential predictions, and everything else is contingent upon those melting rates being reasonable.” ”

Robert Scribbler – Ten Times Faster Than a Hothouse Extinction — Human Carbon Emission is Worst in at Least 66 Million Years – Robert Scribbler – 22/03/2016 – http://robertscribbler.com/2016/03/22/ten-times-faster-than-a-hothouse-extinction-human-carbon-emission-is-worst-in-at-least-66-million-years/ – “Let’s be very clear. The human fossil fuel emission is outrageous and unprecedented on geological timescales. An insult the Earth has likely never seen before. For the pace at which we are emitting carbon into the atmosphere is just flat out insane. We’ve known this for some time because the best of science can’t find any time in all of Earth’s geological history that produces a rate of atmospheric carbon accumulation equal to the one that’s happening now. However, a new study recently published in Nature now sheds more light on this rather difficult and scary topic. But in order to find an event that is even remotely comparable to the current human greenhouse gas emission, scientists had to look far back into deep time. All the way back through a period when the last of the Dinosaurs were dying off about 55-66 million years ago.”

Amelia Urry – The scientist who first warned of climate change says it’s much worse than we thought – Grist – 22/03/2016 – http://grist.org/science/the-scientist-who-first-warned-of-climate-change-says-its-much-worse-than-we-thought/ – «Last summer, prior to countries’ United Nations negotiations in Paris, Hansen and 16 collaborators authored a draft paper that suggested we could see at least 10 feet of sea-level rise in as few as 50 years. If that sounds alarming to you, it is — 10 feet of sea-level rise is more than enough to effectively kick us out of even the most well-endowed coastal cities. Stitching together archaeological evidence of past climate change, current observations, and future-telling climate models, the authors suggested that even a small amount of global warming can rack up enormous consequences — and quickly.»

Anne M Stark – Climate models underestimate global warming by exaggerating cloud ‘brightening’ – Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory – 07/04/2016 – https://www.llnl.gov/news/climate-models-underestimate-global-warming-exaggerating-cloud-brightening – “Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Yale University have found that climate models are aggressively making clouds “brighter” as the planet warms. This may be causing models to underestimate how much global warming will occur due to increasing carbon dioxide. The research appears in the April 8 edition of Science. As the atmosphere warms, clouds become increasingly composed of liquid rather than ice, making them brighter. Because liquid clouds reflect more sunlight back to space than ice clouds, this “cloud phase feedback” acts as a brake on global warming in climate models. But most models’ clouds contain too much ice that is susceptible to becoming liquid with warming, which makes their stabilizing cloud phase feedback unrealistically strong. Using a state-of-the-art climate model, the researchers modified parameters to bring the relative amounts of liquid and ice in clouds into agreement with clouds observed in nature. Correcting the bias led to a weaker cloud phase feedback and greater warming in response to carbon dioxide. “We found that the climate sensitivity increased from 4 degrees C in the default model to 5-5.3 degrees C in versions that were modified to bring liquid and ice amounts into closer agreement with observation,” said Yale researcher Ivy Tan, lead author of the paper. ”

Jason Hickel – Global inequality may be much worse than we think – The Guardian – 08/04/2016 – – “It’s familiar news by now. Oxfam’s figures have gone viral: the richest 1% nowhave more wealth than the rest of the world’s population combined. Global inequality is worse than at any time since the 19th century. For most people, this is all they know about global inequality. But Oxfam’s wealth figures don’t quite tell the whole story. What about income inequality? And – more importantly – what about inequalities between countries? If we expand our view beyond the usual metrics, we can learn a lot more about how unequal our world has become. The first thing to say about Oxfam’s numbers is that they present a very conservative picture. Given that the rich hide so much of their wealth in tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions, it is impossible to know how much they really have. Recent estimates suggest that up to $32tn is stored away in tax havens – around one sixth of the world’s total private wealth. If we were to add that to Oxfam’s metrics, inequality would look much, much worse.”

Ivy Tan, Trude Storelvmo and Mark D. Zelinka (2016) – Observational constraints on mixed-phase clouds imply higher climate sensitivity – Science 352:224-227 doi:10.1126/science.aad5300 – 08/04/2016 – Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University; Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory – https://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6282/224.full.pdf – «Global climate model (GCM) estimates of the equilibrium global mean surface temperature response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2, measured by the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS), range from 2.0° to 4.6°C. Clouds are among the leading causes of this uncertainty. Here we show that the ECS can be up to 1.3°C higher in simulations where mixed-phase clouds consisting of ice crystals and supercooled liquid droplets are constrained by global satellite observations. The higher ECS estimates are directly linked to a weakened cloud-phase feedback arising from a decreased cloud glaciation rate in a warmer climate. We point out the need for realistic representations of the supercooled liquid fraction in mixed-phase clouds in GCMs, given the sensitivity of the ECS to the cloud-phase feedback.»

Chris Mooney – Scientists find more reasons that Greenland will melt faster – The Washington Post – 30/04/2016 – https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/04/30/another-typical-day-for-greenland-scientists-find-more-reasons-it-will-melt-faster/ – “The more we learn about this crucial yet inscrutable place, the more worrying it seems. The latest exhibit: New research out of Greenland conducted by Dartmouth earth sciences Ph.D. student Kristin Schild and two university colleagues — work that has just been published in the Annals of Glaciology. The study examined the 5.5-kilometer-wide Rink Glacier of West Greenland, with particular focus on how meltwater on the ice sheet’s surface actually finds its way underneath Rink, pours out in the key undersea area described above and speeds up the glacier’s melt. It’s a feedback process that, if it plays out across many other similarly situated glaciers, could greatly worsen Greenland’s overall ice loss. “These big tidewater outlet glaciers are the ones that are contributing these huge icebergs, they’re the ones that have rapidly, rapidly sped up in the last decade,” Schild said. This makes it critically important to learn “what are the main factors…that are leading to all these fast changes,” she added.”

Fiona Harvey – Humans damaging the environment faster than it can recover, UN finds – The Guardian – 19/05/2016 – http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/19/humans-damaging-the-environment-faster-than-it-can-recover-report-finds – “Water scarcity is the scourge of some of the poorest regions on Earth, the study found, leaving developing countries increasingly unable to feed themselves, and causing hardship for millions of people. There appears little prospect of this dire situation being remedied, according to the UN, without radical action being taken. Water sources are under increasing threat from population growth, climate change, rapid urbanisation, rising levels of consumption, and the degradation of lands that previously provided a natural replenishment of water resources. The study is intended as an aid to the world’s efforts to combat climate change and other environmental threats, as it highlights the difficulties of improving the lives of people in developing countries and tackling global warming, while food resources come under continuing pressure.”

Judith Lavoie – Temperatures Could Rise Far More Than Previously Thought If Fossil Fuel Reserves Burned – Desmog Canada – 23/05/2016 – http://www.desmog.ca/2016/05/23/temperatures-could-rise-far-more-previously-thought-if-fossil-fuels-burned – “Tokarska, a PhD student at UVic’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, used simulations from climate models looking at the relationship between carbon emissions and warming — including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report — and concluded that known fossil fuel reserves would emit the equivalent of five trillion tonnes of carbon emissions if burned. That would result in average global temperature increases between 6.4 degrees and 9.5 degrees Celsius, with Arctic temperatures warming between 14.7 degrees and 19.5 degrees, says the paper published Monday in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change. “These results indicate that the unregulated exploitation of the fossil fuel resource could ultimately result in considerably more profound climate changes than previously suggested,” says the study.”

Katarzyna B. Tokarska et al (2016) – The climate response to five trillion tonnes of carbon – Nature Climate Change doi:10.1038/nclimate3036 – 23/05/2016 – School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria – https://media.nature.com/original/nature-assets/nclimate/journal/v6/n9/extref/nclimate3036-s1.pdf – 5 autores «Concrete actions to curtail greenhouse gas emissions have so far been limited on a global scale1, and therefore the ultimate magnitude of climate change in the absence of further mitigation is an important consideration for climate policy2. Estimates of fossil fuel reserves and resources are highly uncertain, and the amount used under a business-as-usual scenario would depend on prevailing economic and technological conditions. In the absence of global mitigation actions, five trillion tonnes of carbon (5 EgC), corresponding to the lower end of the range of estimates of the total fossil fuel resource3, is often cited as an estimate of total cumulative emissions4, 5, 6. An approximately linear relationship between global warming and cumulative CO2 emissions is known to hold up to 2 EgC emissions on decadal to centennial timescales7, 8, 9, 10, 11; however, in some simple climate models the predicted warming at higher cumulative emissions is less than that predicted by such a linear relationship8. Here, using simulations12 from four comprehensive Earth system models13, we demonstrate that CO2-attributable warming continues to increase approximately linearly up to 5 EgC emissions. These models simulate, in response to 5 EgC of CO2 emissions, global mean warming of 6.4–9.5 °C, mean Arctic warming of 14.7–19.5 °C, and mean regional precipitation increases by more than a factor of four. These results indicate that the unregulated exploitation of the fossil fuel resource could ultimately result in considerably more profound climate changes than previously suggested.»

Donna Weaver and Ray Villard – NASA’s Hubble Finds Universe Is Expanding Faster Than Expected – NASA – 02/06/2016 – https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasa-s-hubble-finds-universe-is-expanding-faster-than-expected – “Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that the universe is expanding 5 percent to 9 percent faster than expected. “This surprising finding may be an important clue to understanding those mysterious parts of the universe that make up 95 percent of everything and don’t emit light, such as dark energy, dark matter and dark radiation,” said study leader and Nobel Laureate Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute and Johns Hopkins University, both in Baltimore, Maryland. The results will appear in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal. ”

Jax Jacobsen – Biofuels Worse for Climate Than Gasoline, New Study Finds – Eco Watch – 26/08/2016 – http://www.ecowatch.com/biofuels-worse-for-climate-than-gasoline-1987926412.html – «A new study released by the University of Michigan in the Aug. 25 journal of Climate Change is causing a ripple through the fuel industry, as it contends that more carbon dioxide is actually released through biofuels than gasoline.»

Shfaqat A. Khan et al (2016) – Geodetic measurements reveal similarities between post–Last Glacial Maximum and present-day mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet – Science Advances 2:e1600931 doi:10.1126/sciadv.1600931 – 21/09/2016 – DTU Space, National Space Institute, Department of Geodesy, Technical University of Denmark – https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/2/9/e1600931.full.pdf – 16 autores «Accurate quantification of the millennial-scale mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) and its contribution to global sea-level rise remain challenging because of sparse in situ observations in key regions. Glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) is the ongoing response of the solid Earth to ice and ocean load changes occurring since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; ~21 thousand years ago) and may be used to constrain the GrIS deglaciation history. We use data from the Greenland Global Positioning System network to directly measure GIA and estimate basin-wide mass changes since the LGM. Unpredicted, large GIA uplift rates of +12 mm/year are found in southeast Greenland. These rates are due to low upper mantle viscosity in the region, from when Greenland passed over the Iceland hot spot about 40 million years ago. This region of concentrated soft rheology has a profound influence on reconstructing the deglaciation history of Greenland. We reevaluate the evolution of the GrIS since LGM and obtain a loss of 1.5-m sea-level equivalent from the northwest and southeast. These same sectors are dominating modern mass loss. We suggest that the present destabilization of these marine-based sectors may increase sea level for centuries to come. Our new deglaciation history and GIA uplift estimates suggest that studies that use the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellite mission to infer present-day changes in the GrIS may have erroneously corrected for GIA and underestimated the mass loss by about 20 gigatons/year.»

Damian Carrington – Greenland’s huge annual ice loss is even worse than thought – The Guardian – 22/09/2016 – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/21/greenlands-huge-annual-ice-loss-is-even-worse-than-thought – “The new study reveals a more accurate estimate of the ice loss by taking better account of the gradual rise of the entire Greenland landmass. When the ice cap was at its peak 20,000 years ago, its great weight depressed the hot, viscous rocks in the underlying mantle. As ice has been shed since, the island has slowly rebounded upwards. Previous satellite estimates of modern ice losses tried to take this into account, but precise new GPS data showed much of Greenland is rising far more rapidly than thought, up to 12mm a year. This means 19 cubic kilometres more ice is falling into the sea each year, an increase of about 8% on earlier figures. The faster rebound is thought to be the result of hotter, more elastic mantle rocks under eastern Greenland, a remnant from 40m years ago when the island passed over the hot spot that now powers Iceland’s volcanoes. The new work was also able to reconstruct the ice loss from Greenland over millennia and found that the same parts of Greenland – the north-west and south-east – were where most ice is being lost both in the past and today.”

Bob Berwyn – Melting Ice Raised Sea Levels More Than Previously Thought, Study Says – Inside Climate News – 27/10/2016 – https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21102016/melting-ice-glaciers-sea-level-rise-underestimated-study-Greenland – “Readings from coastal tide gauges around the world—the most reliable historical water-level records—have underestimated 20th century sea level rise caused by various melting ice caps and glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere by between 5 and 28 percent, said a new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Using historical tide gauge observations as well as climate models, the researchers found that the least amount of global sea level rise that could have occurred last century is about 5.5 inches. «The most likely amount,» the study concluded, «is closer to 6.7 inches,» with implications for the hundreds of millions of people who live along the world’s coasts. The readings come mainly from 15 gauges in North America and Europe, where sea level rise has likely been slower than the global average, skewing earlier estimates. The study shows that melting ice raises sea level faster than the global average in areas farthest from the melt sources, like the southern Pacific Ocean and equatorial regions.”

Robin McKie – Nicholas Stern: cost of global warming ‘is worse than I feared’ – The Guardian – 06/11/2016 – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/06/nicholas-stern-climate-change-review-10-years-on-interview-decisive-years-humanity – «The Paris agreement remains central to Stern’s sense of cautious optimism. “It was the honesty of the delegates’ awareness of the nature of the problem and the speed of the agreement’s ratification that has given me most hope. We have a lot to do to limit carbon emissions to an effective level. I am confident that it is possible to achieve that, though I cannot say that I am confident it will happen.”.»

Michael Oppenheimer and Richard B. Alley (2016) – How high will the seas rise? – Science 354:1375-1377 doi:10.1126/science.aak9460 – 16/12/2016 – Department of Geosciences + Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University; Earth and Environmental Systems Institute and Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University – “In the early 1980s, U.S. EPA projected a sea level rise of 144 to 217 cm by 2100 (6). From the late 1980s to the late 1990s, developments in numerical modeling … resulting estimates of total sea level rise were lower than before, as reflected by the projection in IPCC’s AR1 of 31 to 110 cm (see the figure). Fast forward another decade to IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), and the field was in chaos due to emerging observations of the ice sheets. These led AR4’s authors to refrain from a complete estimate of sea level rise because they could not constrain the effect of warming on ice sheet flow (8) … The main reason for the difficulties in predicting sea level change is a limited understanding of ice flow … But the complexities of the ice sheet bed and ice interaction with the neighboring ocean make reliable prediction of unstable retreat very challenging.”

Eric Hand (2017) – Fossil leaves suggest global warming will be harder to fight than scientists thought – Science doi:10.1126/science.aal0567 – 04/01/2017 – https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/01/fossil-leaves-suggest-global-warming-will-be-harder-fight-scientists-thought – “By revealing lower CO2 levels during ancient warmings, he says, the gas exchange technique suggests a climate sensitivity closer to 4°C, not 3°C. It may take several generations for that rise to kick in, but history suggests that it is built into the climate system. “I do find it worrying,” McElwain says. “Within 50–100 years the Earth’s surface temperature could rise much higher than we currently anticipate.” Still, the technique is new, and its message is far from definitive. This March, at a workshop at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York, the CO2 proxies will square off in a competition of sorts. Paleoclimatologists plan to weigh the different proxy techniques and come up with a consensus record of CO2 over the past 66 million years. Franks is confident that the gas exchange technique will fare well. “There’s little argument that the uncertainty you get from this is improved,” he says. “I’m not evangelizing for this model. I think it will take care of itself.” ”

John Abraham – New study confirms NOAA finding of faster global warming – The Guardian – 04/01/2017 – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/jan/04/new-study-confirms-noaa-finding-of-faster-global-warming – autores

Almut Arneth et al (2017) – Historical carbon dioxide emissions caused by land-use changes are possibly larger than assumed – Nature Geoscience 10:79–84 doi:10.1038/ngeo2882 – 30/01/2017 – Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Deptartment of Atmospheric Environmental Research – 22 autores «The terrestrial biosphere absorbs about 20% of fossil-fuel CO2 emissions. The overall magnitude of this sink is constrained by the difference between emissions, the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and the ocean sink. However, the land sink is actually composed of two largely counteracting fluxes that are poorly quantified: fluxes from land-use change and CO2 uptake by terrestrial ecosystems. Dynamic global vegetation model simulations suggest that CO2 emissions from land-use change have been substantially underestimated because processes such as tree harvesting and land clearing from shifting cultivation have not been considered. As the overall terrestrial sink is constrained, a larger net flux as a result of land-use change implies that terrestrial uptake of CO2 is also larger, and that terrestrial ecosystems might have greater potential to sequester carbon in the future. Consequently, reforestation projects and efforts to avoid further deforestation could represent important mitigation pathways, with co-benefits for biodiversity. It is unclear whether a larger land carbon sink can be reconciled with our current understanding of terrestrial carbon cycling. Our possible underestimation of the historical residual terrestrial carbon sink adds further uncertainty to our capacity to predict the future of terrestrial carbon uptake and losses.»

Science News – Oil production releases more methane than previously thought – Science Daily – 01/02/2017 – International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170201092615.htm – «Emissions of methane and ethane from oil production have been substantially higher than previously estimated, particularly before 2005 … Global methane and ethane emissions from oil production from 1980 to 2012 were far higher than previous estimates show, according to a new study which for the first time takes into account different production management systems and geological conditions around the world.»

Giovanni Sgubin et al (2017) – Abrupt cooling over the North Atlantic in modern climate models – Nature Communications 8:14375 doi:10.1038/ncomms14375 – 15/02/2017 – Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement (LSCE), Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL) + Environnements et Paleoenvironnements Oceaniques et Continenteaux (EPOC), UMR CNRS 5805, Université de Bordeaux – https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14375.pdf – 5 autores «Observations over the 20th century evidence no long-term warming in the subpolar North Atlantic (SPG). This region even experienced a rapid cooling around 1970, raising a debate over its potential reoccurrence. Here we assess the risk of future abrupt SPG cooling in 40 climate models from the fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). Contrary to the long-term SPG warming trend evidenced by most of the models, 17.5% of the models (7/40) project a rapid SPG cooling, consistent with a collapse of the local deep-ocean convection. Uncertainty in projections is associated with the models’ varying capability in simulating the present-day SPG stratification, whose realistic reproduction appears a necessary condition for the onset of a convection collapse. This event occurs in 45.5% of the 11 models best able to simulate the observed SPG stratification. Thus, due to systematic model biases, the CMIP5 ensemble as a whole underestimates the chance of future abrupt SPG cooling, entailing crucial implications for observation and adaptation policy.»

Alex Kirby – Drastic cooling in North Atlantic beyond worst fears, scientists warn – The Guardian – 24/02/2017 – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/24/drastic-cooling-north-atlantic-beyond-worst-fears-scientists-warn – “For thousands of years, parts of northwest Europe have enjoyed a climate about 5C warmer than many other regions on the same latitude. But new scientific analysis suggests that that could change much sooner and much faster than thought possible. Climatologists who have looked again at the possibility of major climate change in and around the Atlantic Ocean, a persistent puzzle to researchers, now say there is an almost 50% chance that a key area of the North Atlantic could cool suddenly and rapidly, within the space of a decade, before the end of this century. That is a much starker prospect than even the worst-case scientific scenario proposed so far, which does not see the Atlantic ocean current shutdown happening for several hundred years at least. ”

Terry P. Hughes et al (2017) – Global warming and recurrent mass bleaching of corals – Nature 543:373–377 doi:10.1038/nature21707 – 15/03/2017 – Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University – http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/123989/1/Hughes%20et%20al.%20Bleaching%20ms%20Feb13.pdf – 47 autores «During 2015–2016, record temperatures triggered a pan-tropical episode of coral bleaching, the third global-scale event since mass bleaching was first documented in the 1980s. Here we examine how and why the severity of recurrent major bleaching events has varied at multiple scales, using aerial and underwater surveys of Australian reefs combined with satellite-derived sea surface temperatures. The distinctive geographic footprints of recurrent bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef in 1998, 2002 and 2016 were determined by the spatial pattern of sea temperatures in each year. Water quality and fishing pressure had minimal effect on the unprecedented bleaching in 2016, suggesting that local protection of reefs affords little or no resistance to extreme heat. Similarly, past exposure to bleaching in 1998 and 2002 did not lessen the severity of bleaching in 2016. Consequently, immediate global action to curb future warming is essential to secure a future for coral reefs.»

Joshua Robertson – The Great Barrier Reef Is in Far More Peril Than Previously Thought – Mother Jones – 15/03/2017 – https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/03/stopping-global-warming-only-way-save-great-barrier-reef-scientists-warn/ – “The survival of the Great Barrier Reef hinges on urgent moves to cut global warming because nothing else will protect coral from the coming cycle of mass bleaching events, new research has found. The study of three mass bleaching events on Australian reefs in 1998, 2002, and 2016 found coral was damaged by underwater heatwaves regardless of any local improvements to water quality or fishing controls. The research, authored by 46 scientists and published in Nature, raises serious questions about Australia’s long-term conservation plan for its famous reef, which invests heavily in lifting water quality but is silent on climate-change action. ”

energyskeptic – Climate change may corrode concrete even faster – Peak Energy & Resources, Climate Change, and the Preservation of Knowledge – 02/05/2017 – http://energyskeptic.com/2017/climate-change-may-corrode-concrete-even-faster/ – “Hartnett, K. October 12, 2014. For concrete, climate change may mean a shorter lifespan. Two Northeastern engineers warn that a key building material is less solid than we think. Boston Globe. Most Bostonian’s imagine rising sea levels as the worst threat from climate change. ”

Science News – Small climb in mean temperatures linked to far higher chance of deadly heat waves – Science Daily – 07/06/2017 – University of California – Irvine – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170607163029.htm – «An increase in mean temperature of 0.5 degrees Celsius over half a century may not seem all that serious, but it’s enough to have more than doubled the probability of a heat wave killing in excess of 100 people in India, according to researchers.»

Camilo Mora et al (2017) – Global risk of deadly heat – Nature Climate Change 7:501–506 doi:10.1038/nclimate3322 – 19/06/2017 – Department of Geography, University of Hawai’i at Manoa – 18 autores «Climate change can increase the risk of conditions that exceed human thermoregulatory capacity1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Although numerous studies report increased mortality associated with extreme heat events1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, quantifying the global risk of heat-related mortality remains challenging due to a lack of comparable data on heat-related deaths2, 3, 4, 5. Here we conducted a global analysis of documented lethal heat events to identify the climatic conditions associated with human death and then quantified the current and projected occurrence of such deadly climatic conditions worldwide. We reviewed papers published between 1980 and 2014, and found 783 cases of excess human mortality associated with heat from 164 cities in 36 countries. Based on the climatic conditions of those lethal heat events, we identified a global threshold beyond which daily mean surface air temperature and relative humidity become deadly. Around 30% of the world’s population is currently exposed to climatic conditions exceeding this deadly threshold for at least 20 days a year. By 2100, this percentage is projected to increase to ~48% under a scenario with drastic reductions of greenhouse gas emissions and ~74% under a scenario of growing emissions. An increasing threat to human life from excess heat now seems almost inevitable, but will be greatly aggravated if greenhouse gases are not considerably reduced.»

Zeke Hausfather – Major correction to satellite data shows 140% faster warming since 1998 – Carbon Brief – 30/06/2017 – University of California, Berkeley – https://www.carbonbrief.org/major-correction-to-satellite-data-shows-140-faster-warming-since-1998 – “A new paper published in the Journal of Climate reveals that the lower part of the Earth’s atmosphere has warmed much faster since 1979 than scientists relying on satellite data had previously thought. Researchers from Remote Sensing Systems (RSS), based in California, have released a substantially revised version of their lower tropospheric temperature record. After correcting for problems caused by the decaying orbit of satellites, as well as other factors, they have produced a new record showing 36% faster warming since 1979 and nearly 140% faster (i.e. 2.4 times larger) warming since 1998. This is in comparison to the previous version 3 of the lower tropospheric temperature (TLT) data published in 2009. ”

Adrian E. Raftery et al (2017) – Less than 2 °C warming by 2100 unlikely – Nature Climate Change 7:637–641 doi:10.1038/nclimate3352 – 31/07/2017 – Department of Statistics, University of Washington – 5 autores «The recently published Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projections to 2100 give likely ranges of global temperature increase in four scenarios for population, economic growth and carbon use1. However, these projections are not based on a fully statistical approach. Here we use a country-specific version of Kaya’s identity to develop a statistically based probabilistic forecast of CO2 emissions and temperature change to 2100. Using data for 1960–2010, including the UN’s probabilistic population projections for all countries2, 3, 4, we develop a joint Bayesian hierarchical model for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita and carbon intensity. We find that the 90% interval for cumulative CO2 emissions includes the IPCC’s two middle scenarios but not the extreme ones. The likely range of global temperature increase is 2.0–4.9 °C, with median 3.2 °C and a 5% (1%) chance that it will be less than 2 °C (1.5 °C). Population growth is not a major contributing factor. Our model is not a ‘business as usual’ scenario, but rather is based on data which already show the effect of emission mitigation policies. Achieving the goal of less than 1.5 °C warming will require carbon intensity to decline much faster than in the recent past.»

Steve – You have been warned: The Situation In The Markets Is Much Worse Than You Realize – SRSrocco Report – 09/09/2017 – https://srsroccoreport.com/you-have-been-warned-the-situation-in-the-markets-is-much-worse-than-you-realize/ – “Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to chat with Bedford Hill of the Hill’s Group for over 90 minutes. What an interesting conversation. Ole Bedford knows we are toast. Unfortunately, only 0.01% of the population may understand the details of the Hill’s Group work. Here is an explanation of the Hill’s Group: The Hill’s Group is an association of consulting engineers and professional project managers. Our goal is to support our clients by providing them with the most relevant, and up to-date skill sets needed to manage their organizations. Depletion: A determination for the world’s petroleum reserve provides organizational long range planners, and policy makers with the essential information they will need in today’s rapidly changing environment. I asked Bedford if he agreed with me that the hyperinflationary collapse of Venezuela was due to the falling oil price rather than its corrupt Communist Government. He concurred. Bedford stated that the total BTU energy cost to extract Venezuela’s heavy oil was higher than the BTU’s the market could afford. Bedford went on to say that when the oil price was at $80, Venezuela could still make enough profit to continue running its inefficient, corrupt government. However, now that the price of oil is trading below $50, it’s gutting the entire Venezuelan economy. During our phone call, Bedford discussed his ETP Oil model, shown in his chart below. If there is one chart that totally screws up the typical Austrian School of Economics student or follower, it’s this baby: … Bedford along with a group of engineers spent thousands and thousands of hours inputting the data that produced the “ETP Cost Curve” (BLACK LINE). The ETP Cost Curve is the average cost to produce oil by the industry. The RED dots represent the actual average annual West Texas Oil price. As you can see, the oil price corresponded with the ETP Cost Curve. This correlation suggests that the market price of oil is determined by its cost of production, rather than supply and demand market forces. The ETP Cost Curve goes up until it reached an inflection point in 2012… then IT PEAKED. The black line coming down on the right-hand side of the chart represents “Maximum Consumer Price.” This line is the maximum price that the end consumer can afford. Again, it has nothing to do with supply and demand rather, it has everything to do with the cost of production and the remaining net energy in the barrel of oil. I decided to add the RED dots for years 2014-2016. These additional annual oil price figures remain in or near the Maximum Consumer Price line. According to Bedford, the oil price will continue lower by 2020. However, the actual annual oil price in 2015 and 2016 was much lower than the estimated figures Bedford, and his group had calculated. Thus, we could see some volatility in the price over the next few years.” Regardless, the oil price trend will be lower. And as the oil price continues to fall, it will gut the U.S. and global oil industry. There is nothing the Fed and Central Banks can do to stop it. Yes, it’s true that the U.S. government could step in and bail out the U.S. shale oil industry, but this would not be a long-term solution.

Eric Wolff et al (2017) – Climate updates: What have we learnt since the IPCC 5th Assessment Report? – The Royal Society – 27/11/2017 – University of Cambridge – https://royalsociety.org/~/media/policy/Publications/2017/27-11-2017-Climate-change-updates-report.pdf – 15 autores “Many new studies have further documented effects attributed to acidification. It also appears that deoxygenation is happening faster than was projected by models. Effects, including coral bleaching, have been attributed to warming which continues to occur in all oceans. There have been new studies on the complex effects of multiple stressors on biodiversity, ecosystems and fisheries. Other studies have shown that local variability in conditions and the response of different species can result in complex food-web interactions. There is potential for a shift or reduction in the ranges of some species, or even loss of some ecosystems, such as those supported by corals, with reduced functioning of the food web. Whilst some species may be able to acclimate, many will not … On this basis we expect the IPCC statements to stand.”

– Climate updates: What have we learnt since the IPCC 5th Assessment Report? – The Royal Society – 27/11/2017 – https://royalsociety.org/~/media/policy/Publications/2017/27-11-2017-Climate-change-updates-report.pdf – “Many new studies have further documented effects attributed to acidification. It also appears that deoxygenation is happening faster than was projected by models. Effects, including coral bleaching, have been attributed to warming which continues to occur in all oceans. There have been new studies on the complex effects of multiple stressors on biodiversity, ecosystems and fisheries. Other studies have shown that local variability in conditions and the response of different species can result in complex food-web interactions. There is potential for a shift or reduction in the ranges of some species, or even loss of some ecosystems, such as those supported by corals, with reduced functioning of the food web. Whilst some species may be able to acclimate, many will not … On this basis we expect the IPCC statements to stand.”

Chen-Tung Arthur Chen et al (2017) – Deep oceans may acidify faster than anticipated due to global warming – Nature Climate Change 7:890–894 doi:10.1038/s41558-017-0003-y – 27/11/2017 – Department of Oceanography, National SunYat-sen University + State Key Laboratory of Satellite Ocean Environment Dynamics, Second Institute of Oceanography – 7 autores «Oceans worldwide are undergoing acidification due to the penetration of anthropogenic CO2 from the atmosphere1,2,3,4. The rate of acidification generally diminishes with increasing depth. Yet, slowing down of the thermohaline circulation due to global warming could reduce the pH in the deep oceans, as more organic material would decompose with a longer residence time. To elucidate this process, a time-series study at a climatically sensitive region with sufficient duration and resolution is needed. Here we show that deep waters in the Sea of Japan are undergoing reduced ventilation, reducing the pH of seawater. As a result, the acidification rate near the bottom of the Sea of Japan is 27% higher than the rate at the surface, which is the same as that predicted assuming an air–sea CO2 equilibrium. This reduced ventilation may be due to global warming and, as an oceanic microcosm with its own deep- and bottom-water formations, the Sea of Japan provides an insight into how future warming might alter the deep-ocean acidification.»

Josh Gabbatiss – Worst-case global warming predictions are the most accurate, say climate experts – The Independent – 06/12/2017 – https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/global-warming-temperature-rise-climate-change-end-century-science-a8095591.html – «‘There is a 93 per cent chance that global warming will exceed 4C by the end of this century,’ lead scientist says … “Our study indicates that if emissions follow a commonly used business-as-usual scenario, there is a 93 per cent chance that global warming will exceed 4C by the end of this century,” said Dr Ken Caldeira, an atmospheric scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, who co-authored the new study. This likelihood is an increase on past estimates, which placed it at 62 per cent.»

Bob Berwyn – Climate Change Is Happening Faster Than Expected, and It’s More Extreme – 26/12/2017 – https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26122017/climate-change-science-2017-year-review-evidence-impact-faster-more-extreme – “Other scientific authorities have issued similar assessments: The Royal Society published a compendium of how the science has advanced, warning that it seems likelier that we’ve been underestimating the risks of warming than overestimating them. The American Meteorological Society issued its annual study of extreme weather events and said that many of those it studied this year would not have been possible without the influence of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)said recent melting of the Arctic was not moderating and was more intense than at any time in recorded history. ”

Denise Breitburg et al (2018) – Declining oxygen in the global ocean and coastal waters – Science 359:eaam7240 doi:10.1126/science.aam7240 – 05/01/2018 – Smithsonian Environmental Research Center – 22 autores “There is general agreement between numerical models and observations about the total amount of oxygen loss in the surface ocean (38). There is also consensus that direct solubility effects do not explain the majority of oceanic oxygen decline (31). However, numerical models consistently simulate a decline in the total global ocean oxygen inventory equal to only about half that of the most recent observation-based estimate and also predict different spatial patterns of oxygen decline or, in some cases, increase (9, 31, 39). ”

E. Scott et al (2018) – Impact on short-lived climate forcers increases projected warming due to deforestation – Nature Communications 9 doi:10.1038/s41467-017-02412-4 – 11/01/2018 – Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds – 20 autores «The climate impact of deforestation depends on the relative strength of several biogeochemical and biogeophysical effects. In addition to affecting the exchange of carbon dioxide (CO2) and moisture with the atmosphere and surface albedo, vegetation emits biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) that alter the formation of short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs), which include aerosol, ozone and methane. Here we show that a scenario of complete global deforestation results in a net positive radiative forcing (RF; 0.12 W m−2) from SLCFs, with the negative RF from decreases in ozone and methane concentrations partially offsetting the positive aerosol RF. Combining RFs due to CO2, surface albedo and SLCFs suggests that global deforestation could cause 0.8 K warming after 100 years, with SLCFs contributing 8% of the effect. However, deforestation as projected by the RCP8.5 scenario leads to zero net RF from SLCF, primarily due to nonlinearities in the aerosol indirect effect.»
E. Scott et al (2018) – Impact on short-lived climate forcers increases projected warming due to deforestation – Nature Communications 9:157 doi:10.1038/s41467-017-02412-4 – 11/01/2018 – Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds – https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02412-4.pdf – 20 autores «The climate impact of deforestation depends on the relative strength of several biogeochemical and biogeophysical effects. In addition to affecting the exchange of carbon dioxide (CO2) and moisture with the atmosphere and surface albedo, vegetation emits biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) that alter the formation of short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs), which include aerosol, ozone and methane. Here we show that a scenario of complete global deforestation results in a net positive radiative forcing (RF; 0.12 W m−2) from SLCFs, with the negative RF from decreases in ozone and methane concentrations partially offsetting the positive aerosol RF. Combining RFs due to CO2, surface albedo and SLCFs suggests that global deforestation could cause 0.8 K warming after 100 years, with SLCFs contributing 8% of the effect. However, deforestation as projected by the RCP8.5 scenario leads to zero net RF from SLCF, primarily due to nonlinearities in the aerosol indirect effect.»

Eric Holthaus – Climate science’s official text is outdated. Here’s what it’s missing. – Grist – 22/03/2018 – https://grist.org/article/climate-sciences-official-text-is-outdated-heres-what-its-missing/ – “It’s convenient that Chevron’s attorney relied on that aging five-year-old report. The next IPCC report isn’t planned for public release until the fall of 2019. Gathering consensus takes time, and the result is that IPCC reports are out of date before they’re published and necessarily conservative. The climate models used in these reports grow old in a hurry. Since the 1970s, they’ve routinely underestimated the rate of global warming. Some of the most recent comprehensive assessments of climate science, including last year’s congressionally-mandated, White House-approved, Climate Science Special Report, include scary new sections on “climate surprises” like simultaneous droughts and hurricanes, that have wide-reaching consequences. The scientists representing the two cities knew this, and didn’t limit their talking points to the IPCC. ”

Harry Cockburn – Worst-case climate change scenario could be more extreme than thought, scientists warn – The Independent – 15/05/2018 – https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-model-scenario-rcp85-global-warming-illinios-study-a8353346.html – “The standard worst case scenario, RCP 8.5, assumes rapid and unrestricted economic growth which will see rampant burning of fossil fuels. In addition, it also assumes no further action will be taken to limit warming than the policies countries are already pursuing. However, scientists at the University of Illinois say there is a one-in-three chance that by the end of the century emissions will have exceeded those estimated in the RCP 8.5 scenario. “Our estimates indicate that, due to higher than assumed economic growth rates, there is a greater than 35 per cent probability that year 2100 emissions concentrations will exceed those given by RCP8.5,” Peter Christensen told the New Scientist. … ”

David Roberts – We are almost certainly underestimating the economic risks of climate change – Vox – 09/06/2018 – https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/6/8/17437104/climate-change-global-warming-models-risks – “The famous DICE model created by Yale’s William Nordhaus shows that a 6-degree rise in global average temperature — which the physical sciences characterize as an unlivable hellscape — would only dent global GDP by 10 percent. Projections of modest economic impacts from even the most severe climate change affect climate politics in a number of ways. For one thing, they inform policy goals like those President Obama offered in Paris, restraining their ambition. For another, they fuel the arguments of “lukewarmers,” those who say that the climate is warming but it’s not that big a problem. (Lukewarmism is the public stance of most Trump Cabinet members.) ”

Mikayla Mace – Antarctic Ocean Discovery Warns of Faster Global Warming – Climate Central – 10/06/2018 – Arizona Daily Star – http://www.climatecentral.org/news/antarctic-ocean-discovery-warns-of-faster-global-warming-21865 – “A group of scientists, including one from the University of Arizona, has new findings suggesting Antarctica’s Southern Ocean — long known to play an integral role in climate change — may not be absorbing as much pollution as previously thought. The old belief was the ocean pulled about 13 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide — a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change — out of the atmosphere, helping put the brakes on rising global temperatures. To reach their contradictory conclusion, the team used state-of-the-art sensors to collect more data on the Southern Ocean than ever before, including during the perilous winter months that previously made the research difficult if not impossible. Some oceanographers suspect that less CO2 is being absorbed because the westerlies — the winds that ring the southernmost continent — are tightening like a noose. As these powerful winds get more concentrated, they dig at the water, pushing it out and away. ”

Frances Seymour – Deforestation Is Accelerating, Despite Mounting Efforts to Protect Tropical Forests. What Are We Doing Wrong? – World Resources Institute – 26/06/2018 – https://www.wri.org/blog/2018/06/deforestation-accelerating-despite-mounting-efforts-protect-tropical-forests – “The 2017 tree cover loss numbers are in, and they’re not looking good. Despite a decade of intensifying efforts to slow tropical deforestation, last year was the second-highest on record for tree cover loss, down just slightly from 2016. The tropics lost an area of forest the size of Vietnam in just the last two years. In addition to harming biodiversity and infringing on the rights and livelihoods of local communities, forest destruction at this scale is a catastrophe for the global climate. New science shows that forests are even more important than we thought in curbing climate change. In addition to capturing and storing carbon, forests affect wind speed, rainfall patterns and atmospheric chemistry. In short, deforestation is making the world a hotter, drier place. ”

Xiangyin Ni and Peter M. Groffman (2018) – Declines in methane uptake in forest soils – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS 116:8587-8590 doi:10.1073/pnas.1807377115 – 06/08/2018 – Institute of Ecology and Forestry, Sichuan Agricultural University; Advanced Science Research Center at The Graduate Center, Brooklyn College Department of Earth + Environmental Sciences, City University of New York + Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies – https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/115/34/8587.full.pdf – «Forest soils are a sink for atmospheric methane (CH4) and play an important role in modulating the global CH4 budget. However, whether CH4 uptake by forest soils is affected by global environmental change is unknown. We measured soil to atmosphere net CH4 fluxes in temperate forests at two long-term ecological research sites in the northeastern United States from the late 1990s to the mid-2010s. We found that annual soil CH4 uptake decreased by 62% and 53% in urban and rural forests in Baltimore, Maryland and by 74% and 89% in calcium-fertilized and reference forests at Hubbard Brook, New Hampshire over this period. This decrease occurred despite marked declines in nitrogen deposition and increases in atmospheric CH4 concentration and temperature, which should lead to increases in CH4 uptake. This decrease in soil CH4 uptake appears to be driven by increases in precipitation and soil hydrological flux. Furthermore, an analysis of CH4 uptake around the globe showed that CH4 uptake in forest soils has decreased by an average of 77% from 1988 to 2015, particularly in forests located from 0 to 60 °N latitude where precipitation has been increasing. We conclude that the soil CH4 sink may be declining and overestimated in several regions across the globe.»

Jonathan Watts – Domino-effect of climate events could move Earth into a ‘hothouse’ state – The Guardian – 07/08/2018 – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/06/domino-effect-of-climate-events-could-push-earth-into-a-hothouse-state – “Another climate scientist – who was not involved in the paper – emphasised the document aimed to raise questions rather than prove a theory. “It’s rather selective, but not outlandish,” said Prof Martin Siegert, co-director of the Grantham Institute. “Threshold and tipping points have been discussed previously, but to state that 2C is a threshold we can’t pull back from is new, I think. I’m not sure what ‘evidence’ there is for this – or indeed whether there can be until we experience it.” Rockström said the question needed asking. “We could end up delivering the Paris agreement and keep to 2C of warming, but then face an ugly surprise if the system starts to slip away,” he said. “We don’t say this will definitely happen. We just list all the disruptive events and come up with plausible occurrences … 50 years ago, this would be dismissed as alarmist, but now scientists have become really worried.” ”

Katey Walter Anthony et al (2018) – 21st-century modeled permafrost carbon emissions accelerated by abrupt thaw beneath lakes – Nature Communications 9:3262 doi:10.1038/s41467-018-05738-9 – 15/08/2018 – Water and Environmental Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks – 10 autores «Permafrost carbon feedback (PCF) modeling has focused on gradual thaw of near-surface permafrost leading to enhanced carbon dioxide and methane emissions that accelerate global climate warming. These state-of-the-art land models have yet to incorporate deeper, abrupt thaw in the PCF. Here we use model data, supported by field observations, radiocarbon dating, and remote sensing, to show that methane and carbon dioxide emissions from abrupt thaw beneath thermokarst lakes will more than double radiative forcing from circumpolar permafrost-soil carbon fluxes this century. Abrupt thaw lake emissions are similar under moderate and high representative concentration pathways (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5), but their relative contribution to the PCF is much larger under the moderate warming scenario. Abrupt thaw accelerates mobilization of deeply frozen, ancient carbon, increasing 14C-depleted permafrost soil carbon emissions by ~125–190% compared to gradual thaw alone. These findings demonstrate the need to incorporate abrupt thaw processes in earth system models for more comprehensive projection of the PCF this century.»

Dan Lashof – Why Positive Climate Feedbacks Are So Bad – World Resources Institute – 20/08/2018 – https://www.wri.org/blog/2018/08/why-positive-climate-feedbacks-are-so-bad – “The Hothouse Earth paper estimates the enhanced warming expected from these and three other processes expected by 2100, assuming that global warming would otherwise be 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) by then. They find that the sum of these effects by 2100 would add about 0.5 degrees C (0.9 degrees F) to global warming, with a range of 0.24 to 0.66 degrees C (0.43 to 1.18 degrees F). That sounds bad, but hardly catastrophic. Unfortunately, this isn’t the end of the story. First of all, it is a mistake to simply add up the effects of the individual feedbacks to estimate their overall impact, because they amplify each other and themselves as well as the physical feedback processes already built in to climate models. This means that the combined effect could be much, much larger than a simple sum, particularly if other feedback effects are near the upper bounds of their uncertainty ranges. These processes take time and much of this further amplification would likely play out after 2100. At that point, other feedback mechanisms which are not expected to be significant during this century could kick in, such as the disintegration of methane hydrates (a crystal structure that traps large amounts of methane under high pressure-low temperature conditions). ”

Charles Eisenstein (2018) – Climate. A New Story – North Atlantic Books – 12/09/2018 – – “To enter the ecosystems paradigm through the carbon lens, we must look at an item of the carbon budget that is much less certain than fossil fuel emissions— the release of carbon from “land use changes” (a euphemism for ecosystem destruction)—and, equally uncertain, the capacity of intact ecosystems to absorb and sequester carbon. Some researchers believe we have drastically underestimated both,1 and the general trend in the literature has been toward higher and higher estimates for terrestrial fluxes of CO2. For example, a recent study concludes that tropical deforestation of 2.27 million square kilometers has contributed about 50 gigatons of carbon to the atmosphere since 1950, and the rate of emission has accelerated.2 According to this study, emissions from tropical deforestation currently total 2.3 gigatons/year—more than 20 percent of anthropogenic emissions, and much more than previous estimates.3 A similar trend applies to other biomes. ”

Charles Eisenstein (2018) – Climate. A New Story – North Atlantic Books – 12/09/2018 – – “Most discourse about greenhouse gases focuses on emissions from fossil fuels, how to replace them with alternative energy sources, and whether it is possible to do this quickly enough. This is well-trodden territory. I will not weigh in on it, because I don’t want to give more attention to what I consider to be the wrong conversation. Whether or not we reduce emissions, in the absence of ecological healing on every level, climate derangement will continue to worsen. To enter the ecosystems paradigm through the carbon lens, we must look at an item of the carbon budget that is much less certain than fossil fuel emissions— the release of carbon from “land use changes” (a euphemism for ecosystem destruction)—and, equally uncertain, the capacity of intact ecosystems to absorb and sequester carbon. Some researchers believe we have drastically underestimated both,1 and the general trend in the literature has been toward higher and higher estimates for terrestrial fluxes of CO2.” (p. 104-105)

Charles Eisenstein (2018) – Climate. A New Story – North Atlantic Books – 12/09/2018 – – “While global climatic patterns (namely, the strong El Niño of 2015–16) precipitated the latest famine, these countries have also suffered intense deforestation. Guatemala lost 17 percent of its rainforest in just fifteen years from 1990 to 2005; subsequently the rate of deforestation accelerated threefold;31 losses have been especially heavy in its famous cloud forests.32 A similar story transpired in Honduras, which lost 37 percent of its rainforests in the same period with no letup in sight. El Salvador is the saddest case of all, having suffered 85 percent deforestation since the 1960s. When these forests are cut down, rainfall runs off instead of being absorbed to recharge the water table, resulting in erosion, landslides, and flooding. Springs dry up, rainfall decreases, and the local climate becomes hotter and drier. The stage is set for devastating drought. Before deforestation, the rainforests of South and Central America received plenty of rainfall, El Niño or not. That’s why they are called rainforests.” (p. 98-99)

Thomas Slater & Andrew Shepherd (2018) – Antarctic ice losses tracking high – Nature Climate Change 8:1025–1026 doi:10.1038/s41558-018-0284-9 – 17/09/2018 – Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds – “If Antarctic ice losses continue to track the upper range of the AR5 projections, the continent will contribute 151 mm, on average, to global sea levels by 2100. When compared with the central estimate (50 mm), this amounts to an extra 101 mm of SLR. An even greater contribution is possible, because the AR5 projections did not account for the effects of increasing emission concentrations on ice-sheet dynamics, or for the possible impacts of processes such as ice cliff instabilities. Additional ice losses from Antarctica are of particular concern for cities in the Northern Hemisphere, where (owing to gravitational redistribution of ocean mass) SLR will be around 30% higher than the eustatic mean8 ”

Gasser et al (2018) – Path-dependent reductions in CO2 emission budgets caused by permafrost carbon release – Nature Geoscience 11:830–835 doi:10.1038/s41561-018-0227-0 – 17/09/2018 – International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) – https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2019/EGU2019-14251.pdf – 9 autores «Emission budgets are defined as the cumulative amount of anthropogenic CO2 emission compatible with a global temperature-change target. The simplicity of the concept has made it attractive to policy-makers, yet it relies on a linear approximation of the global carbon–climate system’s response to anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Here we investigate how emission budgets are impacted by the inclusion of CO2 and CH4 emissions caused by permafrost thaw, a non-linear and tipping process of the Earth system. We use the compact Earth system model OSCAR v2.2.1, in which parameterizations of permafrost thaw, soil organic matter decomposition and CO2 and CH4 emission were introduced based on four complex land surface models that specifically represent high-latitude processes. We found that permafrost carbon release makes emission budgets path dependent (that is, budgets also depend on the pathway followed to reach the target). The median remaining budget for the 2 °C target reduces by 8% (1–25%) if the target is avoided and net negative emissions prove feasible, by 13% (2–34%) if they do not prove feasible, by 16% (3–44%) if the target is overshot by 0.5 °C and by 25% (5–63%) if it is overshot by 1 °C. (Uncertainties are the minimum-to-maximum range across the permafrost models and scenarios.) For the 1.5 °C target, reductions in the median remaining budget range from ~10% to more than 100%. We conclude that the world is closer to exceeding the budget for the long-term target of the Paris Climate Agreement than previously thought.»
Gasser et al (2018) – Path-dependent reductions in CO2 emission budgets caused by permafrost carbon release – Nature Geoscience 11:830–835 doi:10.1038/s41561-018-0227-0 – 17/09/2018 – International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) – https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2019/EGU2019-14251.pdf – 9 autores “Furthermore, we quantified a substantial permafrost-induced reduction in the remaining budgets for low-warming targets. This ranges from ~5% to as much as ~40% for a 2 °C target, and from ~10% to more than 100% for a 1.5 °C one, under present-day nonCO2 forcing and for an about 50% chance of meeting the temperature targets. Whether the world has already breached the budget for 1.5 °C remains elusive, however. It depends on many factors which include the uncertainty on past anthropogenic emissions44,45, the amount of forcing by non-CO2 species that will be mitigated in the near future12,46,47 and a possible bias in the model’s simulated present-day global temperature7–10 (not accounted for in this study). Irrespective of these uncertainties, it appears that the attainability of the Paris Climate Agreement is more compromised than suggested by the existing literature that largely ignores tipping or irreversible feedbacks of the Earth system. ”

Thomas Gasser et al (2018) – Path-dependent reductions in CO2 emission budgets caused by permafrost carbon release – Nature Geoscience 11:830–835 doi:10.1038/s41561-018-0227-0 – 17/09/2018 – International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) – https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2018/EGU2018-14234.pdf – 9 autores “This confirms that the exceedance approach only partially captures the impact of permafrost carbon release on emission budgets. We conjecture that other slow and strongly non-linear processes, such as forest dieback15,24,25, are also incompletely accounted for with exceedance budgets. As the exceedance approach was the only one used by complex models in the fifth IPCC assessment report6,22, we conclude that future updates of the emission budgets based on such models will remain biased without a change in experimental protocol. ”

Science News – Current climate models underestimate warming by black carbon aerosol – Science Daily – 19/09/2018 – Washington University in St. Louis – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181119155950.htm – «Researchers have discovered a new, natural law that sheds light on the fundamental relationship between coated black carbon and light absorption … Soot belches out of diesel engines, rises from wood- and dung-burning cookstoves and shoots out of oil refinery stacks. According to recent research, air pollution, including soot, is linked to heart disease, some cancers and, in the United States, as many as 150,000 cases of diabetes every year.»

Donald A. Brown – New Evidence That Climate Change Poses a Much Greater Threat to Humanity Than Recently Understood Because the IPCC has been Systematically Underestimating Climate Change Risks: An Ethical Analysis – Ethics and Climate – 21/09/2018 – Scholar in Residence and Professor, Widener University Commonwealth Law School – https://ethicsandclimate.org/2018/09/21/new-evidence-that-climate-change-poses-a-much-greater-threat-to-humanity-than-recently-understood-because-the-intergovernmental-panel-on-climate-change-has-been-systematically-underestimating-climate/ – «Three papers have been recently published that lead to the conclusion that human-induced climate change poses a much more urgent and serious threat to life on Earth than many have thought who have been relying primarily on the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This paper first reviews these papers and then examines the ethical questions by the issues discussed in these papers.»

– A Few Tips for Faster, More Frequent Writing – The Writing Cooperative – 16/10/2018 – https://writingcooperative.com/a-few-tips-for-faster-more-frequent-writing-588498674972 – “1. I Write Everywhere … 2. I Am NOT A Perfectionist … 3. I Do NOT Proofread … 4. I Pick What Has the Most Material At The Moment … 5. I Am NOT Research-Based ”

Science News – Earth’s oceans have absorbed 60 percent more heat than previously thought – Science Daily – 31/10/2018 – Princeton University – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181031141515.htm – «Since 1991, the world’s oceans have absorbed an amount of heat energy each year that is 150 times the energy humans produce as electricity annually, according to a new study. The strong ocean warming the researchers found suggests that Earth is more sensitive to fossil-fuel emissions than previously thought.»

Fast Company – Smartphones Are Killing the Planet Faster Than Anyone Expected – Medium – 08/11/2018 – https://medium.com/fast-company/smartphones-are-killing-the-planet-faster-than-anyone-expected-dd3fc5278426 – «Researchers are sounding the alarm after an analysis showed that buying a new smartphone consumes as much energy as using an existing phone for an entire decade»

Science News – Overlooked trends in annual precipitation reveal underestimated risks worldwide – Science Daily – 13/11/2018 – University of Maine – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181113141801.htm – «Researchers have reanalyzed global annual precipitation using quantile regression to reveal overlooked trends. Linear trends in US and global climate assessments reflect changes in mean annual precipitation, but these may not reflect changes across other quantiles in the precipitation probability distribution, including tails (very high and low precipitation levels), leading to systematic mischaracterization of climate risk. Applications in future climate studies could allow for risk assessment at more appropriate adaptation targets.»

Anne M. Lausier and Shaleen Jain (2018) – Overlooked Trends in Observed Global Annual Precipitation Reveal Underestimated Risks – Scientific Reports 8 doi:10.1038/s41598-018-34993-5 – 13/11/2018 – Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Maine – https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-34993-5.pdf – «Numerous human and environmental systems are sensitive to the spatial and temporal distribution of precipitation, including agriculture, water supply, and ecosystems. Trends in observed precipitation form an important line of evidence to understand how changes may increase system vulnerabilities. Linear trends reported in US and global climate assessments reflect changes in mean annual precipitation. Mean trends may not reflect changes across other quantiles in the precipitation probability distribution, including the tails (very high and low precipitation levels), leading to systematic mischaracterization of climate risk. Here we reanalyze global annual precipitation using quantile regression to reveal overlooked trends. We find trends in the tails inconsistent with the mean in 44.4% of land area and 40.7% of rainfed agricultural regions. Previously undetected trends offer a more accurate view of the changing climate. This work enables reappraisals of risk aggregated over thresholds in human and environmental systems, enabling revaluation of threats and identification of appropriate adaptation strategies.»

Science News – Current climate models underestimate warming by black carbon aerosol – Science Daily – 19/11/2018 – Washington University in St. Louis – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181119155950.htm – “Beyond its impact on health, soot, known as black carbon by atmospheric scientists, is a powerful global warming agent. It absorbs sunlight and traps heat in the atmosphere in magnitude second only to the notorious carbon dioxide. Recent commentaries in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences called the absence of consensus on soot’s light absorption magnitude «one of the grand challenges in atmospheric climate science.» Rajan Chakrabarty, assistant professor in the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis, and William R. Heinson, a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow in Chakrabarty’s lab, took on that challenge and discovered something new about soot, or rather, a new law that describes its ability to absorb light: the law of light absorption. With it, scientists will be able to better understand soot’s role in climate change. The research has been selected as an «Editors’ Suggestion» published online Nov. 19 in the journal Physical Review Letters. ”

Yangyang Xu, Veerabhadran Ramanathan and David G. Victor (2018) – Global warming will happen faster than we think – Nature 564:30-32 doi:10.1038/d41586-018-07586-5 – 05/12/2018 – Assistant Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University; Professor of Atmospheric and Climate Sciences, University of California, San Diego; Scripps Institution of Oceanography + Professor of International Relations, University of California, San Diego; Cross-Brookings Initiative on Energy and Climate, Brookings Institution – https://www.nature.com/magazine-assets/d41586-018-07586-5/d41586-018-07586-5.pdf – «Prepare for the “new abnormal”. That was what California Governor Jerry Brown told reporters last month, commenting on the deadly wildfires that have plagued the state this year. He’s right … Such environmental disasters will only intensify.»

Patrick T. Brown and Ken Caldeira (2018) – Greater future global warming inferred from Earth’s recent energy budget – Nature 552:45–50 doi:10.1038/nature24672 – 06/12/2018 – Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford – «Climate models provide the principal means of projecting global warming over the remainder of the twenty-first century but modelled estimates of warming vary by a factor of approximately two even under the same radiative forcing scenarios. Across-model relationships between currently observable attributes of the climate system and the simulated magnitude of future warming have the potential to inform projections. Here we show that robust across-model relationships exist between the global spatial patterns of several fundamental attributes of Earth’s top-of-atmosphere energy budget and the magnitude of projected global warming. When we constrain the model projections with observations, we obtain greater means and narrower ranges of future global warming across the major radiative forcing scenarios, in general. In particular, we find that the observationally informed warming projection for the end of the twenty-first century for the steepest radiative forcing scenario is about 15 per cent warmer (+0.5 degrees Celsius) with a reduction of about a third in the two-standard-deviation spread (−1.2 degrees Celsius) relative to the raw model projections reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Our results suggest that achieving any given global temperature stabilization target will require steeper greenhouse gas emissions reductions than previously calculated.»

Antonio Cerrillo – Sólo una de cada tres muertes por golpes de calor es diagnosticada – La Vanguardia – 13/12/2018 – https://www.lavanguardia.com/natural/20181213/453531450256/golpes-de-calor.html – “El golpe de calor es una patología grave que presenta una mortalidad del 24%. Así lo indica una tesis de la doctora Antonia Vázquez, especialista en medicina intensiva que ha recopilado 49 casos en 15 años (2003-2017) tratados en el Hospital del Mar, sin contar los casos provocado por ejercicio físico. No obstante, esta especialista considera que el golpe de calor está infradiagnosticado.Se estima que solo aflora uno de cada tres muertes por esta razón. La doctora destaca que en el caso del Hospital del Mar más de un tercio de ingresos se dieron sin que se decretara alerta por calor y con una alta incidencia en las noches tropicales (más de 20ºC) y tórridas (más de 25º C). Asimismo, un 90% de los casos se producen en personas con alguna enfermedad crónica (cardiovasculares, psiquiátricas o neurológicas) y que toman medicaciones que alteran o pueden afectar a su termorregulación o dificultar la adaptación del organismo al calor. ”

Fábio M. DaMatta et al (2019) – Why could the coffee crop endure climate change and global warming to a greater extent than previously estimated? – Climatic Change 152:167–178 doi:10.1007/s10584-018-2346-4 – 14/12/2018 – Departamento de Biologia VegetalUniversidade Federal Viçosa – https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs10584-018-2346-4.pdf – 5 autores «Coffee, one of the most heavily globally traded agricultural commodities, has been categorized as a highly sensitive plant species to progressive climatic change. Here, we summarize recent insights on the coffee plant’s physiological performance at elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration [CO2]. We specifically (i) provide new data of crop yields obtained under free-air CO2 enrichment conditions, (ii) discuss predictions on the future of the coffee crop as based on rising temperature and (iii) emphasize the role of [CO2] as a key player for mitigating harmful effects of supra-optimal temperatures on coffee physiology and bean quality. We conclude that the effects of global warming on the climatic suitability of coffee may be lower than previously assumed. We highlight perspectives and priorities for further research to improve our understanding on how the coffee plant will respond to present and progressive climate change.»

Sharon Kelly – Fracked Shale Oil Wells Drying Up Faster than Predicted, Wall Street Journal Finds – Desmogblog – 10/01/2019 – https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/01/10/fracking-shale-oil-wells-drying-faster-predicted-wall-street-journal – “Turns out, not so well. And Pioneer is not alone. Those 1.3 million-barrel wells, the Journal reported, “now appear to be on a pace to produce about 482,000 barrels” apiece — a little over a third of what Pioneer told investors they could deliver. In Texas’ famed Permian Basin, now the nation’s most productive shale oil field, where Pioneer predicted 960,000 barrels from each of its shale wells in 2015, the Journal concluded that those “wells are now on track to produce about 720,000 barrels” each. Not only are the wells already drying up at a much faster rate than the company predicted, according to the Journal’s investigative report, but Pioneer’s projections require oil to flow for at least 50 years after the well was drilled and fracked — a projection experts told the Journal would be “extremely optimistic.” Fracking every one of those wells required a vast amount of chemicals, sand, and water. In Karnes County, Texas, one of the two Eagle Ford counties where Pioneer concentrated its drilling in 2015, the average round of fracking that year drank up roughly 143,000 barrels of water per well. ”

Kendra Pierre-Louis – Ocean Warming Is Accelerating Faster Than Thought, New Research Finds – The New York Times – 10/01/2019 – https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/climate/ocean-warming-climate-change.html – «A new analysis, published Thursday in the journal Science, found that the oceans are heating up 40 percent faster on average than a United Nations panel estimated five years ago. The researchers also concluded that ocean temperatures have broken records for several straight years.»

Science News – Oceans are warming even faster than previously thought – Science Daily – 10/01/2019 – University of California – Berkeley – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190110141811.htm – «Heat trapped by greenhouse gases is raising ocean temperatures faster than previously thought, concludes an analysis of four recent ocean heating observations. The results provide further evidence that earlier claims of a slowdown or ‘hiatus’ in global warming over the past 15 years were unfounded.»

Science News – Social and environmental costs of hydropower are underestimated, study shows – Science Daily – 10/01/2019 – Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190110141715.htm – «Study shows that deforestation, loss of biodiversity and economic damage done to communities living near dams have not been factored into the cost of these projects. Large dams also ignore the effects of climate change … While most developed countries have reduced the construction of large dams for the production of electricity in recent decades, developing countries, including Brazil, have embarked on even more massive hydropower developments.»

Science News – Greenland ice melting four times faster than in 2003 – Science Daily – 21/01/2019 – Ohio State University – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190121153636.htm – “Greenland is melting faster than scientists previously thought — and will likely lead to faster sea level rise — thanks to the continued, accelerating warming of the Earth’s atmosphere, a new study has found. Scientists concerned about sea level rise have long focused on Greenland’s southeast and northwest regions, where large glaciers stream iceberg-sized chunks of ice into the Atlantic Ocean. Those chunks float away, eventually melting. But a new study published Jan. 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the largest sustained ice loss from early 2003 to mid-2013 came from Greenland’s southwest region, which is mostly devoid of large glaciers. ”

Graven, T. Hocking and G. Zazzeri (2019) – Detection of Fossil and Biogenic Methane at Regional Scales Using Atmospheric Radiocarbon – Earth’s Future 7:283-299 doi:10.1029/2018EF001064 – 26/01/2019 – Department of Physics, Imperial College London – «Regional emissions of methane and their attribution to a variety of sources presently have large uncertainties. Measurements of radiocarbon (14C) in methane (CH4) may provide a method for identifying regional CH4 emissions from fossil versus biogenic sources because adding 14C‐free fossil carbon reduces the 14C/C ratio (Δ14CH4) in atmospheric CH4 much more than biogenic carbon does. We describe an approach for estimating fossil and biogenic CH4 at regional scales using atmospheric Δ14CH4 observations. As a case study to demonstrate expected Δ14CH4 and Δ14CH4‐CH4 relationships, we simulate and compare Δ14CH4 at a network of sites in California using two gridded CH4 emissions estimates (Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research, EDGAR, and Gridded Environmental Protection Agency, GEPA) and the CarbonTracker‐Lagrange model for 2014, and for 2030 under business‐as‐usual and mitigation scenarios. The fossil fraction of CH4 (F) is closely linked with the simulated Δ14CH4‐CH4 slope and differences of 2–21% in median F are found for EDGAR versus GEPA in 2014, and 7–10% for business‐as‐usual and mitigation scenarios in 2030. Differences of 10% in F for >200 ppb of added CH4 produce differences of >10‰ in Δ14CH4, which are likely detectable from regular observations. Nuclear power plant 14CH4 emissions generally have small simulated median influences on Δ14CH4 (0–7‰), but under certain atmospheric conditions they can be much stronger (>30‰) suggesting they must be considered in applications of Δ14CH4 in California. This study suggests that atmospheric Δ14CH4 measurements could provide powerful constraints on regional CH4 emissions, complementary to other monitoring techniques.»
Graven, T. Hocking and G. Zazzeri (2019) – Detection of Fossil and Biogenic Methane at Regional Scales Using Atmospheric Radiocarbon – Earth’s Future 7:283-299 doi:10.1029/2018EF001064 – 26/01/2019 – Department of Physics, Imperial College London – «Regional emissions of methane and their attribution to a variety of sources presently have large uncertainties. Measurements of radiocarbon (14C) in methane (CH4) may provide a method for identifying regional CH4 emissions from fossil versus biogenic sources because adding 14C‐free fossil carbon reduces the 14C/C ratio (Δ14CH4) in atmospheric CH4 much more than biogenic carbon does. We describe an approach for estimating fossil and biogenic CH4 at regional scales using atmospheric Δ14CH4 observations. As a case study to demonstrate expected Δ14CH4 and Δ14CH4‐CH4 relationships, we simulate and compare Δ14CH4 at a network of sites in California using two gridded CH4 emissions estimates (Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research, EDGAR, and Gridded Environmental Protection Agency, GEPA) and the CarbonTracker‐Lagrange model for 2014, and for 2030 under business‐as‐usual and mitigation scenarios. The fossil fraction of CH4 (F) is closely linked with the simulated Δ14CH4‐CH4 slope and differences of 2–21% in median F are found for EDGAR versus GEPA in 2014, and 7–10% for business‐as‐usual and mitigation scenarios in 2030. Differences of 10% in F for >200 ppb of added CH4 produce differences of >10‰ in Δ14CH4, which are likely detectable from regular observations. Nuclear power plant 14CH4 emissions generally have small simulated median influences on Δ14CH4 (0–7‰), but under certain atmospheric conditions they can be much stronger (>30‰) suggesting they must be considered in applications of Δ14CH4 in California. This study suggests that atmospheric Δ14CH4 measurements could provide powerful constraints on regional CH4 emissions, complementary to other monitoring techniques.»
G. Nisbet, M.R. Manning, E.J. Dlugokencky et al (2019) – Very Strong Atmospheric Methane Growth in the 4 Years 2014–2017: Implications for the Paris Agreement – Global Biochemical Cycles 33:318-342 doi:10.1029/2018GB006009 – 05/02/2019 – Department of Earth Sciences, Royal Holloway, University of London; Climate Change Research Institute, School of Geography Environment and Earth Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington; Earth System Research Laboratory, Global Monitoring Division, US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2018GB006009 – 23 autores «Atmospheric methane grew very rapidly in 2014 (12.7 ± 0.5 ppb/year), 2015 (10.1 ± 0.7 ppb/year), 2016 (7.0 ± 0.7 ppb/year), and 2017 (7.7 ± 0.7 ppb/year), at rates not observed since the 1980s. The increase in the methane burden began in 2007, with the mean global mole fraction in remote surface background air rising from about 1,775 ppb in 2006 to 1,850 ppb in 2017. Simultaneously the 13C/12C isotopic ratio (expressed as δ13CCH4) has shifted, now trending negative for more than a decade. The causes of methane’s recent mole fraction increase are therefore either a change in the relative proportions (and totals) of emissions from biogenic and thermogenic and pyrogenic sources, especially in the tropics and subtropics, or a decline in the atmospheric sink of methane, or both. Unfortunately, with limited measurement data sets, it is not currently possible to be more definitive. The climate warming impact of the observed methane increase over the past decade, if continued at >5 ppb/year in the coming decades, is sufficient to challenge the Paris Agreement, which requires sharp cuts in the atmospheric methane burden. However, anthropogenic methane emissions are relatively very large and thus offer attractive targets for rapid reduction, which are essential if the Paris Agreement aims are to be attained.»
G. Nisbet, M.R. Manning, E.J. Dlugokencky et al (2019) – Very Strong Atmospheric Methane Growth in the 4 Years 2014–2017: Implications for the Paris Agreement – Global Biochemical Cycles 33:318-342 doi:10.1029/2018GB006009 – 05/02/2019 – Department of Earth Sciences, Royal Holloway, University of London; Climate Change Research Institute, School of Geography Environment and Earth Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington; Earth System Research Laboratory, Global Monitoring Division, US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2018GB006009 – 23 autores «The rise in atmospheric methane (CH4), which began in 2007, accelerated in the past 4 years. The growth has been worldwide, especially in the tropics and northern midlatitudes. With the rise has come a shift in the carbon isotope ratio of the methane. The causes of the rise are not fully understood, and may include increased emissions and perhaps a decline in the destruction of methane in the air. Methane’s increase since 2007 was not expected in future greenhouse gas scenarios compliant with the targets of the Paris Agreement, and if the increase continues at the same rates it may become very difficult to meet the Paris goals. There is now urgent need to reduce methane emissions, especially from the fossil fuel industry.»

Daniel Rosenfeld et al (2019) – Aerosol-driven droplet concentrations dominate coverage and water of oceanic low-level clouds – Science 363:eaav0566 doi:10.1126/science.aav0566 – 08/02/2019 – Institute of Earth Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem + School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University – https://bit.ly/2MHgH3a – 6 autores «Structured Abstract – Results: The measured aerosol cloud–mediated cooling effect was much larger than the present estimates, especially via the effect of aerosols on the suppression of precipitation, which makes the clouds retain more water, persist longer, and have a larger fractional coverage. This goes against most previous observations and simulations, which reported that vertically integrated cloud water may even decrease with additional aerosols, especially in precipitating clouds. The major reason for this apparent discrepancy is because deeper clouds have more water and produce rainfall more easily, thus scavenging the aerosols more efficiently. The outcome is that clouds with fewer aerosols have more water, but it has nothing to do with aerosol effects on clouds. This fallacy is overcome when assessing the effects for clouds with a given fixed geometrical thickness.»

Daniel Rosenfeld et al (2019) – Aerosol-driven droplet concentrations dominate coverage and water of oceanic low-level clouds – Science 363:eaav0566 doi:10.1126/science.aav0566 – 08/02/2019 – Institute of Earth Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem + School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University – https://bit.ly/2MHgH3a – 6 autores «Structured Abstract – Results: The large aerosol sensitivity of the water content and coverage of shallow marine clouds dispels another belief that the effects of added aerosols are mostly buffered by adjustment of the cloud properties, which counteracts the initial aerosol effect. For example, adding aerosols suppresses rain, so the clouds respond by deepening just enough to restore the rain amount that was suppressed. But the time scale required for the completion of this adjustment process is substantially longer than the life cycle of the cloud systems, which is mostly under 12 hours. Therefore, most of the marine shallow clouds are not buffered for the aerosol effects, which are inducing cooling to a much greater extent than previously believed.”

– Expertos en Calentamiento Global: El pronóstico es mucho peor de lo que se pensaba – EcoPortal – 11/02/2019 – https://www.ecoportal.net/temas-especiales/calentamiento-global-pronostico-grave/ – “El cambio climático podría ser peor de lo que se pensaba después de que los científicos encontraron un error importante en las lecturas de la temperatura del agua “Nuestro estudio indica que si las emisiones siguen un escenario de uso habitual habitual, hay un 93% de probabilidades de que el calentamiento global supere los 4 ° C a finales de este siglo”, dijo el Dr. Ken Caldeira, un científico atmosférico en el Carnegie. Institución para la ciencia, que es coautora del nuevo estudio. Esta probabilidad es un aumento en las estimaciones anteriores, que se ubicó en 62 por ciento Los modelos climáticos son herramientas vitales para los científicos que intentan comprender los impactos de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero. Se construyen utilizando el conocimiento fundamental de la física y el clima del mundo. ”

David Wallace-Wells (2019) – The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming – Crown/Archetype – 19/02/2019 – – «It is worse, much worse, than you think..»

Jacob Schewe et al (2019) – State-of-the-art global models underestimate impacts from climate extremes – Nature Communications 10:1005 doi:10.1038/s41467-019-08745-6 – 01/03/2019 – Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research – https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08745-6.pdf – 50 autores «Global impact models represent process-level understanding of how natural and human systems may be affected by climate change. Their projections are used in integrated assessments of climate change. Here we test, for the first time, systematically across many important systems, how well such impact models capture the impacts of extreme climate conditions. Using the 2003 European heat wave and drought as a historical analogue for comparable events in the future, we find that a majority of models underestimate the extremeness of impacts in important sectors such as agriculture, terrestrial ecosystems, and heat-related human mortality, while impacts on water resources and hydropower are overestimated in some river basins; and the spread across models is often large. This has important implications for economic assessments of climate change impacts that rely on these models. It also means that societal risks from future extreme events may be greater than previously thought.»

EFE – Un estudi internacional alerta que els efectes del canvi climàtic són pitjors que no es pensa – Vilaweb – 12/03/2019 – https://www.vilaweb.cat/noticies/un-estudi-internacional-alerta-que-els-efectes-del-canvi-climatic-son-pitjors-del-que-es-creu/ – “Els models sectorials que estudien el canvi climàtic subestimen les conseqüències dels efectes climàtics extrems, segons un estudi internacional signat per mig centenar de científics, entre ells del CSIC, que alerten que els riscos per a la humanitat poden ser majors del que es creu fins ara. Segons l’estudi, que publica la revista Nature Communications, la majoria dels models sobre canvi climàtic usats per projectar escenaris futurs subestimen la gravetat dels impactes en importants sectors com l’agricultura, la vegetació terrestre i la mortalitat humana causada per les onades de calor. La investigadora de l’Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC) de Barcelona, Marta Coll, ha explicat que el treball, en què han participat quaranta-dues institucions, ha analitzat si els models actuals que avaluen l’impacte climàtic per sectors són capaços de reflectir l’impacte de les condicions climàtiques extremes. Per a això, van agafar com a cas d’estudi l’onada de calor i sequeraocorreguda a Europa el 2003, l’esdeveniment climàtic més extrem dels observats fins ara i que va afectar de forma intensa l’est i centre d’Europa, quan es van registrar temperatures anormalment altes, especialment durant juny i agost. ”

Fiona Harvey – Sharp rise in Arctic temperatures now inevitable – UN – The Guardian – 13/03/2019 – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/13/arctic-temperature-rises-must-be-urgently-tackled-warns-un – “Sharp and potentially devastating temperature rises of 3C to 5C in the Arctic are now inevitable even if the world succeeds in cutting greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris agreement, research has found. Winter temperatures at the north pole are likely to rise by at least 3C above pre-industrial levels by mid-century, and there could be further rises to between 5C and 9C above the recent average for the region, according to the UN. Such changes would result in rapidly melting ice and permafrost, leading to sea level rises and potentially to even more destructive levels of warming. Scientists fear Arctic heating could trigger a climate “tipping point” as melting permafrost releases the powerful greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere, which in turn could create a runaway warming effect. ”

Helen Harwatt and Matthew Hayek – Eating Away at Climate Change with Negative Emissions – Harvard Law School – 11/04/2019 – https://animal.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/Eating-Away-at-Climate-Change-with-Negative-Emissions%E2%80%93%E2%80%93Harwatt-Hayek.pdf – “The UK currently contributes 1% to global CO2 emissionsa (taking into account only emissions produced within British territory). The latest assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), identified a global budget of 420 Gt of CO2 as the most certain (66% chance) scenario for limiting warming to 1.5°C. If we assume the UK would be allocated the same share (i.e. 1%) of this CO2 budget, the UK would have a CO2 budget of 4,336 million tonnes (Mt) CO2 . This equates to only 11.6 years of current CO2 emissions before the budget for limiting warming to 1.5°C is used. Taking into account full global equity, the UK’s 1.5°C1 budget must be even lower. Either way, it is imperative that strong and rapid emissions reductions are implemented across all sectors, in addition to CDR5 . ”

Chiara Giordano – Emissions from thawing Arctic permafrost may be 12 times higher than thought, scientists say – The Independent – 18/04/2019 – https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/global-warming-greenhouse-gases-emissions-arctic-alaska-a8874456.html – “It has “conventionally been assumed to have minimal emissions in permafrost regions”, according to a fresh study published in the Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics journal However the research team behind the study, led by Harvard University scientists, has found that nitrous oxide emissions are 12 times higher than previously thought and therefore more of a threat … Nitrous oxide also poses a second threat because “up in the stratosphere, sunlight and oxygen team up to convert the gas into nitrogen oxides, which eat at the ozone”, Harvard University said in a statement. Jordan Wilkerson, one of the authors of the study, said: “Much smaller increases in nitrous oxide would entail the same kind of climate change that a large plume of CO2 would cause. “This is widespread, pretty high emissions.” He called for further research on the greenhouse gases, especially nitrous oxide, adding: “This needs to be taken more seriously than it is right now.” ”

John Liggio et al (2019) – Measured Canadian oil sands CO2emissions are higher than estimates made using internationally recommended methods – Nature Communications 10:1863 doi:10.1038/s41467-019-09714-9 – 23/04/2019 – Air Quality Research Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada – https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-09714-9.pdf – 11 autores «The oil and gas (O&G) sector represents a large source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions globally. However, estimates of O&G emissions rely upon bottom-up approaches, and are rarely evaluated through atmospheric measurements. Here, we use aircraft measurements over the Canadian oil sands (OS) to derive the first top-down, measurement-based determination of the their annual CO2 emissions and intensities. The results indicate that CO2 emission intensities for OS facilities are 13–123% larger than those estimated using publically available data. This leads to 64% higher annual GHG emissions from surface mining operations, and 30% higher overall OS GHG emissions (17 Mt) compared to that reported by industry, despite emissions reporting which uses the most up to date and recommended bottom-up approaches. Given the similarity in bottom-up reporting methods across the entire O&G sector, these results suggest that O&G CO2 emissions inventory data may be more uncertain than previously considered.»

David Spratt and Ian Dunlop (2018) – Existential Climate-Related Security Risk: A scenario approach – Climate Code Red – 01/05/2019 – Breakthrough – National Centre for Climate Restoration – https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/148cb0_90dc2a2637f348edae45943a88da04d4.pdf – “Analysis of climate-related security threats depends significantly on understanding the strengths and limitations of climate science projections. Much scientific knowledge produced for climate policy-making is conservative and reticent; Climate change now represents a near- to mid-term existential threat to human civilisation. But this is not inevitable. A new approach to climate-related security risk-management is thus required, giving particular attention to the high-end and difficult-to-quantify “fat-tail” possibilities, in order to avoid such an outcome; This may be most effectively explored by scenario analysis. A 2050 scenario of the high-end risks is outlined in which accelerating climate- change impacts pose large negative consequences to humanity which might not be undone for centuries; To reduce or avoid such risks and to sustain human civilisation, it is essential to build a zero- emissions industrial system very quickly. This requires the global mobilisation of resources on an emergency basis, akin to a wartime level of response. The paper argues that the potentially “extremely serious outcomes” of climate-related security threats are often far more probable than conventionally assumed, but almost impossible to quantify because they “fall outside the human experience of the last thousand years.”

Philip A. Martin, Rhys E. Green and Andrew Balmford (2019) – The biodiversity intactness index may underestimate losses – Nature Ecology & Evolution 3:862–863 doi:10.1038/s41559-019-0895-1 – 06/05/2019 – Conservation Science Group, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge – “The biodiversity intactness index (BII) is a high-profile metric of an area’s average abundance of wild species relative to that in pre-modern times1 or in primary vegetation under current climatic conditions2 … It is unclear to us why the BII is unexpectedly high in many areas where HF is high and BMI is low. If this results from bias in BII, its causes should be identified. Last, revised BII values should be ground-truthed in a manner similar to that for remote-sensing data on other metrics such as land cover, by comparing modeled estimates with detailed new survey data of several taxa at a stratified random sample of sites. Without such rigorous validation and testing, we believe it would be unwise to use the BII to guide conservation policy. ”

– Bubbling under the Arctic Seabed – Alfred-Wegener-Institut – 10/05/2019 – https://www.awi.de/en/about-us/service/press/press-release/bubbling-under-the-arctic-seabed.html – “Permafrost under the Arctic seabed is more widespread than previously thought, and is mostly warming, a new study finds. … Scientists have now, for the first time ever, modelled the distribution of submarine permafrost underneath the entire Arctic seabed. Published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans in the latest issue (April 2019), their findings reveal that submarine permafrost is more widely distributed than previously thought, and is almost all getting thinner. These findings are significant, because knowing how much submarine permafrost exists is a crucial first step in predicting how much methane and carbon dioxide might be released into the atmosphere from underneath the Arctic seabed. ”

Johanna Staerk, Dalia A. Conde And Fernando Colchero – Many species could be even more likely to go extinct than we realise – The Conversation – 15/05/2019 – https://phys.org/news/2019-05-species-extinct-realise.html – “More than a million species are at risk of extinction according to a new report on biodiversity. But even some species that aren’t considered endangered may be less safe than people think. A new study published in the Journal of Applied Ecology found that some methods for measuring a species’ generation time might underestimate the likelihood that some species will die out. A species’ generation time is how long it takes for a generation to be replaced by its mature offspring. This is different for every species and dramatically impacts how quickly a species can respond to changes in their environment. If based on incomplete data or the wrong method, this can seriously distort how we assess the risk of extinction to a given species. ”

Antonio Turiel – Hecho y opinión – The Oil Crash – 22/05/2019 – https://crashoil.blogspot.com/2019/05/hecho-y-opinion.html – «Estamos en medio de una crisis energética de grandes dimensiones, y en medio del creciente ruido sobre el hundimiento económico del fracking estadounidense, y de las reiteradas advertencias de la Agencia Internacional de la Energía de que se va a producir un problema de suministro de petróleo a escala global en los próximos meses, nadie, absolutamente nadie en esas asociaciones concienciadas con nuestros problemas de sostenibilidad, ni mucho menos en nuestros gobiernos, está hablando del verdadero problema, el energético. Solo 10 años separan las dos siguientes gráficas, ambas de los respectivos informes anuales de la Agencia Internacional de la Energía: la del informe de 2008, donde se preveía que la producción de petróleo crecería sin parar hasta 2035,»

Alessio Perrone – Climate change: Arctic permafrost now melting at levels not expected until 2090 – MSN – 14/06/2019 – https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/environment/climate-change-arctic-permafrost-now-melting-at-levels-not-expected-until-2090/ar-AACT38U – “Permafrost has begun thawing in the Canadian Arctic more than 70 years early because of climate change, according to new research. A «series of anomalously warm summers” has dramatically accelerated melting rates at three sites despite average annual ground temperatures remaining low. Ponds and hillocks have formed as a result. It had been thought that the permafrost – ground that remains frozen for at least two years – would remain until at least 2090. But the study found thawing levels were above 150 to 240 per cent above historic levels. Researchers called this a “truly remarkable amount». ”

Reuters – Scientists shocked by Arctic permafrost thawing 70 years sooner than predicted – The Guardian – 18/06/2019 – https://www.google.com/search?q=Scientists+shocked+by+Arctic+permafrost+thawing+70+years+sooner+than+predicted – “A team from the University of Alaska Fairbanks said they were astounded by how quickly a succession of unusually hot summers had destabilised the upper layers of giant subterranean ice blocks that had been frozen solid for millennia. “What we saw was amazing,” Vladimir Romanovsky, a professor of geophysics at the university, told Reuters. “It’s an indication that the climate is now warmer than at any time in the last 5,000 or more years.“ … The paper was based on data Romanovsky and his colleagues had been analysing since their last expedition to the area in 2016 … “It’s a canary in the coalmine,” said Louise Farquharson, a postdoctoral researcher and co-author of the study. “It’s very likely that this phenomenon is affecting a much more extensive region and that’s what we’re going to look at next.“ Scientists are concerned about the stability of permafrost because of the risk that rapid thawing could release vast quantities of heat-trapping gases, unleashing a feedback loop that would in turn fuel even faster temperature rises. … “Thawing permafrost is one of the tipping points for climate breakdown and it’s happening before our very eyes,” said Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace International. “This premature thawing is another clear signal that we must decarbonise our economies, and immediately.” ”

– Scientists shocked by Arctic permafrost thawing three generations sooner than predicted – You Tube – 18/06/2019 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruPfYYGdyeI&feature=youtu.be – “Scientists shocked by Arctic permafrost thawing 70 years sooner than predicted Ice blocks frozen solid for thousands of years destabilized ‘The climate is now warmer than at any time in last 5,000 years’ https://www.theguardian.com/environme… There’s some really intense melting in the Arctic right now https://robinwestenra.blogspot.com/20… Heatwave kills 184 people, Section 144 imposed in Gaya The deaths have been majorly reported from Aurangabad, Gaya and Nawada districts. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story… Heatwave kills 49 in Bihar in 24 hours https://www.khaleejtimes.com/internat… Scorching temperatures in Kuwait, Pakistan confirmed as third and fourth hottest measured https://www.stripes.com/news/middle-e… Future summers will ‘smash’ temperature records every year https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/17/he… Polar expedition: Starving Arctic bear dodges traffic in Russian city after walking ‘nearly 1,000 miles in the wrong direction’ from its natural habitat\ Lost and starving polar bear was spotted wandering in amongst traffic in Russia Motorists in the nickel mining city of Norilsk watched as the beast dodged cars Bear thought to have walked nearly 1,000 miles from Russian Arctic Ocean shore Animal appeared too weak to attack humans and was seen scavenging for food Another dangerously hot summer seems likely in Europe https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/… ”

Andrew Glikson – Beyond climate tipping points – Arctic News – 21/06/2019 – http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/06/beyond-climate-tipping-points.html – «The pace of global warming has been grossly underestimated. As the world keeps increasing its carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, rising in 2018 to a record 33.1 billion ton of CO₂ per year, the atmospheric greenhouse gas level has now exceeded 560 ppm (parts per million) CO₂-equivalent, namely when methane and nitrous oxide are included. This level surpasses the stability threshold of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The term “climate change” is thus no longer appropriate, since what is happening in the atmosphere-ocean system, accelerating over the last 70 years or so, is an abrupt calamity on a geological dimension, threatening nature and human civilization. Ignoring what the science says, the powers-that-be are presiding over the sixth mass extinction of species, including humanity.»

Science News – Crop pests more widespread than previously known – Science Daily – 24/06/2019 – University of Exeter – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190624204847.htm – “Insects and diseases that damage crops are probably present in many places thought to be free of them, new research shows. Pests that have not been reported in a certain area are usually assumed to be absent, but analysis by the University of Exeter shows many pests are «currently unobserved, but probably present» (a likelihood of more than 75%). The study identified large numbers of pests in this category in China, India, southern Brazil and some countries of the former USSR. ”

Daniel P. Bebber et al (2019) – Many unreported crop pests and pathogens are probably already present – Global Change Biology doi:10.1111/gcb.14698 – 24/06/2019 – Department of Biosciences, University of Exeter – Many unreported crop pests and pathogens are probably already present – 6 autores «Invasive species threaten global biodiversity, food security and ecosystem function. Such incursions present challenges to agriculture where invasive species cause significant crop damage and require major economic investment to control production losses. Pest risk analysis (PRA) is key to prioritize agricultural biosecurity efforts, but is hampered by incomplete knowledge of current crop pest and pathogen distributions. Here, we develop predictive models of current pest distributions and test these models using new observations at subnational resolution. We apply generalized linear models (GLM) to estimate presence probabilities for 1,739 crop pests in the CABI pest distribution database. We test model predictions for 100 unobserved pest occurrences in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), against observations of these pests abstracted from the Chinese literature. This resource has hitherto been omitted from databases on global pest distributions. Finally, we predict occurrences of all unobserved pests globally. Presence probability increases with host presence, presence in neighbouring regions, per capita GDP and global prevalence. Presence probability decreases with mean distance from coast and known host number per pest. The models are good predictors of pest presence in provinces of the PRC, with area under the ROC curve (AUC) values of 0.75–0.76. Large numbers of currently unobserved, but probably present pests (defined here as unreported pests with a predicted presence probability >0.75), are predicted in China, India, southern Brazil and some countries of the former USSR. We show that GLMs can predict presences of pseudoabsent pests at subnational resolution. The Chinese literature has been largely inaccessible to Western academia but contains important information that can support PRA. Prior studies have often assumed that unreported pests in a global distribution database represent a true absence. Our analysis provides a method for quantifying pseudoabsences to enable improved PRA and species distribution modelling.»

William R. L. Anderegg et al (2019) – Plant functional traits and climate influence drought intensification and land–atmosphere feedbacks – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS doi:10.1073/pnas.1904747116 – 24/06/2019 – School of Biological Sciences, University of Utah – https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2019/06/18/1904747116.full.pdf – 5 autores «The fluxes of energy, water, and carbon from terrestrial ecosystems influence the atmosphere. Land–atmosphere feedbacks can intensify extreme climate events like severe droughts and heatwaves because low soil moisture decreases both evaporation and plant transpiration and increases local temperature. Here, we combine data from a network of temperate and boreal eddy covariance towers, satellite data, plant trait datasets, and a mechanistic vegetation model to diagnose the controls of soil moisture feedbacks to drought. We find that climate and plant functional traits, particularly those related to maximum leaf gas exchange rate and water transport through the plant hydraulic continuum, jointly affect drought intensification. Our results reveal that plant physiological traits directly affect drought intensification and indicate that inclusion of plant hydraulic transport mechanisms in models may be critical for accurately simulating land–atmosphere feedbacks and climate extremes under climate change.»

Zeke Hausfather – Analysis: Major update to ocean-heat record could shrink 1.5C carbon budget – Carbon Brief – 27/06/2019 – University of California, Berkeley – https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-major-update-to-ocean-heat-record-could-shrink-1-5c-carbon-budget – “The new version provides more accurate estimates of SSTs in the period during and after the second world war, as well as over the past decade. It suggests that the world’s oceans have warmed by around 0.1C more than previously thought since pre-industrial times. Carbon Brief estimates that the revisions to the Hadley SST record would reduce the global “carbon budget” remaining to limit warming to 1.5C by between 24% and 33%, depending on how the budget is calculated. A smaller budget would mean humanity has fewer carbon emissions it can still emit before committing the world to 1.5C of global warming. At the current rate of emissions, this would mean the 1.5C budget would be used up in 6-10 years – rather than 9-13 – potentially making the target even harder to achieve … the upwards revision in global temperatures introduced by HadSST4 will undoubtedly make the 1.5C target more difficult to achieve, at least as long as the target remains defined relative to pre-industrial temperatures rather than current temperatures.”

Miguel Ángel Criado – Las estelas de los aviones afectan al clima más que sus emisiones de CO2 – El País – 27/06/2019 – https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/06/27/ciencia/1561614117_113095.html – “Los aviones, con su ruido, su consumo de ingentes cantidades de combustible y sus emisiones, son una de las creaciones humanas que más alteran el medio. Ahora un estudio ofrece datos sobre otra de sus perturbaciones: sus estelas en el cielo. El trabajo destaca que están teniendo un impacto sobre el clima mayor que los gases de efecto invernadero que salen de las turbinas de los aparatos. Lo peor es que, según sus cálculos, el calentamiento provocado por estas nubes artificiales se habrá triplicado en 2050. Estas estelas de condensación, conocidas en el ambiente de la ciencia atmosférica como contrails (no confundir con las conspiranoicas chemtrails), se forman tras el paso de los aviones. Mediante la compleja interacción entre partículas emitidas por los motores y el aire, la humedad de este se condensa formando estas nubes. Las aeronaves generalmente vuelan a una altitud, en la parte superior de la troposfera, donde esa humedad está en forma de cristales de hielo. Al paso del avión estos se agrupan en torno a las partículas de carbono y pasan directamente a estado gaseoso. Se forman así cirros artificiales indistinguibles de los naturales. Ahora, dos físicas atmosféricas del Centro Aeroespacial Alemán (DLR, por sus siglas en alemán) han estimado el impacto en el clima de estas estelas en el momento actual y para 2050. El trabajo, publicado en la revista especializada Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, concluye que estas nubes contribuyen al cambio climático más que los propios gases de efecto invernadero (GEI) emitidos por los motores de los aparatos y que su aportación al calentamiento global se triplicará en 2050 respecto a 2006, año que usan como punto de partida para su estudio. ”

Rebecca A. Senior, Jane K. Hill & David P. Edwards (2018) – Global loss of climate connectivity in tropical forests – Nature Climate Change 9:623–626 doi:10.1038/s41558-019-0529-2 – 08/07/2019 – Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, Alfred Denny Building, University of Sheffield + Department of Biology, University of York + Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University – «Range shifts are a crucial mechanism enabling species to avoid extinction under climate change1,2. The majority of terrestrial biodiversity is concentrated in the tropics3, including species considered most vulnerable to climate warming4, but extensive and ongoing deforestation of tropical forests is likely to impede range shifts5,6. We conduct a global assessment of the potential for tropical species to reach analogous future climates—‘climate connectivity’—and empirically test how this has changed in response to deforestation between 2000 and 2012. We find that over 62% of tropical forest area (~10 million km2) is already incapable of facilitating range shifts to analogous future climates. In just 12 years, continued deforestation has caused a loss of climate connectivity for over 27% of surviving tropical forest, with accelerating declines in connectivity as forest loss increased. On average, if species’ ranges shift as far down climate gradients as permitted by existing forest connectivity, by 2070 they would still experience 0.77 °C of warming under the least severe climate warming scenario and up to 2.6 °C warming for the most severe scenario. Limiting further forest loss and focusing the global restoration agenda towards creating climate corridors are global priorities for improving resilience of tropical forest biotas under climate change.»

Alexander A. Robel, Hélène Seroussi, and Gerard H. Roe (2009) – Marine ice sheet instability amplifies and skews uncertainty in projections of future sea-level rise – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS doi:10.1073/pnas.1904822116 – 08/07/2019 – School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology; Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology; Earth and Space Sciences Department, University of Washington – «Sea-level rise may accelerate significantly if marine ice sheets become unstable. If such instability occurs, there would be considerable uncertainty in future sea-level rise projections due to imperfectly modeled ice sheet processes and unpredictable climate variability. In this study, we use mathematical and computational approaches to identify the ice sheet processes that drive uncertainty in sea-level projections. Using stochastic perturbation theory from statistical physics as a tool, we show mathematically that the marine ice sheet instability greatly amplifies and skews uncertainty in sea-level projections with worst-case scenarios of rapid sea-level rise being more likely than best-case scenarios of slower sea-level rise. We also perform large ensemble simulations with a state-of-the-art ice sheet model of Thwaites Glacier, a marine-terminating glacier in West Antarctica that is thought to be unstable. These ensemble simulations indicate that the uncertainty solely related to internal climate variability can be a large fraction of the total ice loss expected from Thwaites Glacier. We conclude that internal climate variability alone can be responsible for significant uncertainty in projections of sea-level rise and that large ensembles are a necessary tool for quantifying the upper bounds of this uncertainty.»

Paul E. Brockway et al (2019) – Estimation of global final-stage energy-return-on-investment for fossil fuels with comparison to renewable energy sources – Nature Energy 4:612–621 doi:10.1038/s41560-019-0425-z – 11/07/2019 – Sustainability Research Institute, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds – «Under many scenarios, fossil fuels are projected to remain the dominant energy source until at least 2050. However, harder-to-reach fossil fuels require more energy to extract and, hence, are coming at an increasing ‘energy cost’. Associated declines in fossil fuel energy-return-on-investment ratios at first appear of little concern, given that published estimates for oil, coal and gas are typically above 25:1. However, such ratios are measured at the primary energy stage and should instead be estimated at the final stage where energy enters the economy (for example, electricity and petrol). Here, we calculate global time series (1995–2011) energy-return-on-investment ratios for fossil fuels at both primary and final energy stages. We concur with common primary-stage estimates (~30:1), but find very low ratios at the final stage: around 6:1 and declining. This implies that fossil fuel energy-return-on-investment ratios may be much closer to those of renewables than previously expected and that they could decline precipitously in the near future.»

David Archer – Scientists explain what New York Magazine article on “The Uninhabitable Earth” gets wrong – Climate Feedback – 15/07/2019 – Professor, University of Chicago – https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/scientists-explain-what-new-york-magazine-article-on-the-uninhabitable-earth-gets-wrong-david-wallace-wells/ – “[Wallace-Wells: “Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak — sooner than you think.”] … David Archer, Professor, University of Chicago: This is well-researched and on target. Unfortunately. ”

Daniel Swain – Scientists explain what New York Magazine article on “The Uninhabitable Earth” gets wrong – Climate Feedback – 15/07/2019 – Researcher, UCLA, and Research Fellow, National Center for Atmospheric Research – https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/scientists-explain-what-new-york-magazine-article-on-the-uninhabitable-earth-gets-wrong-david-wallace-wells/ – «It is quantitatively true—and often under-appreciated—that the likelihood of a “worse than expected” climate future is actually higher than a “better than expected” one. That is: the distribution of climate outcomes is not symmetrical, and as others have previously pointed out, “uncertainty is not our friend“.»

Zhen Yu et al (2019) – Largely underestimated carbon emission from land use and land cover change in the conterminous United States – Global Change Biology 25:3741-3752 doi:10.1111/gcb.14768 – 16/07/2019 – Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University + School of Applied Meteorology, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology – 4 autores «Carbon (C) emission and uptake due to land use and land cover change (LULCC) are the most uncertain term in the global carbon budget primarily due to limited LULCC data and inadequate model capability (e.g., underrepresented agricultural managements). We take the commonly used FAOSTAT‐based global Land Use Harmonization data (LUH2) and a new high‐resolution multisource harmonized national LULCC database (YLmap) to drive a land ecosystem model (DLEM) in the conterminous United States. We found that recent cropland abandonment and forest recovery may have been overestimated in the LUH2 data derived from national statistics, causing previously reported C emissions from land use have been underestimated due to the definition of cropland and aggregated LULCC signals at coarse resolution. This overestimation leads to a strong C sink (30.3 ± 2.5 Tg C/year) in model simulations driven by LUH2 in the United States during the 1980–2016 period, while we find a moderate C source (13.6 ± 3.5 Tg C/year) when using YLmap. This divergence implies that previous C budget analyses based on the global LUH2 dataset have underestimated C emission in the United States owing to the delineation of suitable cropland and aggregated land conversion signals at coarse resolution which YLmap overcomes. Thus, to obtain more accurate quantification of LULCC‐induced C emission and better serve global C budget accounting, it is urgently needed to develop fine‐scale country‐specific LULCC data to characterize the details of land conversion.»

Ruth Lorenz, Zélie Stalhandske and Erich M. Fischer (2019) – Detection of a Climate Change Signal in Extreme Heat, Heat Stress, and Cold in Europe From Observations – Geophysical Research Letters 46:8363-8374 doi:10.1029/2019GL083537 – 17/07/2019 – Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich – «In the last two decades Europe experienced a series of high‐impact heat extremes. We here assess observed trends in temperature extremes at ECA&D stations in Europe. We demonstrate that on average across Europe the number of days with extreme heat and heat stress has more than tripled and hot extremes have warmed by 2.3 °C from 1950–2018. Over Central Europe, the warming exceeds the corresponding summer mean warming by 50%. Days with extreme cold temperatures have decreased by a factor of 2–3 and warmed by more than 3 °C, regionally substantially more than winter mean temperatures. Cold and hot extremes have warmed at about 94% of stations, a climate change signal that cannot be explained by internal variability. The clearest climate change signal can be detected in maximum heat stress. EURO‐CORDEX RCMs broadly capture observed trends but the majority underestimates the warming of hot extremes and overestimates the warming of cold extremes.»

Femke J. M. M. Nijsse et al (2019) – Decadal global temperature variability increases strongly with climate sensitivity – Nature Climate Change 9:598–601 doi:10.1038/s41558-019-0527-4 – 22/07/2019 – College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Science, University of Exeter – 4 autores «Climate-related risks are dependent not only on the warming trend from GHGs, but also on the variability about the trend. However, assessment of the impacts of climate change tends to focus on the ultimate level of global warming1, only occasionally on the rate of global warming, and rarely on variability about the trend. Here we show that models that are more sensitive to GHGs emissions (that is, higher equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS)) also have higher temperature variability on timescales of several years to several decades2. Counter-intuitively, high-sensitivity climates, as well as having a higher chance of rapid decadal warming, are also more likely to have had historical ‘hiatus’ periods than lower-sensitivity climates. Cooling or hiatus decades over the historical period, which have been relatively uncommon, are more than twice as likely in a high-ECS world (ECS = 4.5 K) compared with a low-ECS world (ECS = 1.5 K). As ECS also affects the background warming rate under future scenarios with unmitigated anthropogenic forcing, the probability of a hyper-warming decade—over ten times the mean rate of global warming for the twentieth century—is even more sensitive to ECS.»

Rich Haridy – Massive meta-study finds most vitamin supplements have no effect on lifespan or heart health – New Atlas – 22/07/2019 – https://newatlas.com/vitamins-mineral-supplements-effect-cardiovascular-health-lifespan/60686/ – “Only three specific interventions displayed associations of any statistical significance. Unsurprisingly, the most relevant result was the finding that low-salt diets reduced heart disease and death by around 10 percent in healthy subjects. Both omega-3 and folic acid supplements showed small beneficial effects, but the researchers ranked these interventions as of a low impact. «Our analysis carries a simple message that although there may be some evidence that a few interventions have an impact on death and cardiovascular health, the vast majority of multivitamins, minerals and different types of diets had no measurable effect on survival or cardiovascular disease risk reduction,» explains Safi Khan, lead author on the new research. The only supplement intervention that actually increased mortality or cardiovascular risk was calcium and vitamin D supplements. When taken alone these two supplements showed no health risks or benefits, but taken together they showed a 17 percent increased risk of stroke. This conclusion was generated from 20 trials looking at the effects of the combined supplements. ”

Science News – Fracking likely to result in high emissions – Science Daily – 25/07/2019 – Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies e.V. (IASS) – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190725102945.htm – “A new study has estimated emissions from shale gas production through fracking in Germany and the UK. It shows that CO2-eq. emissions would exceed the estimated current emissions from conventional gas production in Germany … Natural gas releases fewer harmful air pollutants and greenhouse gases than other fossil fuels. That’s why it is often seen as a bridge technology to a low-carbon future. A new study by the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) has estimated emissions from shale gas production through fracking in Germany and the UK. It shows that CO2-eq. emissions would exceed the estimated current emissions from conventional gas production in Germany. The potential risks make strict adherence to environmental standards vital. ”

Science News – Underwater glacial melting is occurring at higher rates than modeling predicts – Science Daily – 25/07/2019 – Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oregon – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190725150412.htm – «Researchers have developed a new method to allow for the first direct measurement of the submarine melt rate of a tidewater glacier, and, in doing so, they concluded that current theoretical models may be underestimating glacial melt by up to two orders of magnitude.»

A. Sutherland et al (2019) – Direct observations of submarine melt and subsurface geometry at a tidewater glacier – Science doi:10.1126/science.aax3528 – 26/07/2019 – Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oregon – «Ice loss from the world’s glaciers and ice sheets contributes to sea level rise, influences ocean circulation, and affects ecosystem productivity. Ongoing changes in glaciers and ice sheets are driven by submarine melting and iceberg calving from tidewater glacier margins. However, predictions of glacier change largely rest on unconstrained theory for submarine melting. Here, we use repeat multibeam sonar surveys to image a subsurface tidewater glacier face and document a time-variable, three-dimensional geometry linked to melting and calving patterns. Submarine melt rates are high across the entire ice face over both seasons surveyed and increase from spring to summer. The observed melt rates are up to two orders of magnitude greater than predicted by theory, challenging current simulations of ice loss from tidewater glaciers.»

Andrew J. Pershing et al (2019) – Challenges to natural and human communities from surprising ocean temperatures – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116:18378-18383 PNAS doi:10.1073/pnas.1901084116 – 05/08/2019 – Gulf of Maine Research Institute – https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/116/37/18378.full.pdf – 9 autores “Significance: Based on historical and lived experience, people expect certain conditions to prevail in the ecosystems they depend upon. Climate change is now introducing strong trends that push conditions beyond historic levels. Using ocean ecosystems as a case study, we show that the frequency of surprising temperatures is increasing faster than expected. We then use these events as motivation to develop a theory for how temperature trends and events will impact natural and human communities. The theory suggests that strong trends will decrease the abundance and productivity of natural communities. Increasing trends will also challenge how people make decisions, and our theory identifies the conditions under which there is a significant payoff for people to bet on the trend. ”

Rossella Guerrieri et al (2019) – Disentangling the role of photosynthesis and stomatal conductance on rising forest water-use efficiency – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116:16909-16914 doi:10.1073/pnas.1905912116 – 05/08/2019 – https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/116/34/16909.full.pdf – 16 autores “FACE experiments reported reduced transpiration (as assessed through sapflow measurements) under increasing ca (37), but no significant changes in sap flux were also observed (38, 39). This points to smaller reductions in transpiration in response to climate change than previously thought, with important implications for forest– climate interactions (40), which will require additional research to resolve. Moreover, the assumption that different tree species follow the same physiological strategy in response to increasing ca, regardless of the moisture conditions they experience, and that this strategy remains static over time, is probably too simplistic. ”

Ayesha Tandon – Global sea level rise began accelerating ‘30 years earlier’ than previously thought – Carbon Brief – 05/08/2019 – https://www.carbonbrief.org/global-sea-level-rise-began-accelerating-30-years-earlier-than-previously-thought – “The study, published in Nature Climate Change, introduces a new technique to more accurately determine historical global sea levels by combining two different statistical approaches. It was found that the southern hemisphere, home to many developing small island nations, experienced the majority of the observed sea level rise, the lead author tells Carbon Brief. The implication of this work is that ocean heat uptake will “likely increase again in the near future, further increasing the rate of current sea level rise”, another scientist tells Carbon Brief … Global sea levels rose by around 20cm over the 20th century. This is primarily due to melting ice and ocean warming, which causes the “thermal expansion” of water.”

– Global sea level rise began accelerating ‘30 years earlier’ than previously thought – Carbon Brief – 05/08/2019 – https://www.carbonbrief.org/global-sea-level-rise-began-accelerating-30-years-earlier-than-previously-thought/ – “Global sea level rise began to accelerate in the 1960s, 30 years earlier than suggested by previous assessments, a new study finds. The study, published in Nature Climate Change, introduces a new technique to more accurately determine historical global sea levels by combining two different statistical approaches. It was found that the southern hemisphere, home to many developing small island nations, experienced the majority of the observed sea level rise, the lead author tells Carbon Brief. The implication of this work is that ocean heat uptake will “likely increase again in the near future, further increasing the rate of current sea level rise”, another scientist tells Carbon Brief. ”

Sönke Dangendorf et al (2019) – Persistent acceleration in global sea-level rise since the 1960s – Nature Climate Change 9:705–710 doi:10.1038/s41558-019-0531-8 – 05/08/2019 – Research Institute for Water and Environment, University of Siegen + Department of Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Old Dominion University – 7 autores «Previous studies reconstructed twentieth-century global mean sea level (GMSL) from sparse tide-gauge records to understand whether the recent high rates obtained from satellite altimetry are part of a longer-term acceleration. However, these analyses used techniques that can only accurately capture either the trend or the variability in GMSL, but not both. Here we present an improved hybrid sea-level reconstruction during 1900–2015 that combines previous techniques at time scales where they perform best. We find a persistent acceleration in GMSL since the 1960s and demonstrate that this is largely (~76%) associated with sea-level changes in the Indo-Pacific and South Atlantic. We show that the initiation of the acceleration in the 1960s is tightly linked to an intensification and a basin-scale equatorward shift of Southern Hemispheric westerlies, leading to increased ocean heat uptake, and hence greater rates of GMSL rise, through changes in the circulation of the Southern Ocean.»

Science News – Hotter, wetter, dryer: Uptick in extreme weather, temps – Science Daily – 06/08/2019 – West Virginia University – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190806121140.htm – «Researchers have analyzed seasonal changes in water and energy balances over the Appalachian region. They forecast up to a 10-degree jump in average temperature, increased evaporation along mountain ridges, more frequent droughts and a rise in extreme events for the region.»

Robinson Meyer – This Land Is the Only Land There Is – The Atlantic – 08/08/2019 – https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/08/how-think-about-dire-new-ipcc-climate-report/595705/ – “And at some point in the coming century—as more forests are felled and as demand for beef grows—this gift could become a curse, and the land will spew greenhouse gases into the air as ferociously as humanity does today. Even before that reversal, this report confirms that the ill effects of climate change will arrive faster than scientists once thought. Under 1.5 degrees Celsius of planetary warming, Earth will face a high risk of food shortages, mass thirst, and rampant wildfires. Remember that land warms faster than the planet: A 1.5-degree-Celsius-warmer world would in fact be 3 degrees Celsius, or 5.1 degrees Fahrenheit, hotter on land. ”

– It is Too Late to Prevent Climate Change – Faster tha Expected – 10/08/2019 – https://www.fasterthanexpected.one/too-late-climate-change/ – autores

Naomi Oreskes, Michael Oppenheimer, Dale Jamieson – Scientists Have Been Underestimating the Pace of Climate Change – Scientific American – 19/08/2019 – Department of History, University of California + Scripps Institution of Oceanography; Department of Geosciences + Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University; Department of Environmental Studies, New York University – https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/scientists-have-been-underestimating-the-pace-of-climate-change/ – “The push toward agreement may also be driven by a mental model that sees facts as matters about which all reasonable people should be able to agree versus differences of opinion or judgment that are potentially irresolvable. If the conclusions of an assessment report are not univocal, then (it may be thought that) they will be viewed as opinions rather than facts and dismissed not only by hostile critics but even by friendly forces. The drive toward consensus may therefore be an attempt to present the findings of the assessment as matters of fact rather than judgment. The impulse toward univocality arose strongly in a debate over how to characterize the risk of disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) in the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC (AR4). Nearly all experts agreed there was such a risk as climate warmed, but some thought it was only very far in the future while others thought it might be more imminent. An additional complication was that some scientists felt that the available data were simply not sufficient to draw any defensible conclusion about the short-term risk, and so they made no estimate at all. However, everyone concurred that, if WAIS did not disintegrate soon, it would likely disintegrate in the long run. Therefore, the area of agreement lay in the domain of the long run—the conclusion of a non-imminent risk—and so that is what was reported. The result was a minimalist conclusion, and we know now that the estimates that were offered were almost certainly too low. This offers a significant point of contrast with academic science, where there is no particular pressure to achieve agreement by any particular deadline (except perhaps within a lab group, in order to be able to publish findings or meet a grant proposal deadline). ”

Science News – Vintage film shows Thwaites Glacier ice shelf melting faster than previously observed – Science Daily – 02/09/2019 – Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences – «Newly digitized vintage film has doubled how far back scientists can peer into the history of underground ice in Antarctica, and revealed that an ice shelf on Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is being thawed by a warming ocean more quickly than previously thought. This finding contributes to predictions for sea-level rise that would impact coastal communities around the world.»

Sha Zhou et al (2019) – Land–atmosphere feedbacks exacerbate concurrent soil drought and atmospheric aridity – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116:18848-18853 doi:10.1073/pnas.1904955116 – 03/09/2019 – Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory + Earth Institute + Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering, Columbia University – 9 autores «Compound extremes such as cooccurring soil drought (low soil moisture) and atmospheric aridity (high vapor pressure deficit) can be disastrous for natural and societal systems. Soil drought and atmospheric aridity are 2 main physiological stressors driving widespread vegetation mortality and reduced terrestrial carbon uptake. Here, we empirically demonstrate that strong negative coupling between soil moisture and vapor pressure deficit occurs globally, indicating high probability of cooccurring soil drought and atmospheric aridity. Using the Global Land Atmosphere Coupling Experiment (GLACE)-CMIP5 experiment, we further show that concurrent soil drought and atmospheric aridity are greatly exacerbated by land–atmosphere feedbacks. The feedback of soil drought on the atmosphere is largely responsible for enabling atmospheric aridity extremes. In addition, the soil moisture–precipitation feedback acts to amplify precipitation and soil moisture deficits in most regions. CMIP5 models further show that the frequency of concurrent soil drought and atmospheric aridity enhanced by land–atmosphere feedbacks is projected to increase in the 21st century. Importantly, land–atmosphere feedbacks will greatly increase the intensity of both soil drought and atmospheric aridity beyond that expected from changes in mean climate alone.»

Dustin M. Schroeder et al (2019) – Multidecadal observations of the Antarctic ice sheet from restored analog radar records – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116:18867-18873 doi:10.1073/pnas.1821646116 – 03/09/2019 – Department of Geophysics; Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University – https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2019/08/27/1821646116.full.pdf – 10 autores «Airborne radar sounding can measure conditions within and beneath polar ice sheets. In Antarctica, most digital radar-sounding data have been collected in the last 2 decades, limiting our ability to understand processes that govern longer-term ice-sheet behavior. Here, we demonstrate how analog radar data collected over 40 y ago in Antarctica can be combined with modern records to quantify multidecadal changes. Specifically, we digitize over 400,000 line kilometers of exploratory Antarctic radar data originally recorded on 35-mm optical film between 1971 and 1979. We leverage the increased geometric and radiometric resolution of our digitization process to show how these data can be used to identify and investigate hydrologic, geologic, and topographic features beneath and within the ice sheet. To highlight their scientific potential, we compare the digitized data with contemporary radar measurements to reveal that the remnant eastern ice shelf of Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica had thinned between 10 and 33% between 1978 and 2009. We also release the collection of scanned radargrams in their entirety in a persistent public archive along with updated geolocation data for a subset of the data that reduces the mean positioning error from 5 to 2.5 km. Together, these data represent a unique and renewed extensive, multidecadal historical baseline, critical for observing and modeling ice-sheet change on societally relevant timescales.»

Eoin Bannon – Las pruebas en carretera muestran que los camiones a gas son hasta 5 veces peores para la contaminación atmosférica – Transport & Environment – 18/09/2019 – https://www.transportenvironment.org/press/las-pruebas-en-carretera-muestran-que-los-camiones-gas-son-hasta-5-veces-peores-para-la – «Los camiones a gas natural licuado (GNL) contaminan el aire hasta cinco veces más que los camiones diésel, según las pruebas en carretera encargadas por el gobierno de los Países Bajos. Los resultados contradicen las afirmaciones de los fabricantes de camiones que establecen que los camiones a gas reducen las emisiones de óxido de nitrógeno (NOx) en más de un 30%.[1] [2] Transport & Environment (T&E), que publica hoy los resultados de las pruebas, afirma que los gobiernos de la UE deberían dejar de fomentar la adopción de camiones a GNL contaminantes poniendo fin a los tipos impositivos extremadamente bajos de los que disfruta el gas fósil para el transporte en la mayoría de los países.»

Hoegh-Guldberg et al (2019) – The human imperative of stabilizing global climate change at 1.5°C – Science 365:eaaw6974 doi:10.1126/science.aaw6974 – 20/09/2019 – Global Change Institute + School of Biological Sciences,, University of Queensland – 21 autores «As an IPCC expert group, we were asked to assess the impact of recent climate change (1.0°C, 2017) and the likely impact over the next 0.5° to 1.0°C of additional global warming. At the beginning of this exercise, many of us were concerned that the task would be hindered by a lack of expert literature available for 1.5°C and 2.0°C warmer worlds. Although this was the case at the time of the Paris Agreement, it has not been our experience 4 years later. With an accelerating amount of peer-reviewed scientific literature since the IPCC Special Report Global Warming of 1.5°C, it is very clear that there is an even more compelling case for deepening commitment and actions for stabilizing GMST at 1.5°C above the pre-industrial period.»

Manuel Planelles – Maisa Rojas: “Nuestras estimaciones sobre los riesgos del cambio climático fueron muy conservadoras” – El País – 24/09/2019 – https://elpais.com/sociedad/2019/09/24/actualidad/1569356630_151425.html – «El IPCC lleva como 10 o 15 años haciendo una evaluación de los riesgos del cambio climático. Hace diez años decíamos: esto será un riesgo cuando se haya llegado a los tres grados de aumento de la temperatura. Y lo que estamos diciendo ahora es que esto va a ser un riesgo cuando el planeta se haya calentado un grado y medio. Así que nuestras estimaciones de cuáles eran los riesgos a los que estábamos sujetos los humanos y los ecosistemas fueron muy conservadoras. Yo, como científica, me pregunto ahora si no soy muy conservadora en la estimación de los riesgos, de la aceleración, porque las cosas están ocurriendo más rápido. Creo que de alguna manera pecamos de conservadores los científicos. Es como parte de nuestra personalidad: estar muy seguro de los datos antes de decir cualquier cosa. En definitiva, hemos visto que nuestras proyecciones y estimaciones fueron muy conservadoras.»

Naomi Oreskes and Nicholas Stern (2019) – Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think – The New York Times – 23/10/2019 – Professor of History of Science, Harvard University; Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics – https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/23/opinion/climate-change-costs.html – «[Economists] approach climate damages as minor perturbations around an underlying path of economic growth.»

Alicia Pollett et al (2019) – Heat Flow in Southern Australia and Connections With East Antarctica – Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems doi:10.1029/2019GC008418 – 23/10/2019 – School of Natural and Built Environments, University of South Australia – 7 autores «Viscosity and melt generation at the base of ice sheets are critically dependent upon heat flow. Yet subglacial heat flow is poorly constrained due to the logistical challenges of obtaining boreholes that intersect the bedrock beneath thick ice cover. Currently, continental estimates of Antarctic heat flow are derived from geophysical methods that provide ambiguous constraints of crustal heat sources, despite their demonstrated importance for accurate predictions of future ice sheet behavior. This study pursues an alternative approach by using heat flow measurements from rock units in the Coompana Province of southern Australia, which represent the geological counterparts of those beneath Wilkes Land in East Antarctica. We present nine new surface heat flow estimates from this previously uncharacterized region, ranging from 40 to 70 mW/m2 with an average of 57 ± 3 mW/m2. These values compare favorably to recent geophysically derived estimates of 50–75 mW/m2 for the Totten Glacier catchment of East Antarctica, and to the single in situ measurement of 75 mW/m2 from the Law Dome deep ice borehole. However, they are appreciably lower than the range of 56–120 mW/m2 (83 ± 13 mW/m2 average) for the abnormally enriched Proterozoic terranes of the Central Australian Heat Flow Province. This study provides the first regional heat flow map of geological provinces formerly contiguous with East Antarctica through the application of continent‐scale heat flow data sets tied to a Jurassic plate tectonic reconstruction for Gondwana. Our approach reveals several discrepancies with current heat flow models derived from geophysical methods and provides a more robust analysis of subglacial heat flow using this plate tectonic synthesis as a proxy for East Antarctica.»

Åsa Horgby et al (2019) – Unexpected large evasion fluxes of carbon dioxide from turbulent streams draining the world’s mountains – Nature Communications 10:4888 doi:10.1038/s41467-019-12905-z – 25/10/2019 – Stream Biofilm and Ecosystem Research Laboratory, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne – https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12905-z.pdf – 8 autores «Inland waters, including streams and rivers, are active components of the global carbon cycle. Despite the large areal extent of the world’s mountains, the role of mountain streams for global carbon fluxes remains elusive. Using recent insights from gas exchange in turbulent streams, we found that areal CO2 evasion fluxes from mountain streams equal or exceed those reported from tropical and boreal streams, typically regarded as hotspots of aquatic carbon fluxes. At the regional scale of the Swiss Alps, we present evidence that emitted CO2 derives from lithogenic and biogenic sources within the catchment and delivered by the groundwater to the streams. At a global scale, we estimate the CO2 evasion from mountain streams to 167 ± 1.5 Tg C yr−1, which is high given their relatively low areal contribution to the global stream and river networks. Our findings shed new light on mountain streams for global carbon fluxes.»

– First pictures and video of the largest methane fountain so far discovered in the Arctic Ocean – The Siberian Times – 28/10/2019 – https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/first-pictures-and-video-of-the-largest-methane-fountain-so-far-discovered-in-the-arctic-ocean/ – “Subsea permafrost thaws faster than previously thought, Russian scientists say … Unexpectedly high level of subsea permafrost degradation was recorded by a Russian-led scientific expedition that spent more than a month in the seas of the eastern Arctic. A record high methane gas emission in a shape of an underwater ‘fountain’ was registered at the beginning of October east of Bennett island in the East Siberian Sea. ‘It was a needle in a haystack chase, to find an exact place of a methane seep in dark sea waters, but we found it! … The area of the fountain covered about five metres, with water ‘so violently boiling with methane bubbles’ that scientists skipped using plastic cones for sampling and instead collected the gas in buckets. ‘This was the most powerful seep I have ever observed. No one has ever recorded anything similar’ said head of the expedition Igor Semiletov, who has participated in 45 Arctic expeditions. ”

– Flooded Future: Global vulnerability to sea level rise worse than previously understood – Climate Central – 29/10/2019 – https://www.climatecentral.org/news/report-flooded-future-global-vulnerability-to-sea-level-rise-worse-than-previously-understood – “As a result of heat-trapping pollution from human activities, rising sea levels could within three decades push chronic floods higher than land currently home to 300 million people By 2100, areas now home to 200 million people could fall permanently below the high tide line The new figures are the result of an improved global elevation dataset produced by Climate Central using machine learning, and revealing that coastal elevations are significantly lower than previously understood across wide areas The threat is concentrated in coastal Asia and could have profound economic and political consequences within the lifetimes of people alive today Findings are documented in a new peer-reviewed paper in the journal Nature Communications ”

Scott A. Kulp & Benjamin H. Strauss (2019) – New elevation data triple estimates of global vulnerability to sea-level rise and coastal flooding – Nature Communications 10:4844 doi:10.1038/s41467-019-12808-z – 29/10/2019 – Climate Central – https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12808-z.pdf – «Most estimates of global mean sea-level rise this century fall below 2 m. This quantity is comparable to the positive vertical bias of the principle digital elevation model (DEM) used to assess global and national population exposures to extreme coastal water levels, NASA’s SRTM. CoastalDEM is a new DEM utilizing neural networks to reduce SRTM error. Here we show – employing CoastalDEM—that 190 M people (150–250 M, 90% CI) currently occupy global land below projected high tide lines for 2100 under low carbon emissions, up from 110 M today, for a median increase of 80 M. These figures triple SRTM-based values. Under high emissions, CoastalDEM indicates up to 630 M people live on land below projected annual flood levels for 2100, and up to 340 M for mid-century, versus roughly 250 M at present. We estimate one billion people now occupy land less than 10 m above current high tide lines, including 250 M below 1 m.»

Sean L. Maxwell et al (2019) – Degradation and forgone removals increase the carbon impact of intact forest loss by 626% – Science Advances 10:eaax2546 doi:10.1126/sciadv.aax2546 – 30/10/2019 – Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Queensland – https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/10/eaax2546.full.pdf – 12 autores «Intact tropical forests, free from substantial anthropogenic influence, store and sequester large amounts of atmospheric carbon but are currently neglected in international climate policy. We show that between 2000 and 2013, direct clearance of intact tropical forest areas accounted for 3.2% of gross carbon emissions from all deforestation across the pantropics. However, full carbon accounting requires the consideration of forgone carbon sequestration, selective logging, edge effects, and defaunation. When these factors were considered, the net carbon impact resulting from intact tropical forest loss between 2000 and 2013 increased by a factor of 6 (626%), from 0.34 (0.37 to 0.21) to 2.12 (2.85 to 1.00) petagrams of carbon (equivalent to approximately 2 years of global land use change emissions). The climate mitigation value of conserving the 549 million ha of tropical forest that remains intact is therefore significant but will soon dwindle if their rate of loss continues to accelerate.»

Science News – Insect decline more extensive than suspected – Science Daily – 30/10/2019 – Technical University of Munich (TUM) – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191030151140.htm – «Compared to a decade ago, today the number of insect species on many areas has decreased by about one third. The loss of species mainly affects grasslands in the vicinity of intensively farmed land – but also applies to forests and protected areas.»

Eugene Linden – How Scientists Got Climate Change So Wrong – The New York Times – 08/11/2019 – https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/08/opinion/sunday/science-climate-change.html – “In 2002, the National Academies acknowledged the reality of rapid climate change in a report, “Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises,” which described the new consensus as a “paradigm shift.” This was a reversal of its 1975 report. “Large, abrupt climate changes have affected hemispheric to global regions repeatedly, as shown by numerous paleoclimate records,” the report said, and added that “changes of up to 16 degrees Celsius and a factor of 2 in precipitation have occurred in some places in periods as short as decades to years.” The National Academies report added that the implications of such potential rapid changes had not yet been considered by policymakers and economists. And even today, 17 years later, a substantial portion of the American public remains unaware or unconvinced it is happening. ”

Yuko Takeo – Climate change might hit the economy harder and faster than thought – Bloomberg – 14/11/2019 – https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-13/climate-change-might-hit-economy-harder-and-faster-than-thought – “The economic effects of global warming may arrive sooner and with a bigger impact than previously thought, according to Oxford Economics in a report that compares recent scientific research with the economic literature on the costs of climate change. In the absence of efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the earth could warm by 2 degrees celsius by 2050, cutting global gross domestic product by 2.5% to 7.5%, Oxford estimates, with the worst affected countries being in Africa and Asia. Longer term, a rise in temperatures of 4 degrees by 2100 could cut output by as much as 30%. Economist James Nixon partly based his analysis on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C. Older studies tended to predict the effects of even 4 or 5 degree of warming at no more than a few percent of global GDP and becoming significant only in the second half of the century, Nixon said, yet latest scientific findings show profound climate alterations already happening, including drought, flooding and extreme weather that affect economic activity. “While over a 10-year horizon the costs seem unlikely to be significant enough to affect our forecasts, the window of indiscernibility looks to be closing rapidly,” Nixon said in the report. The effects are “big enough to be considered in our short-term economic forecasts for the first half of this century.” ”

David Makowski (2019) – N2O increasing faster than expected – Nature Climate Change 9:909-910 doi:10.1038/s41558-019-0642-2 – 18/11/2019 – National Institute of Agronomic Research (INRA) – “Nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas for which global emission estimates, driven largely by fertilizer input, are highly uncertain. An inversion approach based on atmospheric measurements yields global increases more than twice as high as the IPCC default … Writing in Nature Climate Change, Rona Thompson and colleagues2 present new global estimates of N2O emissions and show that this greenhouse gas has increased substantially since 2009, at a faster rate than expected. Their result questions one of the main methods currently used for the inventory of N2O emissions at the global scale.”

Science News – Nitrous oxide levels are on the rise – Science Daily – 18/11/2019 – International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191118110816.htm – «Nitrous oxide is a greenhouse gas and one of the main stratospheric ozone depleting substances on the planet. According to new research, we are releasing more of it into the atmosphere than previously thought.»

Science News – Drought impact study shows new issues for plants and carbon dioxide – Science Daily – 25/11/2019 – DOE/Los Alamos National Laboratory – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191125145549.htm – «Extreme drought’s impact on plants will become more dominant under future climate change, as noted in a paper out today in the journal Nature Climate Change. Analysis shows that not only will droughts become more frequent under future climates, but more of those events will be extreme, adding to the reduction of plant production essential to human and animal populations.»

R.H. Jackson et al (2020) – Meltwater Intrusions Reveal Mechanisms for Rapid Submarine Melt at a Tidewater Glacier – Geophysical Research Letters 47:e2019GL085335 doi:10.1029/2019GL085335 – 25/11/2019 – Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University + College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University – https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2019GL085335 – 9 autores «Submarine melting has been implicated as a driver of glacier retreat and sea level rise, but to date melting has been difficult to observe and quantify. As a result, melt rates have been estimated from parameterizations that are largely unconstrained by observations, particularly at the near‐vertical termini of tidewater glaciers. With standard coefficients, these melt parameterizations predict that ambient melting (the melt away from subglacial discharge outlets) is negligible compared to discharge‐driven melting for typical tidewater glaciers. Here, we present new data from LeConte Glacier, Alaska, that challenges this paradigm. Using autonomous kayaks, we observe ambient meltwater intrusions that are ubiquitous within 400 m of the terminus, and we provide the first characterization of their properties, structure, and distribution. Our results suggest that ambient melt rates are substantially higher (×100) than standard theory predicts and that ambient melting is a significant part of the total submarine melt flux. We explore modifications to the prevalent melt parameterization to provide a path forward for improved modeling of ocean‐glacier interactions.»

Otto P. Hasekamp, Edward Gryspeerdt & Johannes Quaas (2019) – Analysis of polarimetric satellite measurements suggests stronger cooling due to aerosol-cloud interactions – Nature Communications 10:5405 doi: – 27/11/2019 – SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research – https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-13372-2.pdf – «Anthropogenic aerosol emissions lead to an increase in the amount of cloud condensation nuclei and consequently an increase in cloud droplet number concentration and cloud albedo. The corresponding negative radiative forcing due to aerosol cloud interactions (RFaci) is one of the most uncertain radiative forcing terms as reported in the 5th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Here we show that previous observation-based studies underestimate aerosol-cloud interactions because they used measurements of aerosol optical properties that are not directly related to cloud formation and are hampered by measurement uncertainties. We have overcome this problem by the use of new polarimetric satellite retrievals of the relevant aerosol properties (aerosol number, size, shape). The resulting estimate of RFaci = −1.14 Wm−2 (range between −0.84 and −1.72 Wm−2) is more than a factor 2 stronger than the IPCC estimate that includes also other aerosol induced changes in cloud properties.»

Timothy M. Lenton, Johan Rockström, Owen Gaffney, Stefan Rahmstorf, Katherine Richardson, Will Steffen & Hans Joachim Schellnhuber (2019) – Climate tipping points — too risky to bet against – Nature 575:592-595 doi:10.1038/d41586-019-03595-0 – 27/11/2019 – Director of the Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter; Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research; Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research + Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University; Professor of physics of the oceans, University of Potsdam + Head of Earth System Analysis, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research; Professor of biological oceanography, Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen; Emeritus professor of climate and Earth System Science, Australian National University; founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research + distinguished visiting professor, Tsinghua University – https://www.nature.com/magazine-assets/d41586-019-03595-0/d41586-019-03595-0.pdf – “Politicians, economists and even some natural scientists have tended to assume that tipping points1 in the Earth system — such as the loss of the Amazon rainforest or the West Antarctic ice sheet — are of low probability and little understood. Yet evidence is mounting that these events could be more likely than was thought, have high impacts and are interconnected across different biophysical systems, potentially committing the world to long-term irreversible changes. Here we summarize evidence on the threat of exceeding tipping points, identify knowledge gaps and suggest how these should be plugged. ”

Timothy M. Lenton, Johan Rockström, Owen Gaffney, Stefan Rahmstorf, Katherine Richardson, Will Steffen & Hans Joachim Schellnhuber (2019) – Climate tipping points — too risky to bet against – Nature 575:592-595 doi:10.1038/d41586-019-03595-0 – 27/11/2019 – Director of the Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter; Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research; Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research + Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University; Professor of physics of the oceans, University of Potsdam + Head of Earth System Analysis, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research; Professor of biological oceanography, Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen; Emeritus professor of climate and Earth System Science, Australian National University; founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research + distinguished visiting professor, Tsinghua University – https://www.nature.com/magazine-assets/d41586-019-03595-0/d41586-019-03595-0.pdf – «The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) introduced the idea of tipping points two decades ago. At that time, these ‘large-scale discontinuities’ in the climate system were considered likely only if global warming exceeded 5 °C above pre-industrial levels. Information summarized in the two most recent IPCC Special Reports (published in 2018 and in September this year)2,3 suggests that tipping points could be exceeded even between 1 and 2 °C of warming (see ‘Too close for comfort’).»

Bob Berwin – Climate Tipping Points Are Closer Than We Think, Scientists Warn – Inside Climate News – 27/11/2019 – https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27112019/climate-tipping-points-permafrost-forests-ice-antarctica-greenland-amazon-nature – “Research now shows that there is a higher risk that «abrupt and irreversible changes» to the climate system could be triggered at smaller global temperature increases than thought just a few years ago. There are also indictations that exceeding tipping points in one system, such as the loss of Arctic sea ice, can increase the risk of crossing tipping points in others, a group of top scientists wrote Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature. «What we’re talking about is a point of no return, when we might actually lose control of this system, and there is a significant risk that we’re going to do this,» said Will Steffen, a climate researcher with the Australian National University and co-author of the commentary. «It’s not going to be the same conditions with just a bit more heat or a bit more rainfall. It’s a cascading process that gets out of control.» ”

Science News – Antarctic ice sheets could be at greater risk of melting than previously thought – Science Daily – 02/12/2019 – University of South Australia – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/12/191202124624.htm – “Antarctica is the largest reservoir of ice on Earth — but new research by the University of South Australia suggests it could be at greater risk of melting than previously thought. Heat from the landmass beneath the Antarctic ice sheet is a major contributor to the way that glaciers melt and flow — and their impact on potential sea level rise. Hotter conditions allow meltwater to lubricate the base of the glacier, accelerating its movement and the rate of ice loss. However, because of the environmental, logistical and financial challenges of accessing bedrock through ice up to several kilometres thick, drillcore samples have never been taken to directly measure the temperature conditions at the base of the ice sheet. Scientists therefore assume a fixed value for the amount of heat generated by the Earth’s crust in Antarctica — as if the bedrock was uniform when in fact it’s highly variable. Research by UniSA is challenging these assumptions and suggests scientists may have underestimated the heat generated by the bedrock in East Antarctica. ”

Science News – Global levels of biodiversity could be lower than we think, new study warns – Science Daily – 02/12/2019 – University of Sussex – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/12/191202105807.htm – “Biodiversity across the globe could be in a worse state than previously thought as current biodiversity assessments fail to take into account the long-lasting impact of abrupt land changes, a new study has warned. The study by PhD graduate Dr Martin Jung, Senior Lecturer in Geography Dr Pedram Rowhani and Professor of Conservation Science Jörn Scharlemann, all at the University of Sussex, shows that fewer species and fewer individuals are observed at sites that have been disturbed by an abrupt land change in past decades. ”

– Cooling role of particulate matter on warming Earth stronger than previously thought – Phys.org – 03/12/2019 – https://m.phys.org/news/2019-12-cooling-role-particulate-earth-stronger.html – “The relationship between aerosols (particulate matter) and their cooling effect on the Earth due to the formation of clouds is more than twice as strong as was previously thought. As the amounts of aerosols decrease, climate models that predict a faster warming of the Earth are more probable. These are the conclusions of researcher Otto Hasekamp from SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, who published the results in Nature Communications. He carried out his research together with Edward Gryspeerdt from Imperial College London, and Johannes Quaas from Leipzig University. Since the 1970s, scientists have known that particulate matter in the air can give rise to clouds that reflect more light than clouds in a «clean» atmosphere. Clouds in «polluted» air contain more water droplets. Their stronger reflection has a cooling effect on the Earth. ”

Science News – BPA levels in humans dramatically underestimated, study finds – Science Daily – 05/12/2019 – Washington State University – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/12/191205183417.htm – «Researchers have developed a more accurate method of measuring bisphenol A (BPA) levels in humans and found that exposure to the endocrine-disrupting chemical is far higher than previously assumed. The study provides the first evidence that the measurements relied upon by regulatory agencies, including the US Food and Drug Administration, are flawed, underestimating exposure levels by as much as 44 times.»

Fiona Harvey – Greenland’s ice sheet melting seven times faster than in 1990s – The Guardian – 10/12/2019 – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/10/greenland-ice-sheet-melting-seven-times-faster-than-in-1990s – “The scale and speed of the ice loss surprised the team of 96 polar scientists behind the findings, published on Tuesday in the journal Nature. The Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise comprised 26 separate surveys of Greenland from 1992 to 2018, with data from 11 different satellites and comparisons of volume, flow and gravity compiled by experts from the UK, Nasa in the US, and the European Space Agency. Erik Ivins, of the Nasa Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, stressed that the findings – the most comprehensive survey yet of the ice sheet over the past few decades – were based on observations, rather than computer modelling. ”

Shepherd, E. Ivins, E., Rignot et al (The IMBIE Team) (2019) – Mass balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet from 1992 to 2018 – Nature doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1855-2 – 10/12/2019 – The IMBIE Team – https://bit.ly/2ZDJOJq – 96 autores «In recent decades, the Greenland Ice Sheet has been a major contributor to global sea-level rise1,2, and it is expected to be so in the future3. Although increases in glacier flow4–6 and surface melting7–9 have been driven by oceanic10–12 and atmospheric13,14 warming, the degree and trajectory of today’s imbalance remain uncertain. Here we compare and combine 26 individual satellite measurements of changes in the ice sheet’s volume, flow and gravitational potential to produce a reconciled estimate of its mass balance. Although the ice sheet was close to a state of balance in the 1990s, annual losses have risen since then, peaking at 335 ± 62 billion tonnes per year in 2011. In all, Greenland lost 3,800 ± 339 billion tonnes of ice between 1992 and 2018, causing the mean sea level to rise by 10.6 ± 0.9 millimetres. Using three regional climate models, we show that reduced surface mass balance has driven 1,971 ± 555 billion tonnes (52%) of the ice loss owing to increased meltwater runoff. The remaining 1,827 ± 538 billion tonnes (48%) of ice loss was due to increased glacier discharge, which rose from 41 ± 37 billion tonnes per year in the 1990s to 87 ± 25 billion tonnes per year since then. Between 2013 and 2017, the total rate of ice loss slowed to 217 ± 32 billion tonnes per year, on average, as atmospheric circulation favoured cooler conditions15 and as ocean temperatures fell at the terminus of Jakobshavn Isbræ16. Cumulative ice losses from Greenland as a whole have been close to the IPCC’s predicted rates for their high-end climate warming scenario17, which forecast an additional 50 to 120 millimetres of global sea-level rise by 2100 when compared to their central estimate.»

James Hansen – Fire on Planet Earth – Columbia Universoty – 11/12/2019 – http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2019/20191211_Fire.pdf – “When I returned from the China/Oregon trip, I began to focus on writing a difficult paper, which I had put off for almost a decade. This paper was published more than two years later.31 Background information on this paper: One reason that I gave a public talk32 in 2004 about the danger of climate change was my conclusion that IPCC scientists, including my friend Steve Schneider, were making an important mistake in their estimate of the dangerous level of global warming. Steve and his student Michael Mastrandrea estimated the dangerous level in a probabilistic framework. Their conclusions in 2004 were repeated in 2005 in Steve’s ‘inaugural’ paper33 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences upon Steve’s election to the National Academy of Sciences. Using multiple ‘reasons for concern,’ they found that 50 percent chance of exceeding the dangerous threshold was reached at global warming 2.85°C relative to late 20th century climate, or 3.45°C relative to preindustrial temperature. Such global warming was a prescription for disaster, I had concluded. ”

James Hansen – Fire on Planet Earth – Columbia Universoty – 11/12/2019 – http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2019/20191211_Fire.pdf – “From paleoclimate data we know that a disintegrating ice sheet can send an armada of icebergs into the ocean. It takes a lot of energy to melt ice: 80 calories per gram. This iceberg cooling effect on the ocean was not included in most climate models. Could it be an important oversight? Reto Ruedy, Makiko Sato and I started some experiments with our global climate model in 2006 to investigate that matter. The climate model results were shocking. In such case, a scientist has a double reaction, as Sherry Rowland did when he and Mario Molina discovered that CFCs destroy ozone. When Sherry’s wife asked how things had gone at the office that day, he responded something to the effect: “Great. But it looks like the end of the world.” What our model showed was shutdown of the overturning ocean circulation by midcentury, not only in the North Atlantic, but also in the Southern Ocean, surrounding Antarctica. ”

James Hansen – Fire on Planet Earth – Columbia Universoty – 11/12/2019 – http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2019/20191211_Fire.pdf – “Wally Broecker predicted the possibility of North Atlantic shutdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), based on evidence of such events in the paleoclimate record. However, IPCC climate models did not find an AMOC shutdown for realistic greenhouse gas growth, only a modest AMOC slowdown that reduced regional warming in the North Atlantic. Our model yielded strong cooling of surface water of the North Atlantic, and even more so of the Southern Ocean. Shutdown of the overturning circulation around Antarctica would be important. That overturning normally brings relatively warm water from intermediate ocean depths to the surface, where ocean heat is vented to the atmosphere and from there to space. In our model this Southern Ocean Meridional Overturning Circulation (SMOC) shut down, thus turning off the escape valve for ocean heat. Therefore, the deeper ocean began to warm, with maximum warming at depth 1-2 kilometers. That is the depth reached by the ice shelves, the tongues of ice that extent out from the Antarctic ice sheet into the ocean. Warming of waters abutting the ice shelves is ominous. As ice shelves melt, the land-based ice sheet would disgorge ice to the ocean. Melting of the icebergs would reinforce the process, as the cold, fresh water from icebergs is less dense than the salty deeper ocean, thus keeping the overturning SMOC shut down. Ice shelf melting would accelerate. Rapid sea level rise would follow, due to this self-amplification. ”

James Hansen – Fire on Planet Earth – Columbia Universoty – 11/12/2019 – http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2019/20191211_Fire.pdf – “What was the additional reason? I suspected that all ocean models, ours included, suffered from what I described as excessive ‘sludge.’ By this, I meant excessive small-scale mixing of ocean properties … My suspicion was that the turbulence parameterization caused excessive mixing. Such mixing makes global ocean models more ‘well behaved.’ The real world, however, is not so well-behaved. This ‘sludge’ problem might be less in our model, because Akio Arakawa and Gary Russell had gone to special effort to minimize unrealistic small-scale mixing. If this interpretation was correct, our model would be more sensitive than most models to freshwater injection onto polar oceans, but the real world would be even more sensitive than our model. Proving this ‘sludge’ interpretation would be hard.”

James Hansen – Fire on Planet Earth – Columbia Universoty – 11/12/2019 – http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2019/20191211_Fire.pdf – “I requested results of long climate simulations from three major modeling centers GFDL (NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory), NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research), and the UK Hadley Centre. I found that these models were even somewhat slower than ours in achieving their equilibrium response! My interpretation was that all of our models had excessive mixing of heat out of the upper wind-mixed layer. Our model seemed to have a bit less of this deep mixing, perhaps because of the computational schemes of Arakawa and Russell. The implication was that the real world was probably even more sensitive than our model, i.e., the shutdown of AMOC and SMOC, which occurred within several decades in our model, was likely to occur even sooner in the real world, under similar assumptions for the growth rate of climate forcings and ice melt. ”

– The Global Risks Report 2020 – World Economic Forum – 01/01/2020 – In partnership with Marsh & McLennan and Zurich Insurance Group – http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Risk_Report_2020.pdf – “Climate change is striking harder and more rapidly than many expected. The last five years are on track to be the warmest on record, natural disasters are becoming more intense and more frequent, and last year witnessed unprecedented extreme weather throughout the world. Alarmingly, global temperatures are on track to increase by at least 3°C towards the end of the century—twice what climate experts have warned is the limit to avoid the most severe economic, social and environmental consequences. The nearterm impacts of climate change add up to a planetary emergency that will include loss” of life, social and geopolitical tensions and negative economic impacts.

Bob Berwyn – In Australia’s Burning Forests, Signs We’ve Passed a Global Warming Tipping Point – Inside Climate News – 08/01/2020 – https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08012020/australia-wildfires-forest-tipping-points-climate-change-impact-wildlife-survival – “Even without fire, trees are dying around the world at increasing rates because of global warming. During extreme heat events and droughts, air bubbles can form in their moisture transport systems, essentially choking them to death. Warming also increases outbreaks of tree-killing insects. And logging, as well as land-clearing fires in the Amazon are threatening to push that critical forest ecosystem past a tipping point with global implications for carbon cycling. «Why are these trees in all these different regions dying at the same time when they’ve been around for such a long time? It’s heartbreaking,» said Breshears. «Ten years ago, I didn’t think we’d be in this situation. I’m still kind of shocked myself at how much is occurring.» A series of studies in the past 10 years help explain the global tree die-off, said U.S. Geological Survey research ecologist Craig D. Allen. There’s evidence that most tree species around the world already routinely operate near damaging thresholds of water stress, and that they are unable to cope with the rising frequency and intensity of heat extremes, Allen said. Another recent study showed how a declining snowpack and rising summer temperatures combine to limit regrowth, which is clear evidence of the negative impact of human-caused climate warming on subalpine forests. Pine seedlings need cool and moist summers to thrive, but those conditions occur less frequently with global warming. As a result, some Rocky Mountain forests will pass a tipping point with «shifts from forest to non-forest vegetation types across a broad range of elevations in Front Range forests,» the study concluded. ”

Xiaolei Guo et al (2020) – Self-accelerated corrosion of nuclear waste forms at material interfaces – Nature Materials doi:10.1038/s41563-019-0579-x – 27/01/2020 – Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Ohio State University – 15 autores «The US plan for high-level nuclear waste includes the immobilization of long-lived radionuclides in glass or ceramic waste forms in stainless-steel canisters for disposal in deep geological repositories. Here we report that, under simulated repository conditions, corrosion could be significantly accelerated at the interfaces of different barrier materials, which has not been considered in the current safety and performance assessment models. Severe localized corrosion was found at the interfaces between stainless steel and a model nuclear waste glass and between stainless steel and a ceramic waste form. The accelerated corrosion can be attributed to changes of solution chemistry and local acidity/alkalinity within a confined space, which significantly alter the corrosion of both the waste-form materials and the metallic canisters. The corrosion that is accelerated by the interface interaction between dissimilar materials could profoundly impact the service life of the nuclear waste packages, which, therefore, should be carefully considered when evaluating the performance of waste forms and their packages. Moreover, compatible barriers should be selected to further optimize the performance of the geological repository system.»

Xiaolei Guo et al (2020) – Self-accelerated corrosion of nuclear waste forms at material interfaces – Nature Materials 19:310–31610.1038/s41563-019-0579-x – 27/01/2020 – Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Ohio State University – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200127134821.htm – «The US plan for high-level nuclear waste includes the immobilization of long-lived radionuclides in glass or ceramic waste forms in stainless-steel canisters for disposal in deep geological repositories. Here we report that, under simulated repository conditions, corrosion could be significantly accelerated at the interfaces of different barrier materials, which has not been considered in the current safety and performance assessment models. Severe localized corrosion was found at the interfaces between stainless steel and a model nuclear waste glass and between stainless steel and a ceramic waste form. The accelerated corrosion can be attributed to changes of solution chemistry and local acidity/alkalinity within a confined space, which significantly alter the corrosion of both the waste-form materials and the metallic canisters. The corrosion that is accelerated by the interface interaction between dissimilar materials could profoundly impact the service life of the nuclear waste packages, which, therefore, should be carefully considered when evaluating the performance of waste forms and their packages. Moreover, compatible barriers should be selected to further optimize the performance of the geological repository system.»

Science News – Aerosols have an outsized impact on extreme weather – Science Daily – 03/02/2020 – California Institute of Technology – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200203141455.htm – «The work suggests that aerosols, which are solid particles polluting the atmosphere from activities like burning coal, can have a stronger impact on extreme winter weather than greenhouse gases at regional scale, although the relationship between aerosols and extreme weather is complicated to untangle.»

Science News – Arctic permafrost thaw plays greater role in climate change than previously estimated – Science Daily – 03/02/2020 – University of Colorado at Boulder – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200203151152.htm – «Abrupt thawing of permafrost will double previous estimates of potential carbon emissions from permafrost thaw in the Arctic, and is already rapidly changing the landscape and ecology of the circumpolar north, a new CU Boulder-led study finds.»

Janin Schaffer et al (2020) – Bathymetry constrains ocean heat supply to Greenland’s largest glacier tongue – Nature Geoscience 13:227–231 doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0529-x – 03/02/2020 – Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research – 6 autores «Mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has increased over the past two decades, currently accounting for 25% of global sea-level rise. This is due to increased surface melt driven by atmospheric warming and the retreat and acceleration of marine-terminating glaciers forced by oceanic heat transport. We use ship-based profiles, bathymetric data and moored time series from 2016 to 2017 of temperature, salinity and water velocity collected in front of the floating tongue of the 79 North Glacier in Northeast Greenland. These observations indicate that a year-round bottom-intensified inflow of warm Atlantic Water through a narrow channel is constrained by a sill. The associated heat transport leads to a mean melt rate of 10.4 ± 3.1 m yr–1 on the bottom of the floating glacier tongue. The interface height between warm Atlantic Water and colder overlying water above the sill controls the ocean heat transport’s temporal variability. Historical hydrographic data show that the interface height has risen over the past two decades, implying an increase in the basal melt rate. Additional temperature profiles at the neighbouring Zachariæ Isstrøm suggest that ocean heat transport here is similarly controlled by a near-glacier sill. We conclude that near-glacier, sill-controlled ocean heat transport plays a crucial role for glacier stability.»

Merritt R. Turetsky et al (2020) – Carbon release through abrupt permafrost thaw – Nature Geoscience 13:138–143 doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0526-0 – 03/02/2020 – Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph + Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR), University of Colorado Boulder – 14 autores «The permafrost zone is expected to be a substantial carbon source to the atmosphere, yet large-scale models currently only simulate gradual changes in seasonally thawed soil. Abrupt thaw will probably occur in <20% of the permafrost zone but could affect half of permafrost carbon through collapsing ground, rapid erosion and landslides. Here, we synthesize the best available information and develop inventory models to simulate abrupt thaw impacts on permafrost carbon balance. Emissions across 2.5 million km2 of abrupt thaw could provide a similar climate feedback as gradual thaw emissions from the entire 18 million km2 permafrost region under the warming projection of Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5. While models forecast that gradual thaw may lead to net ecosystem carbon uptake under projections of Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5, abrupt thaw emissions are likely to offset this potential carbon sink. Active hillslope erosional features will occupy 3% of abrupt thaw terrain by 2300 but emit one-third of abrupt thaw carbon losses. Thaw lakes and wetlands are methane hot spots but their carbon release is partially offset by slowly regrowing vegetation. After considering abrupt thaw stabilization, lake drainage and soil carbon uptake by vegetation regrowth, we conclude that models considering only gradual permafrost thaw are substantially underestimating carbon emissions from thawing permafrost… We believe the first-order abrupt thaw estimates presented here are valid but probably conservative.»

Igal Berenshtein et al (2020) – Invisible oil beyond the Deepwater Horizon satellite footprint – Science Advances 6:eaaw8863 doi:10.1126/sciadv.aaw8863 – 12/02/2020 – Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami – https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/6/7/eaaw8863.full.pdf – 6 autores «Major oil spills are catastrophic events that immensely affect the environment and society, yet determining their spatial extent is a highly complex task. During the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) blowout, ~149,000 km2 of the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) was covered by oil slicks and vast areas of the Gulf were closed for fishing. Yet, the satellite footprint does not necessarily capture the entire oil spill extent. Here, we use in situ observations and oil spill transport modeling to examine the full extent of the DWH spill, focusing on toxic-to-biota (i.e., marine organisms) oil concentration ranges. We demonstrate that large areas of the GoM were exposed to invisible and toxic oil that extended beyond the boundaries of the satellite footprint and the fishery closures. With a global increase in petroleum production–related activities, a careful assessment of oil spills’ full extent is necessary to maximize environmental and public safety.»

Science News – New study shows Deepwater Horizon oil spill larger than previously thought – Science Daily – 12/02/2020 – University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200212150202.htm – «Toxic and invisible oil spread well beyond the known satellite footprint of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, according to a new study led by scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel school of Marine and Atmospheric Science. These new findings have important implications for environmental health during future oil spills.»

Robert McSeeney – Methane emissions from fossil fuels ‘severely underestimated’ – Carbon Brief – 19/02/2020 – https://www.carbonbrief.org/methane-emissions-from-fossil-fuels-severely-underestimated – “Human-caused emissions of methane from the extraction and use of fossil fuels may have been “severely underestimated”, a new study suggests. The research indicates that “natural” emissions of fossil methane, that seeps out of deeply-held reserves, make up a much smaller fraction of total methane emissions than previously thought. This means that the levels of fossil methane in the atmosphere are likely being driven by the methane escaping as coal, oil and natural gas are mined, drilled and transported. The implication is that methane emissions from fossil fuels are 25-40% higher than earlier estimates suggest, the lead researcher tells Carbon Brief. The findings indicate that “the fossil-fuel industry is likely responsible for an even larger proportion of recent climate change than we previously thought”, a scientist not involved in the study tells Carbon Brief. However, there is also “greater opportunity” to cut emissions, she says, through “fixing leaks in natural gas extraction and distribution networks”. ”

Benjamin Hmiel et al (2020) – Preindustrial 14CH4 indicates greater anthropogenic fossil CH4 emissions – Nature 578:409–412 doi:10.1038/s41586-020-1991-8 – 19/02/2020 – Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Rochester – 19 autores «Atmospheric methane (CH4) is a potent greenhouse gas, and its mole fraction has more than doubled since the preindustrial era1. Fossil fuel extraction and use are among the largest anthropogenic sources of CH4 emissions, but the precise magnitude of these contributions is a subject of debate2,3. Carbon-14 in CH4 (14CH4) can be used to distinguish between fossil (14C-free) CH4 emissions and contemporaneous biogenic sources; however, poorly constrained direct 14CH4 emissions from nuclear reactors have complicated this approach since the middle of the 20th century4,5. Moreover, the partitioning of total fossil CH4 emissions (presently 172 to 195 teragrams CH4 per year)2,3 between anthropogenic and natural geological sources (such as seeps and mud volcanoes) is under debate; emission inventories suggest that the latter account for about 40 to 60 teragrams CH4 per year6,7. Geological emissions were less than 15.4 teragrams CH4 per year at the end of the Pleistocene, about 11,600 years ago8, but that period is an imperfect analogue for present-day emissions owing to the large terrestrial ice sheet cover, lower sea level and extensive permafrost. Here we use preindustrial-era ice core 14CH4 measurements to show that natural geological CH4 emissions to the atmosphere were about 1.6 teragrams CH4 per year, with a maximum of 5.4 teragrams CH4 per year (95 per cent confidence limit)—an order of magnitude lower than the currently used estimates. This result indicates that anthropogenic fossil CH4 emissions are underestimated by about 38 to 58 teragrams CH4 per year, or about 25 to 40 per cent of recent estimates. Our record highlights the human impact on the atmosphere and climate, provides a firm target for inventories of the global CH4 budget, and will help to inform strategies for targeted emission reductions9,10.»

John Quiggin – Worst-case economics – Inside Story – 19/02/2020 – https://insidestory.org.au/worst-case-economics/ – “The debate has also been changed by good news. One thing agreed on by Stern and Nordhaus, along with virtually the whole of the economics profession, is that a price on carbon dioxide emissions is the best way to reduce them. Only in the European Union is such a price applied systematically, and even there the price is lower than was recommended by Nordhaus and much below what Stern’s analysis implied. Yet even this modest price will wipe out coal-fired electricity generation in most European countries within the next five to ten years, and is paving the way for a shift to electric vehicles. The economic case for sharp reductions in carbon dioxide emissions is as clear as the scientific evidence for the reality of human-caused climate change. All (!) that remains is to convince fearful politicians to act, and to drive the remaining denialists out of public life. ”

Benjamin M. Sanderson & Rosie A. Fisher (2020) – A fiery wake-up call for climate science – Nature Climate Change doi:10.1038/s41558-020-0707-2 – 24/02/2020 – CERFACS, Toulouse + National Center for Atmospheric Research – «It is critical that Earth system modelling is capable of informing the changing risk of potentially devastating events. The fact that Australia has experienced damages that go beyond what is currently simulated highlights that current syntheses may be missing major risks. Policymakers should take this as a warning that ongoing emissions will take us into an increasingly unpredictable climate space where impacts may be more extreme than projections. Scientists, on the other hand, need to tread a delicate line of underlining what is certain and providing appropriate guidance on what is not, while redoubling efforts to better represent climate impacts that most directly affect society.»

Jordan Davidson – Australia Wildfires Were Far Worse Than Climate Models Predicted – EcoWatch – 26/02/2020 – https://www.ecowatch.com/australia-wildfires-climate-models-2645279035.html – “In a post-mortem of the Australian bushfires, which raged for five months, scientists have concluded that their intensity and duration far surpassed what climate models had predicted, according to a study published yesterday in Nature Climate Change. The bushfires were far more catastrophic than any climate crisis models out there, leading the scientists to call the devastation, «a fiery wake-up call for climate science,» as the BBC reported. The study said that the bushfires were «unprecedented» after they burned more than one-fifth of the country’s forests. «This [was] worse than anything our models simulated,» said climate scientist Benjamin Sanderson to the BBC. Sanderson, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, co-wrote the article in Nature Climate Change. In fact, the models were so far off target that not only did they say that fires of such magnitude could not happen this year, but they predicted that fires of this magnitude would not happen before the year 2100, as Wired reported. ”

Wannes Hubau et al (2020) – Asynchronous carbon sink saturation in African and Amazonian tropical forests – Nature 579:80–87 doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2035-0 – 04/03/2020 – School of Geography, University of Leeds + Service of Wood Biology, Royal Museum for Central Africa, Belgium + Department of Environment, Laboratory of Wood Technology (Woodlab), Ghent University – https://go.nature.com/2v8Nnwi – 106 autores «Structurally intact tropical forests sequestered about half of the global terrestrial carbon uptake over the 1990s and early 2000s, removing about 15 per cent of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions1,2,3. Climate-driven vegetation models typically predict that this tropical forest ‘carbon sink’ will continue for decades4,5. Here we assess trends in the carbon sink using 244 structurally intact African tropical forests spanning 11 countries, compare them with 321 published plots from Amazonia and investigate the underlying drivers of the trends. The carbon sink in live aboveground biomass in intact African tropical forests has been stable for the three decades to 2015, at 0.66 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year (95 per cent confidence interval 0.53–0.79), in contrast to the long-term decline in Amazonian forests6. Therefore the carbon sink responses of Earth’s two largest expanses of tropical forest have diverged. The difference is largely driven by carbon losses from tree mortality, with no detectable multi-decadal trend in Africa and a long-term increase in Amazonia. Both continents show increasing tree growth, consistent with the expected net effect of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide and air temperature7,8,9. Despite the past stability of the African carbon sink, our most intensively monitored plots suggest a post-2010 increase in carbon losses, delayed compared to Amazonia, indicating asynchronous carbon sink saturation on the two continents. A statistical model including carbon dioxide, temperature, drought and forest dynamics accounts for the observed trends and indicates a long-term future decline in the African sink, whereas the Amazonian sink continues to weaken rapidly. Overall, the uptake of carbon into Earth’s intact tropical forests peaked in the 1990s. Given that the global terrestrial carbon sink is increasing in size, independent observations indicating greater recent carbon uptake into the Northern Hemisphere landmass10 reinforce our conclusion that the intact tropical forest carbon sink has already peaked. This saturation and ongoing decline of the tropical forest carbon sink has consequences for policies intended to stabilize Earth’s climate.»

Simon Lewis – World’s intact tropical forests reached ‘peak carbon uptake’ in 1990s – Carbon Brief – 04/03/2020 – https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-worlds-intact-tropical-forests-reached-peak-carbon-uptake-in-1990s – “Despite the CO2 fertilisation effect, the sink is in decline. This is because of the climate impacts of rising CO2 levels. Namely, higher temperatures and stronger drought conditions are slowing plant growth – and killing trees. Overall, our analysis reveals that the balance of the ongoing positive impact of CO2 on photosynthesis and the increasingly negative impacts of temperature and drought is progressively moving in the direction of shutting down the sink over time. Another factor playing a role is the life history of trees. Dynamic forests where trees die younger see their carbon sink saturating sooner than less dynamic forests, which tend to be dominated by very large trees … Our results show that the Amazon sink started declining first, starting in the 1990s, followed by Africa, where we see a sink decline in the best-monitored plots beginning about 2010 … Overall, African forests are more robust to recent contemporary environmental change than Amazon forests, our analysis suggests. While African forests cover much less area than Amazon forests, for the period 2000-10, the carbon sink was the same on both continents.”

Stephen C. Maberly et al (2020) – Global lake thermal regions shift under climate change – Nature Communications 11:1232 doi:10.1038/s41467-020-15108-z – 06/03/2020 – UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Lancaster Environment Centre – https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15108-z.pdf – 12 autores «Water temperature is critical for the ecology of lakes. However, the ability to predict its spatial and seasonal variation is constrained by the lack of a thermal classification system. Here we define lake thermal regions using objective analysis of seasonal surface temperature dynamics from satellite observations. Nine lake thermal regions are identified that mapped robustly and largely contiguously globally, even for small lakes. The regions differed from other global patterns, and so provide unique information. Using a lake model forced by 21st century climate projections, we found that 12%, 27% and 66% of lakes will change to a lower latitude thermal region by 2080–2099 for low, medium and high greenhouse gas concentration trajectories (Representative Concentration Pathways 2.6, 6.0 and 8.5) respectively. Under the worst-case scenario, a 79% reduction in the number of lakes in the northernmost thermal region is projected. This thermal region framework can facilitate the global scaling of lake-research.»

Brian Bienkowski – The planet’s largest ecosystems could collapse faster than we thought – The Daily Climate – 11/03/2020 – https://www.dailyclimate.org/ecosystems-collapse-2645457100.html – “If put under the kind of environmental stress increasingly seen on our planet, large ecosystems —such as the Amazon rainforest or the Caribbean coral reefs—could collapse in just a few decades, according to a study released today in Nature Communications. In the case of Amazon forests, stressors could cause collapse in just 49 years. In Caribbean coral reefs, it could take as little as 15 years. «The messages here are stark,» said lead researcher John Dearing, a professor in physical geography at the University of Southampton, in a statement. Those estimates come from Dearing and colleagues who examined data on how 42 natural environments—small and large, and on both land and water—have transformed. They found that larger ecosystems may take longer than small ones to collapse, but the rate of their decline is much more rapid. Ecosystem stress can come in many forms such as climate change, deforestation, overfishing, pollution and ocean acidification. ”

Megan Lickley et al (2020) – Quantifying contributions of chlorofluorocarbon banks to emissions and impacts on the ozone layer and climate – Nature Communications 11:1380 doi: – 17/03/2020 – Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology – https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15162-7.pdf – 9 autores «Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) banks from uses such as air conditioners or foams can be emitted after global production stops. Recent reports of unexpected emissions of CFC-11 raise the need to better quantify releases from these banks, and associated impacts on ozone depletion and climate change. Here we develop a Bayesian probabilistic model for CFC-11, 12, and 113 banks and their emissions, incorporating the broadest range of constraints to date. We find that bank sizes of CFC-11 and CFC-12 are larger than recent international scientific assessments suggested, and can account for much of current estimated CFC-11 and 12 emissions (with the exception of increased CFC-11 emissions after 2012). Left unrecovered, these CFC banks could delay Antarctic ozone hole recovery by about six years and contribute 9 billion metric tonnes of equivalent CO2 emission. Derived CFC-113 emissions are subject to uncertainty, but are much larger than expected, raising questions about its sources.»

David J. Frame et al (2020) – The economic costs of Hurricane Harvey attributable to climate change – Climatic Change 160:271–281 doi:10.1007/s10584-020-02692-8 – 08/04/2020 – New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute, Victoria University of Wellington – https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10584-020-02692-8.pdf – 4 autores “Hurricane Harvey is one of the costliest tropical cyclones in history. In this paper, we use a probabilistic event attribution framework to estimate the costs associated with Hurricane Harvey that are attributable to anthropogenic influence on the climate system. Results indicate that the “fraction of attributable risk” for the rainfall from Harvey was likely about at least a third with a preferable/best estimate of three quarters. With an average estimate of damages from Harvey assessed at about US$90bn, applying this fraction gives a best estimate of US$67bn, with a likely lower bound of at least US$30bn, of these damages that are attributable to the human influence on climate. This “bottom-up” event-based estimate of climate change damages contrasts sharply with the more “top-down” approach using integrated assessment models (IAMs) or global macroeconometric estimates: one IAM estimates annual climate change damages in the USA to be in the region of US$21.3bn. While the two approaches are not easily comparable, it is noteworthy that our “bottom-up” results estimate that one single extreme weather event contributes more to climate change damages in the USA than an” entire year by the “top-down” method. Given that the “top-down” approach, at best, parameterizes but does not resolve the effects of extreme weather events, our findings suggest that the “bottom-up” approach is a useful avenue to pursue in future attempts to refine estimates of climate change damages.

Christopher H. Trisos, Cory Merow and Alex L. Pigot (2020) – The projected timing of abrupt ecological disruption from climate change – Nature doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2189-9 – 08/04/2020 – African Climate and Development Initiative, University of Cape Town + National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC), Annapolis, USA. + Centre for Statistics in Ecology, the Environment, and Conservation, University of Cape Town; Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut; Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research, Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London – https://go.nature.com/34ma1yi – “In these cases, the timing of abrupt assemblage exposure events could be considered an ‘ignorance horizon’—the time beyond which local extinctions are not inevitable but evidence for the ability of species to persist in the wild is largely absent13. Thus, at the very least, our results show that within 30 years, continued high emissions will drive a sudden shift across many ecological assemblages to climate conditions under which we have almost no knowledge of the ability of their constituent species to survive. We caution that the timing and magnitude of this exposure may occur earlier and be larger than we anticipate, because our analysis does not consider changes in extreme events9, effects of warming on local habitat (for example, melting sea ice), covariation between climate variables32, or that populations may be locally adapted33. Furthermore, to the extent that species-realized historical thermal limits do reflect fundamental limits to persistence, then the occurrence” of abrupt exposure events marks the crossing of an ‘ecological horizon’ beyond which catastrophic and coordinated species losses are expected.

Zeke Hausfather and Richard Betts – Analysis: How ‘carbon-cycle feedbacks’ could make global warming worse – Carbpn Brief – 14/04/2020 – Met Office + University of Exeter. – https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-carbon-cycle-feedbacks-could-make-global-warming-worse – “While current IPCC warming projections account for an “average” carbon-cycle feedback in the RCP concentration scenarios, they do not include the large uncertainties in carbon-cycle feedback estimates. This analysis shows that when these uncertainties are taken into account, the range of possible future atmospheric CO2 concentrations and warming is considerably wider than is commonly reported. It is even possible that carbon-cycle feedbacks could allow a more moderate emissions scenario – such as that conventionally associated with RCP6.0 – to reach concentrations found in the very-high-end RCP8.5 scenario, but only in the highest of all available carbon-cycle feedback estimates. More broadly, this provides yet another reason for policymakers to support ambitious mitigation pathways, as the possibility of very-high warming outcomes may be underestimated in many assessments that do not currently account for carbon cycle feedback uncertainties. ”

Antonio Turiel – La tormenta negra – The Oil Crash – 22/04/2020 – https://crashoil.blogspot.com/2020/04/la-tormenta-negra.html – “Y no será una caída del 30% como ahora, sino que más bien rondará el 40%. La crisis del CoVid lo que ha hecho es precipitar nuestra caída por el acantilado energético al cual nos estábamos acercando. Es necio ahora discutir sobre cuándo será el peak oil: ya ha pasado, y jamás volveremos a producir tanto petróleo como se había llegado a producir. Ni nos acercaremos. El CoVid nos ha hecho tomar demasiado impulso y de alguna manera nos hemos adelantado a lo que tenía que pasar dentro de unos años … El descenso por el lado derecho de la curva de Hubbert, la bajada desde el peak oil, al final será acelerado y terrorífico. Nos adentramos a toda velocidad en una tormenta negra, negra como ese petróleo que ahora no queremos consumir y que dentro de poco no podremos consumir. ”

Phil McKenna – Super-Polluting Methane Emissions Twice Federal Estimates in Permian Basin, Study Finds – Inside Climate News – 22/04/2020 – https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22042020/permian-basin-methane-emissions-texas-new-mexico – “Methane emissions from the Permian basin of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico, one of the largest oil-producing regions in the world, are more than two times higher than federal estimates, a new study suggests. The findings, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, reaffirm the results of a recently released assessment and further call into question the climate benefits of natural gas. Using hydraulic fracturing, energy companies have increased oil production to unprecedented levels in the Permian basin in recent years. ”

Benjamin P. Horton et al (2020) – Estimating global mean sea-level rise and its uncertainties by 2100 and 2300 from an expert survey – npj Climate and Atmospheric Science 3:18 doi:10.1038/s41612-020-0121-5 – 08/05/2020 – https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-020-0121-5.pdf – 9 autores «Sea-level rise projections and knowledge of their uncertainties are vital to make informed mitigation and adaptation decisions. To elicit projections from members of the scientific community regarding future global mean sea-level (GMSL) rise, we repeated a survey originally conducted five years ago. Under Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 2.6, 106 experts projected a likely (central 66% probability) GMSL rise of 0.30–0.65 m by 2100, and 0.54–2.15 m by 2300, relative to 1986–2005. Under RCP 8.5, the same experts projected a likely GMSL rise of 0.63–1.32 m by 2100, and 1.67–5.61 m by 2300. Expert projections for 2100 are similar to those from the original survey, although the projection for 2300 has extended tails and is higher than the original survey. Experts give a likelihood of 42% (original survey) and 45% (current survey) that under the high-emissions scenario GMSL rise will exceed the upper bound (0.98 m) of the likely range estimated by the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is considered to have an exceedance likelihood of 17%. Responses to open-ended questions suggest that the increases in upper-end estimates and uncertainties arose from recent influential studies about the impact of marine ice cliff instability on the meltwater contribution to GMSL rise from the Antarctic Ice Sheet.»

Jordi Goula – La crisi es podria prolongar més que no es pensava – Vilaweb – 23/05/2020 – https://www.vilaweb.cat/noticies/la-crisi-es-podria-prolongar-mes-del-que-es-pensava/ – “Ahir a la tarda, els assistents a la conferència telemàtica del Cercle d’Economia, en què intervenia el president de CaixaBank, Jordi Gual, es devien quedar ben parats quan els va etzibar que el panorama econòmic que tenim davant és més complicat que no diuen habitualment i que hem d’estar preparats ‘per a una situació que es prolongui dotze mesos, divuit o potser, fins i tot, vint-i-quatre’. Va explicar que alguns sectors trigarien mesos a recuperar-se i no podrien operar amb normalitat fins que no es tingués un control efectiu de la pandèmia, fet que també pot repercutir en el conjunt de l’economia, va dir. I va insistir en el fet que, en un començament, es pensava que la crisi del coronavirus era només un xoc temporal, però que s’ha acabat veient que el control de la Covid-19 i les seves conseqüències encara duraran temps. Unes hores abans, s’havia fet públic un estudi de Manpower Group amb estimacions sobre l’evolució del mercat laboral que li donaven la raó fil per randa. L’estat espanyol podria trigar gairebé una dècada a recuperar la pèrdua d’ocupació causada per la Covid-19, venien a dir com a titular i resum de l’estudi. ”

Kevin Anderson, John F. Broderick and Isak Stoddard (2020) – A factor of two: how the mitigation plans of ‘climate progressive’ nations fall far short of Paris-compliant pathways – Climate Policy doi:10.1080/14693062.2020.1728209 – 28/05/2020 – Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, School of Engineering, University of Manchester + Centre for Environment and Development Studies (CEMUS) Natural Resources and Sustainable Development, Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University – «The Paris Agreement establishes an international covenant to reduce emissions in line with holding the increase in temperature to ‘well below 2°C … and to pursue … 1.5°C.’ Global modelling studies have repeatedly concluded that such commitments can be delivered through technocratic adjustments to contemporary society, principally price mechanisms driving technical change. However, as emissions have continued to rise, so these models have come to increasingly rely on the extensive deployment of highly speculative negative emissions technologies (NETs). Moreover, in determining the mitigation challenges for industrialized nations, scant regard is paid to the language and spirit of equity enshrined in the Paris Agreement. If, instead, the mitigation agenda of ‘developed country Parties’ is determined without reliance on planetary scale NETs and with genuine regard for equity and ‘common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities’, the necessary rates of mitigation increase markedly. This is evident even when considering the UK and Sweden, two nations at the forefront of developing ‘progressive’ climate change legislation and with clear emissions pathways and/or quantitative carbon budgets. In both cases, the carbon budgets underpinning mitigation policy are halved, the immediate mitigation rate is increased to over 10% per annum, and the time to deliver a fully decarbonized energy system is brought forward to 2035-40. Such a challenging mitigation agenda implies profound changes to many facets of industrialized economies. This conclusion is not drawn from political ideology, but rather is a direct consequence of the international community’s obligations under the Paris Agreement and the small and rapidly dwindling global carbon budget.»

Emily Louisa Vosper, Dann Mitchella and Kerry Emanuel (2020) – Extreme hurricane rainfall affecting the Caribbean mitigated by the Paris Agreement goals – Environmental Research Letters doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ab9794 – 28/05/2020 – School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol; University of Bristol; Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology – https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab9794/pdf – «Hurricanes are among the most impactful extreme weather events affecting small island states such as the Caribbean and require long-term planning for community and infrastructure resilience. By coupling an offline dynamical hurricane model to the output of a large ensemble of global climate model simulations from the Half a degree of Additional warming Prognosis and Projected Impacts (HAPPI) project, we assess how the impacts of hurricanes may change under the Paris Climate goals. Specifically, we concentrate on hurricane rainfallover particular regions, with both the mobility and intensity of a hurricane being key drivers of local level impacts. For example, Hurricane Dorian (2019) caused widespread devastation when it stalled over The Bahamas as a category 5 storm. We show that since 1970 only one other hurricane stalled at this strength: Hurricane Mitch (1998). Due to a combination of increased stalling and precipitation yield under a warmer world, our analysis indicates a greater likelihood of extreme hurricane rainfall occurring in the Caribbean under both Paris Agreement scenarios of 1.5◦C and 2◦C Global Warming goals, compared to present climate projections. Focusing on specific hurricane events, we show that a rainfall event equal in magnitude to Hurricane Maria is around half as likely to occur under the 1.5◦C Paris Agreement goal compared to a 2◦C warmer climate. Our results highlight the need for more research into hurricanes in the Caribbean, an area which has traditionally received far less attention than mainland USA and requires more comprehensive infrastructure planning.»

Dave Frame et al (2019) – Cost of extreme weather due to climate change is severely underestimated – Carbon Brief – 12/06/2020 – New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute at Victoria University of Wellington – https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-cost-of-extreme-weather-due-to-climate-change-is-severely-underestimated – 4 autores “In the two studies, both published in the journal Climatic Change, we look at droughts and floods in New Zealand during the decade 2007-17 and the landfall of Hurricane Harvey in Texas in August 2017. The New Zealand Treasury estimated that two droughts in 2007 and 2013 jointly reduced GDP in New Zealand by around NZ$4.8bn (US$3.4bn in 2017). Using previously published methods, which used climate models to estimate changes in the types of weather patterns typical of severe New Zealand drought, we estimate that around NZ$800m (US$568m) of this cost is due to climate change. ”

Ben Robinson – Even ‘climate progressive’ nations fall far short of Paris Agreement targets – The University of Manchester – 16/06/2020 – https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/even-climate-progressive-nations-fall-far-short-of-paris-agreement-targets/ – “Professor Kevin Anderson: Academics have done an excellent job in understanding and communicating climate science, but the same cannot be said in relation to reducing emissions. Here we have collectively denied the necessary scale of mitigation, running scared of calling for fundamental changes to both our energy system and the lifestyles of high-energy users. Our paper brings this failure into sharp focus. ”

Jens Terhaar, Lester Kwiatkowski, Laurent Bopp (2020) – Emergent constraint on Arctic Ocean acidification in the twenty-first century – Nature 582:379-383 doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2360-3 – 17/06/2020 – LMD/IPSL, Ecole Normale Supérieure/PSL Université, CNRS, Ecole Polytechnique, Sorbonne Université; Climate and Environmental Physics, Physics Institute, University of Bern; Oeschger Center for Climate Change Research, University of Bern; LOCEAN/IPSL, Sorbonne Université, CNRS, IRD, MNHN – «The ongoing uptake of anthropogenic carbon by the ocean leads to ocean acidification, a process that results in a reduction in pH and in the saturation state of biogenic calcium carbonate minerals aragonite (Ωarag) and calcite (Ωcalc)1,2. Because of its naturally low Ωarag and Ωcalc (refs. 2,3), the Arctic Ocean is considered the region most susceptible to future acidification and associated ecosystem impacts4,5,6,7. However, the magnitude of projected twenty-first century acidification differs strongly across Earth system models8. Here we identify an emergent multi-model relationship between the simulated present-day density of Arctic Ocean surface waters, used as a proxy for Arctic deep-water formation, and projections of the anthropogenic carbon inventory and coincident acidification. By applying observations of sea surface density, we constrain the end of twenty-first century Arctic Ocean anthropogenic carbon inventory to 9.0 ± 1.6 petagrams of carbon and the basin-averaged Ωarag and Ωcalc to 0.76 ± 0.06 and 1.19 ± 0.09, respectively, under the high-emissions Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 climate scenario. Our results indicate greater regional anthropogenic carbon storage and ocean acidification than previously projected3,8 and increase the probability that large parts of the mesopelagic Arctic Ocean will be undersaturated with respect to calcite by the end of the century. This increased rate of Arctic Ocean acidification, combined with rapidly changing physical and biogeochemical Arctic conditions9,10,11, is likely to exacerbate the impact of climate change on vulnerable Arctic marine ecosystems.»

David Coursen – Environmental Injustice is Even Worse than we Thought – Resilience – 18/06/2020 – https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-06-18/environmental-injustice-is-even-worse-than-we-thought/ – “Now the first comprehensive study of nationwide toxic releases from 25,000 facilities in 322 manufacturing industries finds the same distribution pattern in a wide range of industries. The study found 1116 egregious polluters — 4% of the total — each of which generates 50% of the total annual hazard from its industry. These super polluters produce hundreds or even thousands of times more toxins than comparable facilities. Who bears the burden of these poisonous pollutants? The evidence is as clear as it is unsurprising: a disproportionate share of these super polluters operate near low-wealth communities and communities of color. So, in addition to the fact that such communities bear a disproportionate share of the overall burden, the inequities become more pronounced with the industry’s worst offenders, which affect these communities even more than might already be expected. The study results confirmed the existence of what researchers term sacrifice zones: majority minority, low-income neighborhoods where super polluters operate below the radar, imposing enormous health burdens on populations with little power to resist. ”

Andrew Simms – Turning delusion into climate action – Prof Kevin Anderson, an interview – Scientists for Global Responsibility – 20/06/2020 – https://www.sgr.org.uk/resources/turning-delusion-climate-action-prof-kevin-anderson-interview – «Typically it is more senior academics and others who hold these conflicting public and private positions. Whilst such deception is often very well meant, it nevertheless reflects a deep arrogance. They are basically saying, I’m a sufficiently clever person, that I can judge what is politically or not viable, and therefore by massaging my assumptions I can provide politically appropriate conclusions. Such arrogance is widespread.»

Z.R.J. Nicholls et al (2020) – Implications of non-linearities between cumulative CO2 emissions and CO2-induced warming for assessing the remaining carbon budget – Environmental Research Letters 15:074017 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ab83af – 23/06/2020 – Australian-German Climate and Energy College + School of Earth Sciences, The University of Melbourne – https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab83af/pdf – 5 autores «To determine the remaining carbon budget, a new framework was introduced in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C (SR1.5). We refer to this as a ‘segmented’ framework because it considers the various components of the carbon budget derivation independently from one another. Whilst implementing this segmented framework, in SR1.5 the assumption was that there is a strictly linear relationship between cumulative CO2 emissions and CO2-induced warming i.e. the TCRE is constant and can be applied to a range of emissions scenarios. Here we test whether such an approach is able to replicate results from model simulations that take the climate system’s internal feedbacks and non-linearities into account. Within our modelling framework, following the SR1.5’s choices leads to smaller carbon budgets than using simulations with interacting climate components. For 1.5 °C and 2 °C warming targets, the differences are 50 GtCO2 (or 10%) and 260 GtCO2 (or 17%), respectively. However, by relaxing the assumption of strict linearity, we find that this difference can be reduced to around 0 GtCO2 for 1.5 °C of warming and 80 GtCO2 (or 5%) for 2.0 °C of warming (for middle of the range estimates of the carbon cycle and warming response to anthropogenic emissions). We propose an updated implementation of the segmented framework that allows for the consideration of non-linearities between cumulative CO2 emissions and CO2-induced warming.»

Daisy Dunne – South pole warmed ‘three times faster’ than global average over past 30 years – Carbon Brief – 29/06/2020 – https://www.carbonbrief.org/south-pole-warmed-three-times-faster-than-global-average-over-past-thirty-years – “However, the analysis shows that, over the past 30 years, temperatures at the south pole have been rapidly rising, explains study lead author Dr Kyle Clem, a polar researcher at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. He tells Carbon Brief: “Research over the past couple decades revealed the Antarctic plateau, the coldest and one of the most remote places on Earth, had been cooling while global temperatures were increasing…Our study has found that this is no longer the case. The south pole is now one of the fastest warming regions on the planet, warming at an incredible three times faster than the global average rate.” ”

Jasper Verschuur et al (2020) – Implications of ambiguity in Antarctic ice sheet dynamics for future coastal erosion estimates: a probabilistic assessment – Climatic Change doi:10.1007/s10584-020-02769-4 – 02/07/2020 – Department of Hydraulic Engineering, Delft University of Technology + Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute – 7 autores «Sea-level rise (SLR) can amplify the episodic erosion from storms and drive chronic erosion on sandy shorelines, threatening many coastal communities. One of the major uncertainties in SLR projections is the potential rapid disintegration of large fractions of the Antarctic ice sheet (AIS). Quantifying this uncertainty is essential to support sound risk management of coastal areas, although it is neglected in many erosion impact assessments. Here, we use the island of Sint Maarten as a case study to evaluate the impact of AIS uncertainty for future coastal recession. We estimate SLR-induced coastal recession using a probabilistic framework and compare and contrast three cases of AIS dynamics within the range of plausible futures. Results indicate that projections of coastal recession are sensitive to local morphological factors and assumptions made on how AIS dynamics are incorporated into SLR projections and that underestimating the potential rapid mass loss from the AIS can lead to ill-informed coastal adaptation decisions.»

Lester Kwiatkowski et al (2020) – Twenty-first century ocean warming, acidification, deoxygenation, and upper-ocean nutrient and primary production decline from CMIP6 model projections – Biogeosciences 17:3439–3470 doi:10.5194/bg-17-3439-2020 – 06/07/2020 – LOCEAN Laboratory, Sorbonne Université-CNRS-IRD-MNHN – https://www.biogeosciences.net/17/3439/2020/bg-17-3439-2020.pdf – 28 autores «Anthropogenic climate change is projected to lead to ocean warming, acidification, deoxygenation, reductions in near-surface nutrients, and changes to primary production, all of which are expected to affect marine ecosystems. Here we assess projections of these drivers of environmental change over the twenty-first century from Earth system models (ESMs) participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) that were forced under the CMIP6 Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). Projections are compared to those from the previous generation (CMIP5) forced under the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). A total of 10 CMIP5 and 13 CMIP6 models are used in the two multi-model ensembles. Under the high-emission scenario SSP5-8.5, the multi-model global mean change (2080–2099 mean values relative to 1870–1899) ± the inter-model SD in sea surface temperature, surface pH, subsurface (100–600 m) oxygen concentration, euphotic (0–100 m) nitrate concentration, and depth-integrated primary production is +3.47±0.78 ∘C, −0.44±0.005, −13.27±5.28, −1.06±0.45 mmol m−3 and −2.99±9.11 %, respectively. Under the low-emission, high-mitigation scenario SSP1-2.6, the corresponding global changes are +1.42±0.32 ∘C, −0.16±0.002, −6.36±2.92, −0.52±0.23 mmol m−3, and −0.56±4.12 %. Projected exposure of the marine ecosystem to these drivers of ocean change depends largely on the extent of future emissions, consistent with previous studies. The ESMs in CMIP6 generally project greater warming, acidification, deoxygenation, and nitrate reductions but lesser primary production declines than those from CMIP5 under comparable radiative forcing. The increased projected ocean warming results from a general increase in the climate sensitivity of CMIP6 models relative to those of CMIP5. This enhanced warming increases upper-ocean stratification in CMIP6 projections, which contributes to greater reductions in upper-ocean nitrate and subsurface oxygen ventilation. The greater surface acidification in CMIP6 is primarily a consequence of the SSPs having higher associated atmospheric CO2 concentrations than their RCP analogues for the same radiative forcing. We find no consistent reduction in inter-model uncertainties, and even an increase in net primary production inter-model uncertainties in CMIP6, as compared to CMIP5.»

Peter Harrison Howard & Derek Sylvan (2020) – Wisdom of the experts: Using survey responses to address positive and normative uncertainties in climate-economic models – Climatic Change doi:10.1007/s10584-020-02771-w – 07/07/2020 – Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law – «The social cost of carbon (SCC) and the climate-economic models underlying this prominent US climate policy instrument are heavily affected by modeler opinion and therefore may not reflect the views of most climate economists. To test whether differences exist, we recalibrate key uncertain model parameters using formal expert elicitation: a multi-question online survey of individuals who have published scholarship on the economics of climate change, with 165 to 216 respondents, depending on the question. Survey questions on the magnitude of climate impacts and appropriate discount rates revealed that prevailing views differ from prominent IAMs, including DICE. We calibrate the DICE damage functions and discount rates to reflect the mean and median survey responses, respectively, recognizing these two parameters’ differing sources of uncertainty (positive versus normative). We find a 16-fold higher SCC than the base DICE-2013R assumptions, with a range of 11- to 24-fold under alternative modeling assumptions (using the DICE-2016R2 model version and calibrating damages to median rather than mean responses). Our findings support a 7- to 13-fold SCC increase for different respondent subgroups even when we exclude the potential for catastrophic climate impact shocks. Our results reveal a significant disparity between IAMs and the broader community of scholars publishing in this field.»

Alexandra Witze (2020) – The Arctic is burning like never before — and that’s bad news for climate change – Natue doi:10.1038/d41586-020-02568-y – 10/07/2020 – https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02568-y – “Smith has calculated that about half of the Arctic wildfires in May and June were on peatlands — and that in many cases, the fires went on for days, suggesting that they were fuelled by thick layers of peat or other soil rich in organic matter. How peat could protect the planet And the August study1 found that there are nearly four million square kilometres of peatlands in northern latitudes. More of that than previously thought is frozen and shallow — and therefore vulnerable to thawing and drying out, says Gustaf Hugelius, a permafrost scientist at Stockholm University who led the investigation. He and his colleagues also found that although peatlands have been helping to cool the climate for thousands of years, by storing carbon as they accumulate, they will probably become a net source of carbon being released into the atmosphere — which could happen by the end of the century. Fire risk in Siberia is predicted to increase as the climate warms2, but by many measures, the shift has already arrived, says Amber Soja, an environmental scientist who studies Arctic fires at the US National Institute of Aerospace in Hampton, Virginia. “What you would expect is already happening,” she says. “And in some cases faster than we would have expected.” ”

Luke J. Harrington & Friederike E. L. Otto (2020) – Reconciling theory with the reality of African heatwaves – Nature Climate Change 10:796–798 doi:10.1038/s41558-020-0851-8 – 13/07/2020 – Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford – «Extreme weather damage databases report no significant heatwave impacts in sub-Saharan Africa since 1900, yet the region has experienced a number of heatwaves and will be affected disproportionately by them under climate change. Addressing this reporting discrepancy is crucial to assess the impacts of future extreme heat there.»

Bo Fu et al (2020) – Short-lived climate forcers have long-term climate impacts via the carbon–climate feedback – Nature Climate Change 10:851–855 doi:10.1038/s41558-020-0841-x – 13/07/2020 – Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University – 15 autores «Short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs) like methane, ozone and aerosols have a shorter atmospheric lifetime than CO2 and are often assumed to have a short-term effect on the climate system: should their emissions cease, so would their radiative forcing (RF). However, via their climate impact, SLCFs can affect carbon sinks and atmospheric CO2, causing additional climate change. Here, we use a compact Earth system model to attribute CO2 RF to direct CO2 emissions and to climate–carbon feedbacks since the pre-industrial era. We estimate the climate–carbon feedback contributed 93 ± 50 mW m−2 (~5%) to total RF of CO2 in 2010. Of this, SLCF impacts were −13 ± 50 mW m−2, made up of cooling (−115 ± 43 mW m−2) and warming (102 ± 26 mW m−2) terms that largely cancel. This study illustrates the long-term impact that short-lived species have on climate and indicates that past (and future) change in atmospheric CO2 cannot be attributed only to CO2 emissions.»

David Roberts – Many technologies needed to solve the climate crisis are nowhere near ready – Vox – 14/07/2020 – https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/7/14/21319678/climate-change-renewable-energy-technology-innovation-net-zero-emissions – “There are four basic stages that new technology goes through in the process of scaling up to mass-market significance. Quoting from the IEA report: 1. Prototype: A concept is developed into a design, and then into a prototype for a new device (e.g. a furnace that produces steel with pure hydrogen instead of coal). 2. Demonstration: The first examples of a new technology are introduced at the size of a full-scale commercial unit (e.g., a system that captures CO2 emissions from cement plants). 3. Early adoption: At this stage, there is still a cost and performance gap with established technologies, which policy attention must address (e.g., electric and hydrogen-powered cars). 4. Mature: As deployment progresses, the product moves into the mainstream as a common choice for new purchases (e.g., hydropower turbines). Because technology development is uncertain and difficult to predict, IEA has typically only used technologies from categories 3 and 4 in its models, which is one reason its scenarios have been seen as unduly conservative. ”

R B Jackson et al (2020) – Increasing anthropogenic methane emissions arise equally from agricultural and fossil fuel sources – Environmental Research Letters 15:071002 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ab9ed2 – 15/07/2020 – Department of Earth System Science, Woods Institute for the Environment + Precourt Institute for Energy, Stanford University – https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab9ed2/pdf – 10 autores «Global average methane concentrations in the atmosphere reached ~1875 parts per billion (ppb) at the end of 2019, more than two-and-a-half times preindustrial levels (Dlugokencky 2020). The largest methane sources include anthropogenic emissions from agriculture, waste, and the extraction and use of fossil fuels as well as natural emissions from wetlands, freshwater systems, and geological sources (Kirschke et al 2013, Saunois et al 2016a, Ganesan et al 2019). Here, we summarize new estimates of the global methane budget based on the analysis of Saunois et al (2020) for the year 2017, the last year of the new Global Methane Budget and the most recent year data are fully available. We compare these estimates to mean values for the reference ‘stabilization’ period of 2000–2006 when atmospheric CH4 concentrations were relatively stable. We present data for sources and sinks and provide insights for the geographical regions and economic sectors where emissions have changed the most over recent decades.»

German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research – Smaller habitats worse than expected for biodiversity – Phys,org – 29/07/2020 – https://phys.org/news/2020-07-smaller-habitats-worse-biodiversity.html – “The ongoing decline of global biodiversity has prompted policies to protect and restore habitats to minimize animal and plant extinctions. However, biodiversity forecasts used to inform these policies are usually based on assumptions of a simple theoretical model describing how the number of species changes with the amount of habitat. A new study published in the journal Nature shows that the application of this theoretical model underestimates how many species go locally extinct when habitats are lost. Scientists from the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ) used data from 123 studies from across the world to set the path for the next generation of biodiversity forecasts in the face of habitat loss and restoration. ”

Craig R. Smith et al (2020) – Deep-Sea Misconceptions Cause Underestimation of Seabed-Mining Impacts – Trends in Ecology & Evolution doi:10.1016/j.tree.2020.07.002 – 31/07/2020 – – 13 autores «Scientific misconceptions are likely leading to miscalculations of the environmental impacts of deep-seabed mining. These result from underestimating mining footprints relative to habitats targeted and poor understanding of the sensitivity, biodiversity, and dynamics of deep-sea ecosystems. Addressing these misconceptions and knowledge gaps is needed for effective management of deep-seabed mining.»

Maria-Vittoria Guarino et al (2020) – Sea-ice-free Arctic during the Last Interglacial supports fast future loss – Nature Climate Change doi:10.1038/s41558-020-0865-2 – 10/08/2020 – British Antarctic Survey – 13 autores «The Last Interglacial (LIG), a warmer period 130,000–116,000 years before present, is a potential analogue for future climate change. Stronger LIG summertime insolation at high northern latitudes drove Arctic land summer temperatures 4–5 °C higher than in the pre-industrial era. Climate model simulations have previously failed to capture these elevated temperatures, possibly because they were unable to correctly capture LIG sea-ice changes. Here, we show that the latest version of the fully coupled UK Hadley Center climate model (HadGEM3) simulates a more accurate Arctic LIG climate, including elevated temperatures. Improved model physics, including a sophisticated sea-ice melt-pond scheme, result in a complete simulated loss of Arctic sea ice in summer during the LIG, which has yet to be simulated in past generations of models. This ice-free Arctic yields a compelling solution to the long-standing puzzle of what drove LIG Arctic warmth and supports a fast retreat of future Arctic summer sea ice.»

– Arctic sea ice melting faster than forecast – AFP – 18/08/2020 – https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/sci-tech/arctic-sea-ice-melting-faster-than-forecast-1.5068773 – “Until now, climate models have predicted a slow and steady increase of Arctic temperatures, but a new study shows the warming is occurring at a more rapid pace. «We have been clearly underestimating the rate of temperature increases in the atmosphere nearest to the sea level, which has ultimately caused sea ice to disappear faster than we had anticipated,» said Jens Hesselbjerg Christensen, a University of Copenhagen professor and one of the researchers involved in the study, in a statement. Their findings, published in the journal Nature at the end of July, showed the unusually high temperatures currently being seen in the Arctic Ocean have only been observed during the previous ice age. Ice core analyses have revealed that temperatures over the Greenland ice sheet increased several times during that time, between 10 to 12 degrees, over a period of 40 to 100 years. ”

Adam Morton – Methane released in gas production means Australia’s emissions may be 10% higher than reported – The Guardian – 26/08/2020 – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/26/methane-released-in-gas-production-means-australias-emissions-may-be-10-higher-than-reported – «Australia’s greenhouse gas accounting underestimates national emissions by about 10%, largely due to a failure to properly recognise the impact of methane released during gas production, an analysis has found.»

Thomas Slater, Anna E. Hogg & Ruth Mottram )2020) – Ice-sheet losses track high-end sea-level rise projections – Nature Climate Change doi:10.1038/s41558-020-0893-y – 31/08/2020 – Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds – «Observed ice-sheet losses track the upper range of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report sea-level predictions, recently driven by ice dynamics in Antarctica and surface melting in Greenland. Ice-sheet models must account for short-term variability in the atmosphere, oceans and climate to accurately predict sea-level rise.»

Jennifer Chu – MIT Identifies Counteracting Effect: Antarctic Sea Ice May Not Cap Carbon Emissions As Much as Previously Thought – SciTech Daily – 01/10/2020 – Massachusetts Institute of Technology – https://scitechdaily.com/mit-identifies-counteracting-effect-antarctic-sea-ice-may-not-cap-carbon-emissions-as-much-as-previously-thought/ – “The Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica is a region where many of the world’s carbon-rich deep waters can rise back up to the surface. Scientists have thought that the vast swaths of sea ice around Antarctica can act as a lid for upwelling carbon, preventing the gas from breaking through the ocean’s surface and returning to the atmosphere. However, researchers at MIT have now identified a counteracting effect that suggests Antarctic sea ice may not be as powerful a control on the global carbon cycle as scientists had suspected. In a study published in the August issue of the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, the team has found that indeed, sea ice in the Southern Ocean can act as a physical barrier for upwelling carbon. But it can also act as a shade, blocking sunlight from reaching the surface ocean. Sunlight is essential for phytosynthesis, the process by which phytoplankton and other ocean microbes take up carbon from the atmosphere to grow. The researchers found that when sea ice blocks sunlight, biological activity — and the amount of carbon that microbes can sequester from the atmosphere — decreases significantly. And surprisingly, this shading effect is almost equal and opposite to that of sea ice’s capping effect. Taken together, both effects essentially cancel each other out. ”

David Spratt – Are Worst-Case Climate Scenarios Less Likely, as Media Reports of a New Scientific Paper Suggest? – Resilience – 28/07/2020 – Climate Code Red – https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-07-28/are-worst-case-climate-scenarios-less-likely-as-media-reports-of-a-new-scientific-paper-suggest/ – “What the IPCC reports failed to make clear is that the ECS measure omits key “slow” feedbacks that a rise in the planet’s temperature can trigger. These include the permafrost feedback and other changes in the carbon cycle which can release large amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, a decrease in the ocean’s carbon-sink efficiency, and the melting of polar ice sheets and hence changes in the Earth’s reflectivity. Climate sensitivity which includes these feedbacks — known as Earth System Sensitivity (ESS) — does not appear to be acknowledged in the 2014 IPCC report at all. Yet, there is a wide range of literature which suggest an ESS of 5–6°C, for example by the Geological Society and a lifetime of work by former NASA climate science chief James Hansen and his co-researchers, including “Climate sensitivity, sea level and atmospheric carbon dioxide”. ”

Rachael D’Amore – How fertilizer in farming is pushing climate change past ‘worst-case scenarios’ – Global News – 07/10/2020 – https://globalnews.ca/news/7378381/nitrous-oxide-climate-change-fertilizer/ – “By now we’re well aware of the effects of carbon dioxide — produced by cars, trucks and factories — and methane — much of which comes from cows in the beef and dairy industries. But it’s a third, less talked about gas that’s taking an increasing role: nitrous oxide (N2O). A new study, published Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature, sheds light on just how much. “The big conclusion was that nitrous oxide emissions are increasing at a rate that’s higher than the worst-case scenarios specific to that gas,” said Taylor Maavara, a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University’s School of the Environment and co-author on the study. “It’s pretty devastating.” ”

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¿Hasta qué punto es inminente el colapso de la civilización actual?
Por qué, probablemente, usted no se lo cree
Por qué sabemos que el CO2 de los combustibles fósiles es el causante del calentamiento global
Por qué no se debe debatir con la negacionía
¿Estamos a tiempo de evitar la disrupción climática? ¿Qué es lo que, realmente, habría que hacer?
Ellos lo sabían
La certeza matemática del 5º C del Titanic
El Problema de la Verdad Climática
¿Escépticos? ¿O negacionistas?
Niños: fumad y escalfaos, que así os ultraliberaréis
La ciencia, a la defensiva
Disciplinas científicas abrazadas por la ciencia del cambio climático
Las credenciales de Hill & Knowlton, la agencia de PR de la cumbre de Copenhague
‘El gran timo del calentamiento global’, el engaño más eficaz del negacionismo y su eco en Telemadrid
La corrección política en cambio climático: del negacionismo al optimismo de la voluntad
La soportable levedad de Anthony Giddens, o la importancia de la corbata
Uriarte: “El cambio climático es el gran engaño de comienzos de este siglo XXI”
El imperativo de encontrar respuestas adecuadas

La humanidad se encuentra frente a una de las mayores disyuntivas que cabe imaginar. El sistema climático terrestre parece haber sido definitivamente desestabilizado, mientras la inmensa mayoría de la población vive ajena a un fenómeno llamado a marcar nuestras vidas de forma determinante y abrumadora. Comunidad científica, medios de comunicación y clase política se encuentran aturdidos por el fenómeno y sin respuestas adecuadas a la magnitud del desafío. Cuando las élites fracasan, es la hora de la gente.
'If the people lead, the leaders will follow'
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Conferencias

Acción: Encuentra tu espacio en un mundo menguante - Asamblea General de Andalucía, Ecologistas en Acción - Córdoba, 26/09/2015/

¿Hasta qué punto es inminente el colapso de la civilización actual? - Curso de verano "Vivir (bien) con menos. Explorando las sociedades pospetroleo" - Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 02/09/2015

Más allá de los informes de IPCC - Curso de Postgrado - Universidad Camilo José Cela 18-19/06/2015/

The duties of Cassandra - International Climate Symposium CLIMATE-ES 2015 - Tortosa, 13/03/2015/

Fins a on es pot mantenir el creixement? - Invitat pel Club Rotary Badalona, 09/02/2015/

Les tres cares del canvi climàtic - La Calamanda, Biblioteca de Vinaròs, 25/03/2015

Hasta qué punto, y por qué, los informes del IPCC subestiman la gravedad del cambio climático - La Nau, Universitat de València, 18/11/2013/

Pseudociència i negacionisme climàtic: desmuntant els arguments fal·laciosos i els seus portadors - Facultat de Ciències Biològiques, Universitat de Barcelona, 22/05/2013

Canvi climàtic: el darrer límit – Jornades “Els límits del planeta” - Facultat de Ciències Biològiques, Universitat de Barcelona, 16/04/2013

El negacionisme climàtic organitzat: Estructura, finançament, influència i tentacles a Catalunya - Facultat de Ciències Geològiques, Universitat de Barcelona, 17/01/2013

El negacionisme climàtic organitzat: Estructura, finançament, influència i tentacles a Catalunya – Ateneu Barcelonès, 16/11/2012

Organització i comunicació del negacionisme climàtic a Catalunya – Reunió del Grup d’Experts en Canvi Climàtic de Catalunya – Monestir de les Avellanes, 29/06/2012

Cambio climático: ¿Cuánto es demasiado? + Análisis de puntos focales en comunicación del cambio climático – Jornadas Medios de Comunicación y Cambio Climático, Sevilla, 23/11/2012
El impacto emocional del cambio climático en las personas informadas - Centro Nacional de Educación Ambiental, Ministerio de Agricultura y Medio Ambiente, Valsaín (Segovia), 06/11/2012

Ètica econòmica, científica i periodística del canvi climàtic – Biblioteca Pública Arús, Barcelona, 19/09/2011
La comunicación del cambio climático en Internet – Centro Nacional de Educación Ambiental, Ministerio de Agricultura y Medio Ambiente, Valsaín (Segovia), 06/04/2011

El negacionismo de la crisis climática: historia y presente - Jornadas sobre Cambio Climático, Granada, 14/05/2010
Internet, la última esperanza del primer “Tipping point” – Centro Nacional de Educación Ambiental, Ministerio de Agricultura y Medio Ambiente, Valsaín (Segovia), 14/04/2010

Usted no se lo cree

Divulgación científica y comunicación sobre cambio climático y escasez energética: una visión multidisciplinar