Climate Apocalypse News and Science Updates

[Meatpie]

Niggers take refuge from the heat in Houston, Texas in June 2022.

Hi everyone in this thread you will find latest climate apocalypse updates. More and more scientists believe our current civilization cannot adapt to global warming over 2C so drastically lowering emissions by mid century is the only way to save ourselves from mass dying and possible extinction.

We begin with a quick summary of the current state of things with the climate from the Guardian.

Burning planet: why are the world’s heatwaves getting more intense?

In March, the north and south poles had record temperatures. In May in Delhi, it hit 49C. Last week in Madrid, 40C. Experts say the worst effects of the climate emergency cannot be avoided if emissions continue to rise

www.theguardian.com

 

[Meatpie]

Ttotal Climate Meltdown Cannot be Stopped, says Leading UK Expert​

Blistering heatwaves are just the start. We must accept how bad things are before we can head off global catastrophe, according to a leading UK scientist.

‘Soon it will be unrecognisable’: total climate meltdown cannot be stopped, says expert

Blistering heatwaves are just the start. We must accept how bad things are before we can head off global catastrophe, according to a leading UK scientist

www.theguardian.com

 

[Meatpie]

US Cities at risk of Middle Eastern Temperatures by 2100​

The climate crisis risks pushing many Americans into entirely new climatic realities, with a new analysis finding there are 16 US cities at risk of having summer temperatures on a par with locations in the Middle East by the end of the century.

Hotter than Dubai: US cities at risk of Middle Eastern temperatures by 2100

Unchecked global heating will bring once unthinkable heat extremes, with 16 US cities to rival summer highs seen in Middle East

www.theguardian.com

 

[Meatpie]

World Close to ‘Irreversible’ Climate Breakdown, Warn Major Studies​

The climate crisis has reached a “really bleak moment”, one of the world’s leading climate scientists has said, after a slew of major reports laid bare how close the planet is to catastrophe.

Collective action is needed by the world’s nations more now than at any point since the second world war to avoid climate tipping points, Prof Johan Rockström said, but geopolitical tensions are at a high.

He said the world was coming “very, very close to irreversible changes … time is really running out very, very fast”.

Emissions must fall by about half by 2030 to meet the internationally agreed target of 1.5C of heating but are still rising, the reports showed – at a time when oil giants are making astronomical amounts of money.

On Thursday, Shell and TotalEnergies both doubled their quarterly profits to about $10bn. Oil and gas giants have enjoyed soaring profits as post-Covid demand jumps and after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The sector is expected to amass $4tn in 2022, strengthening calls for heavy windfall taxes to address the cost of living crisis and fund the clean energy transition.

World close to ‘irreversible’ climate breakdown, warn major studies

Key UN reports published in last two days warn urgent and collective action needed – as oil firms report astronomical profits

www.theguardian.com

 

[Meatpie]

Past Eight Years were the Eight Hottest ever Recorded says UN report​

The past eight years were the eight hottest ever recorded, a new UN report has found, indicating the world is now deep into the climate crisis. The internationally agreed 1.5C limit for global heating is now “barely within reach”, it said.

The report, by the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO), sets out how record high greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are driving sea level and ice melting to new highs and supercharging extreme weather from Pakistan to Puerto Rico.


The stark assessment was published on the opening day of the UN’s Cop27 climate summit in Egypt and as the UN secretary-general warned that “our planet is on course to reach tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible”.

The WMO estimates that the global average temperature in 2022 will be about 1.15C above the pre-industrial average (1850-1900), meaning every year since 2016 has been one of the warmest on record.

Climate crisis: past eight years were the eight hottest ever, says UN

Report at Cop27 shows the world is now deep into the climate emergency, with the 1.5C heating limit ‘barely within reach’

www.theguardian.com

 

[Meatpie]

World has Nine years to Avert Catastrophic Warming, Study Shows​

Nations will likely burn through their remaining carbon budget in less than a decade if they do not significantly reduce greenhouse gas pollution, a new study shows, causing the world to blow past a critical warming threshold and triggering catastrophic climate impacts.

But new gas projects — launched in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting global energy crunch — would consume 10 percent of that remaining carbon budget, making it all but impossible for nations to meet the Paris agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, according to another report released Wednesday.

The Global Carbon Budget, an annual assessment of how much the world can afford to emit to stay within its warming targets, found that greenhouse gas pollution will hit a record high this year, with much of the growth coming from a 1 percent increase in carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. Emissions in both the United States and India have increased compared to last year, while China and the European Union will probably report small declines, according to the report.

To have a chance of keeping global temperature rise within 1.5 degrees Celsius, humanity can release no more than 380 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent over the coming decades — an amount equal to about nine years of current emissions, the report says. Avoiding warming beyond 1.5C will require the world to curb emissions by about 1.4 billion tons per year, comparable to how much emissions shrank in 2020 as a result of the economic slowdown from the coronavirus pandemic.

Yet even as scientists warn of the world’s dangerous trajectory, leaders here at the U.N. Climate Change Conference, known as COP27, have advocated for natural gas as a “transition fuel” that would ease the world’s switch from fossil energy to renewables. At least four new gas projects have been reported or announced in the past 10 days, with several African countries pledging to expand export capacity and supply more fuel to Europe. Representatives from both Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, the host of next year’s climate conference, have made clear they view COP27 as an opportunity to promote gas.

This rhetoric has alarmed scientists and activists who say expanding natural gas production could harm vulnerable communities and push the planet toward a hotter, hellish future.

“Gas is not a low carbon energy source,” said Julia Pongratz, a climate scientist at the University of Munich and an author of the Global Carbon Budget report released Friday.
Pongratz said it is still technically possible for the world to avoid temperature rise beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius — which scientists say is needed to avoid disastrous extreme weather, rampant hunger and disease and the collapse of ecosystems on which humanity depends.
But if fossil fuel use does not dramatically decline, “in a few years we will no longer be able to say it’s possible,” Pongraz said. “And then we would need to look back and say we could have done it and we didn’t. How do we explain that to our kids?”

Yet activists say they are also encouraged by other countries’ growing willingness to embrace a phaseout of fossil fuels. The Pacific island nation of Tuvalu this week joined Vanuatu in calling for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. Kenyan President William Ruto declared that his country would not develop its hydrocarbon deposits but instead invest only in clean energy. Norway’s state owned energy company on Thursday put a hold on plans to develop a new Arctic oil field.

The gas study by the research group Climate Action Tracker shows that planned projects would more than double the world’s current liquefied natural gas capacity, generating roughly 47 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent between now and 2050.
According to the Energy Information Administration, burning gas for energy emits about half as much carbon dioxide equivalent as burning coal. But liquefying natural gas for transport and other parts of the gas production process can lead to leaks of methane, an especially potent greenhouse gas.

The planned expansion goes beyond what is needed to replace interrupted Russian fuel supplies, the study said. And it runs counter to findings by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency that there can be no new gas, oil and coal development if humanity wants to prevent dangerous warming beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“The world seems to have overreached in its bid to respond to the energy crisis,” said climate scientist Bill Hare, founder of Climate Action Tracker partner organization Climate Analytics and an author of the report.
The only way for these projects to be compatible with the 1.5C target, Hare said, would be for them to close before the end of their useful lives, creating a risk of turning billion-dollar facilities into “stranded assets.”

Both reports stand in contrast to the way fossil fuels — especially natural gas — have been discussed at COP27.

Nations made history at last year’s conference when they agreed on the need to phase down coal and fossil fuels — the first time an explicit reference to the main drivers of warming was included in a COP decision text. On the sidelines of that conference, a group of more than 20 countries pledged to stop public investments in overseas fossil fuel projects by the end of this year. But now some of those same countries are backsliding amid a frantic hunt for alternatives to Russian gas.

This week United Arab Emirates president and upcoming COP host Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan told leaders that the UAE would continue providing oil and gas “for as long as the world is in need.” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called for a brief increase in fossil fuel production, saying “without energy security there is no energy transition.” Tanzanian energy minister January Makamba announced a $40 billion new LNG export project. And although German Chancellor Olaf Scholz publicly said “there must not be a worldwide renaissance of fossil fuels,” his country has also encouraged nations like Algeria and Senegal to expand their gas production.

Meanwhile, an analysis of conference attendees by the advocacy group Global Witness found a sharp rise in representatives of the fossil fuel industry since last year’s COP. Some 200 people connected to oil, gas and coal are included in country delegations, the group said on Thursday, and another 236 are here with trade groups and other nongovernmental organizations.

“I’m really worried,” said Lorraine Chiponda, an environmental justice activist from Zimbabwe who co-facilitates a coalition of advocacy groups called Don’t Gas Africa. “This is supposed to be a space to discuss climate solutions, but instead it’s being used to drive fossil fuels.”

African nations are among the most vulnerable to climate change, and can’t afford to build out new fossil fuel infrastructure that will continue to heat the planet, she said. Local communities have also suffered as gas projects displace residents and generate air pollution.


European leaders’ justification that new gas projects are a short term solution to an energy crisis rings hollow, Chiponda added, given that some 600 million people in Africa have no access to electricity.

“Is that not a crisis?” she asked.

Catherine Abreu, director of the nonprofit Destination Zero, which calls for an end to fossil fuel use, said the push for gas was intertwined with the other issue dominating discussions in Sharm el-Sheikh: developing countries’ demand for more financial support from wealthier nations as they cope with the consequences of climate change.

Developing nations’ push for a loss and damage fund, through which large emitters would pay for irreversible climate harms like Pakistan’s recent floods, faces an uphill battle amid skepticism from the United States and other industrialized countries.

Meanwhile, wealthy nations have still not fulfilled an overdue promise to provide $100 billion to help vulnerable areas reduce emissions and adapt to warming that’s already underway. According to Climate Action Tracker, which also rates countries’ climate finance pledges, every rich country’s funding promises are insufficient.


“There’s such an imperative on investment in this region, and the only kind of investment that is available is for oil and gas,” Abreu said.
That tension was evident at a meeting of African leaders Tuesday, where African Development Bank president Akinwumi Adesina declared that “Africa needs gas” to develop.

“We want to make sure we have access to electricity,” he said, as the room broke out in applause. “We don’t want to become the museum of poverty in the world.”
Pongratz, one of the Global Carbon Budget report authors, hoped the findings would inform negotiators as the high-stakes, highly technical portion of the climate conference begins.

“We have depicted the urgency of the problem,” she said. “No one has the excuse of not knowing these numbers.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/11/cop27-egypt-carbon-budget-gas-projects

 

[Meatpie]

World Can Still Avoid Worst of Climate Collapse with Genuine Change, IPCC Says in New Report​

Avoiding the worst ravages of climate breakdown is still possible, and there are “multiple, feasible and effective options” for doing so, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said.

Hoesung Lee, chair of the body, which is made up of the world’s leading climate scientists, made clear that – despite the widespread damage already being caused by extreme weather, and the looming threat of potentially catastrophic changes – the future was still humanity’s to shape.


“[The IPCC reports] clearly show that humanity has the knowhow and the technology to tackle human-induced climate change. But not only that. They show that we have the capacity to build a much more prosperous, inclusive and equitable society in this process.

World can still avoid worst of climate collapse with genuine change, IPCC says

Positive framing of otherwise grim report a counterblast to those who dismiss hopes of limiting global heating to 1.5C

www.theguardian.com

 

[Meatpie]

Humanity at the Climate Crossroads: Highway to Hell or a Livable Future?​

After a 10,000-year journey, human civilisation has reached a climate crossroads: what we do in the next few years will determine our fate for millennia.

Humanity at the climate crossroads: highway to hell or a livable future?

The choice in the new IPCC report is stark: what we do in the next few years will determine our fate for millennia

www.theguardian.com

 

[Meatpie]

The Climate Emergency is the Biggest Health Crisis of our Time – Bigger than Covid​

Climate emergency is the biggest health crisis of our time. Bigger than Covid | Pascal Soriot

As toll on public health and global economy rises, radical action is needed on greenhouse gas emissions

www.theguardian.com

 

[Meatpie]

Why Scientists are Now Ssing the Word 'Scary' over the Climate Crisis​

Cyclone Mocha: Women arrive at a makeshift shelter set up for residents of coastal areas, in Teknaf, near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh on Sunday, May 14, 2023.

Why scientists are using the word scary over the climate crisis

The former BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin has spent his career talking to scientists. Now they’re telling him they’re scared of what they’re seeing

www.theguardian.com

 

[Meatpie]

World Likely to Breach 1.5C Climate Threshold by 2027, Scientists Warn​

The world is almost certain to experience new record temperatures in the next five years, and temperatures are likely to rise by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, scientists have warned.

The breaching of the crucial 1.5C threshold, which scientists have warned could have dire consequences, should be only temporary, according to research from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).

However, it would represent a marked acceleration of human impacts on the global climate system, and send the world into “uncharted territory”, the UN agency warned.

World likely to breach 1.5C climate threshold by 2027, scientists warn

UN agency says El Niño and human-induced climate breakdown could combine to push temperatures into ‘uncharted territory’

www.theguardian.com

 

[Meatpie]

The Uncomfortable Reality of Life on Earth after we Breach 1.5°C​

Passing 1.5°C of global warming isn't just a political disaster, it will have dire consequences for us all, as those living on the front line already know.

The uncomfortable reality of life on Earth after we breach 1.5°C

Passing 1.5°C of global warming isn't just a political disaster, it will have dire consequences for us all, as those living on the front line already know

www.newscientist.com

THIS time next year, you may be living in the same house, driving the same car and doing the same job. But in one fundamental way, life on Earth could have shifted irrevocably. Spiking worldwide temperatures, boosted by a transition to an El Niño climate pattern, could make 2024 the year that global warming exceeds 1.5°C for the first time. It may not sound like much, but scientists warn it will be a totemic moment for the planet.
Undoubtedly, breaching 1.5°C is a sign of political failure. Just eight years ago, almost every nation agreed to a binding treaty promising to hold the global temperature rise to a maximum of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Blowing past that threshold so soon will bring huge political fallout and unleash reactionary forces that could turbocharge – or cripple – the climate movement. “All hell will break loose,” says Jochem Marotzke at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Germany. “That is something I’m very sure of.”

But beyond this discontent, there are many other impacts of crossing this threshold. It will have catastrophic consequences for people living in the hardest-hit parts of the world and bring even wilder, more unpredictable and extreme weather for all of us. If we can get the temperature back down, this period may pass. But if emissions keep climbing, the climate will become increasingly hellish. That much is clear if you consider the communities now living on the front line of climate change. Understanding their experience gives a glimpse into the future for all humanity. It might also motivate us to do more to try …
to reverse the damage.

The world has already warmed by 1.2°C since pre-industrial times, caused by rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. According to the World Meteorological Organisation, there is now a 66 per cent chance we will see a year with warming above 1.5°C by 2027. But scientists work on averages. A single year of this won’t count as an official breach of the 1.5°C goal set by the 2015 Paris Agreement. For that to occur, the global average warming must exceed that figure, on average, over a 20-year period. This means we will only know for sure if we have breached 1.5°C with hindsight. Nevertheless, Marotzke says it is set to happen within a decade, based on the existing warming baked into the climate system. “Pretty much no matter how the emissions evolve, we will cross or reach that 1.5°C line in the early to mid-2030s,” he says. In climate terms, he warns, that is “around the corner”.

In mild regions – northern Europe and much of the US, say – life beyond 1.5°C may not feel so different for most people. Heatwaves will be fiercer, droughts longer, wildfires more frequent and rainstorms heavier, but day-to-day life is likely to continue largely uninterrupted, at least initially. However, the story is different in regions where temperatures are climbing faster than the global average. For people living in those places, overshooting 1.5°C of global warming could be a matter of life or death.

The impact of climate change is already being felt keenly in the Arctic, which is heating up four times faster than the rest of the planet, the victim of a feedback loop that sees warming accelerate as the ice melts and solar reflection reduces. In the northern parts of Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada, average winter temperatures have increased by more than 1.5°C since the start of the 20th century. For the local Inuit populations, this is causing major disruption, says Ashlee Cunsolo at Memorial University, St John’s, Canada. In particular, the late and unstable formation of winter sea ice undermines traditional pursuits such as hunting, fishing and spending time in winter cabins. “When the ice forms, everything opens up. It’s everyone’s favourite time of the year, because you can drive everywhere,” says Cunsolo. “So when ice forms later and breaks up earlier, that takes away months of time that people have [to do that].”

Photographer Eldred Allen has lived his whole life in the Nunatsiavut region of Newfoundland and has seen the changes with his own eyes. “In the fall, you would get a long stretch of cold weather, you would get nice strong ice forming, and then winter sets in,” he says. “Now, it is not until probably mid-January that the body of water is frozen up enough that it is safe to cross. It is getting later and later to freeze up every year, and it is melting earlier every year as well.” The late freezing means Allen and his family are struggling to cross the frozen ocean to reach their winter cabin. Then, once they arrive, they worry that swings in temperature could cause the ice to thaw and crack. “It will be –20°C [-4°F] one day and 2°C [35.6°F] the next day,” he says. “Our kids are constantly hearing us talk about whether it’s going to be safe.” This isn’t an unfounded fear. Two years ago in January, a member of Allen’s community was travelling via snowmobile over the sea ice when his vehicle crashed through. The man survived, but everyone has been shaken by the incident. “There’s a lot of questioning in people’s minds: can we trust the years of knowledge that have been passed down to us about where it’s safe to travel, because things are just changing so much,” says Allen.

Throughout the Arctic, climate change is having a profound effect on the traditional culture and well-being of communities, according to Cunsolo. “You have people who, for hundreds of years, have relied on the cold and the snow for all aspects of culture, for language, for knowledge sharing, for connection to land and resources and for food security,” she says. “It’s a really deep, existential identity impact that the communities are experiencing.”

It may seem like a local problem, but the threat caused by melting ice will reverberate around the world. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), if Earth warms by 1.5°C, Arctic meltwater will push up global sea levels by between 0.26 and 0.77 metres by the end of the century. At 2°C of warming, an additional 10 centimetres of sea level rise can be expected, with negative consequences for 10 million people. The long-term threat is even more dramatic. For example, collapse of the Greenland ice sheet, which could be triggered by between 1.5°C and 2°C of warming, would cause a 7-metre rise in global sea levels.

Less dramatic rises are already having devastating effects in low-lying regions, including the tropical island nation of Vanuatu in the south Pacific. Esther Peter at the Vanuatu Meteorological and Geohazards Department says it is affecting access to water on the archipelago, by polluting freshwater wells with salt water. It is also damaging infrastructure. “[On the island of Efate] the sea is reaching the tar-sealed roads during high tides,” she says. Vanuatu’s solution is drastic. In December 2022, it announced plans to relocate “dozens” of villages over the next two years. “Climate displacement of populations is the main feature of our future,” the country’s climate change minister, Ralph Regenvanu, recently told the French news agency AFP. “We have to be ready for it and plan for it now.”

When 1.5°C has been breached, other low-lying nations and regions will increasingly face similar challenges. Vanuatu also provides a window on another problem set to become far worse for many of us: it is one of the countries most vulnerable to extreme weather events driven by climate change. In 2015, Cyclone Pam hit the archipelago. This category 5 cyclone brought gusts of wind exceeding 300 kilometres per hour and 4-metre-high tides that swept away entire villages. The storm destroyed household “gardens”, traditional allotments that most islanders rely on for growing fruit and vegetables, wiping out 90 per cent of the nation’s food crops. This was followed by a severe drought that lasted for months, exacerbating food and water shortages.

People in remote villages were pushed to near starvation, says Amy Savage, who studied the aftermath of the cyclone and drought and now works for the World Health Organization. “They were really, really badly affected by that drought,” she says. “There were three or four months [where some] people reported living on one food item, like manioc [cassava] or bananas – that is all they had to eat for months.” She warns that escalating climate change looks set to permanently change Vanuatu’s dietary culture. In the face of extreme storms and unpredictable growing seasons, families are increasingly abandoning home-grown produce in favour of imported food such as instant noodles. Such a shift brings with it an increased risk of conditions like obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. “I think we need to see climate change as less of an abstract concept and understand that real, individual people are being affected,” says Savage.

Beyond 1.5°C warming, those people won’t just be in remote locations. Increasingly, people in Western nations will start to feel the force of climate change as threats from flooding, drought and wildfires grow. Food security will become a pressing problem: in the UK, for example, MPs were already warning in 2017 that 20 per cent of the country’s fruit and vegetables are imported from countries where climate change poses a significant risk to crop yields. What’s more, Saleemul Huq at the International Centre for Climate Change and Development in Bangladesh believes many Western countries are far less prepared for warming beyond 1.5°C than nations on the front line.

For some communities, however, it is already a reality. In Australia, 80 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef has been hit by severe bleaching as a result of rising ocean temperatures. Right now, the reef tends to have a few years of breathing space between bleaching events, allowing some fast-growing coral species to partially recover. The bleaching events of 2016 and 2017 left parts of the reef “decimated”, according to Craig Stephen, who owns Mike Ball Dive Expeditions in Queensland, which runs diving trips for tourists. But, he adds, after two or three years of regrowth it looked “fantastic”. This seeming recovery is an illusion.

Bleaching events are happening more often, says Terry Hughes at James Cook University, Australia. “What used to be an unprecedented event is now becoming much more frequent and severe.” To make matters worse, the fastest-growing coral species – like staghorn and table corals – are also the most vulnerable to spikes in temperatures. “The mix of coral species is changing at breakneck speed,” says Hughes. “The reefs at 1.5°C of global average warming will be quite different from the reefs of today and the reefs of 30 years ago.” If warming reaches 2°C, coral reefs may cease to exist entirely, according to the IPCC. This would throw a thriving tourism industry into an existential crisis. “Certainly, for businesses like ours, we would have to adapt and change,” says Stephen. “There’s no ifs or buts about that.”

Coral die-off is just one of several “tipping points” we risk triggering by overshooting 1.5°C of warming. These are changes that can’t be undone, even if temperatures subsequently come back down. Top of the list, along with the demise of coral, are widespread thawing of permafrost and the collapse of Arctic ice sheets, including the Greenland one. It is very difficult for scientists to judge exactly when a tipping point has been breached – some may have been passed already. The argument for cutting emissions and slowing global temperature rise is about minimising the risk of passing these triggers (see “What’s in a number?”, left). “You don’t want to get into this unknown territory,” says Richard Betts at the UK’s Met Office. “If you can’t be certain, but the impacts are profound, then you want to avoid testing it.”

With the 1.5°C temperature goal slipping out of reach, this makes efforts to reverse the direction of climate change even more urgent. In the coming decades, technologies that suck excess carbon dioxide out of the environment promise to be big business – from machines that extract it from the air to solvents that “wash” it from ocean water. Pulling the temperature rise back down below 1.5°C will rely on getting these to work at scale. We will also need the world’s forests, peatlands and other carbon sinks working overtime to remove CO2. Yet, as the climate warms, there is a growing threat that these natural carbon stores start to collapse, warns Betts. Wildfires can wipe out forests, for example, and droughts can dry out wetlands, hampering their ability to lock away carbon.

How realistic is it, then, to expect we can wind back the climate clock after exceeding 1.5°C? It is “theoretically possible”, says Betts. “But the more we overshoot, the harder it will be to get back.”

 

[Meatpie]

Avoiding a ‘Ghastly Future’: Hard Truths on the State of the Planet​

A group of the world’s top ecologists have issued a stark warning about the snowballing crisis caused by climate change, population growth, and unchecked development. Their assessment is grim, but big-picture societal changes on a global scale can still avert a disastrous future.

Avoiding a 'Ghastly Future': Hard Truths on the State of the Planet

A group of the world’s top ecologists have issued a stark warning about the snowballing crisis caused by climate change, population growth, and unchecked development. Their assessment is grim, but big-picture societal changes on a global scale can still avert a disastrous future.

e360.yale.edu

​

 

[Meatpie]

El Niño May Break a Record and Reshape Weather around the Globe​

Seven years ago an exceptionally strong El Niño took hold in the Pacific Ocean, triggering a cascade of damaging changes to the world’s weather. Indonesia was plunged into a deep drought that fueled exceptional wildfires, while heavy rains inundated villages and farmers’ fields in parts of the Horn of Africa. The event also helped make 2016 the planet’s hottest year on record.

Now El Niño is back. The odds are decent that this one will be another strong event, raising concerns of extreme weather in the coming months. And a strong El Niño is very likely to set another global heat record.

El Niño May Break a Record and Reshape Weather around the Globe

El Niño has arrived, bringing potentially major effects on weather around the world, such as drought and flooding, and possibly setting a new record for the hottest year

www.scientificamerican.com

 

[Meatpie]

Dramatic Climate Action Needed to Curtail ‘Crazy’ Extreme Weather​

The “crazy” extreme weather rampaging around the globe in 2023 will become the norm within a decade without dramatic climate action, the world’s leading climate scientists have said.

The heatwaves, wildfires and floods experienced today were just the “tip of the iceberg” compared with even worse effects to come, they said, with limitations in climate models leaving the world “flying partially blind” into the future.

With fears that humanity’s relentless carbon emissions have finally pushed the climate crisis into a new and accelerating phase of destruction, the Guardian sought the expert assessments of more than 40 scientists from around the world.

Dramatic climate action needed to curtail ‘crazy’ extreme weather

Heatwaves, wildfires and floods are just the ‘tip of the iceberg’, leading climate scientists say

www.theguardian.com

 

[Meatpie]

UN Warns World will Miss Climate Targets unless Fossil Fuels Phased out​

Gvernments are failing to cut greenhouse gas emissions fast enough to meet the goals of the Paris agreement and to stave off climate disaster, a major report by the UN has found.

Meeting the goals will require “phasing out all unabated fossil fuels”, the report says, in an acknowledgment that some oil-producing countries may find hard to take.

The need to phase out fossil fuels has not been explicitly adopted by the UN before, under successive rounds of climate talks, and language over “phasing out” or “phasing down” fossil fuels has caused controversy at the annual UN climate talks.

There is a “rapidly narrowing window” for governments to move faster, according to the report, as global greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2025 at the latest, and be rapidly reduced from there, to limit temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

Emissions are still rising, however, and there is a gap of 20 to 23 gigatonnes of CO2 between the cuts needed by 2030 to limit global temperatures to 1.5C and the world’s current emissions trajectory.

‘A critical moment’: UN warns world will miss climate targets unless fossil fuels phased out

Governments failing to cut emissions fast enough to meet Paris agreement goals and avoid disaster, major report says

www.theguardian.com

 

[Meatpie]

Rapid ice Melt in west Antarctica now Inevitable, Research Shows​

Rapid ice melt in west Antarctica now inevitable, research shows

Sea level will be driven up no matter how much carbon emissions are cut, putting coastal cities in danger

www.theguardian.com

Accelerated ice melt in west Antarctica is inevitable for the rest of the century no matter how much carbon emissions are cut, research indicates. The implications for sea level rise are “dire”, scientists say, and mean some coastal cities may have to be abandoned.

The ice sheet of west Antarctica would push up the oceans by 5 metres if lost completely. Previous studies have suggested it is doomed to collapse over the course of centuries, but the new study shows that even drastic emissions cuts in the coming decades will not slow the melting.

The analysis shows the rate of melting of the floating ice shelves in the Amundsen Sea will be three times faster this century compared with the previous century, even if the world meets the most ambitious Paris agreement target of keeping global heating below 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

Losing the floating ice shelves means the glacial ice sheets on land are freed to slide more rapidly into the ocean. Many millions of people live in coastal cities that are vulnerable to sea level rise, from New York to Mumbai to Shanghai, and more than a third of the global population lives within 62 miles (100km) of the coast.

 

[johnnyriot]

gives all of us on this forum more of a reason to snuff people for real and make this world yours...that is whilst it is still here

 

[Meatpie]

Carbon emissions budget is now tiny, scientists say​

Climate crisis: carbon emissions budget is now tiny, scientists say

Having good chance of limiting global heating to 1.5C is gone, sending ‘dire’ message about the adequacy of climate action

www.theguardian.com

The carbon budget remaining to limit the climate crisis to 1.5C of global heating is now “tiny”, according to an analysis, sending a “dire” message about the adequacy of climate action.

The carbon budget is the maximum amount of carbon emissions that can be released while restricting global temperature rise to the limits of the Paris agreement. The new figure is half the size of the budget estimated in 2020 and would be exhausted in six years at current levels of emissions.


Temperature records have been obliterated in 2023, with extreme weather supercharged by global heating hitting lives and livelihoods across the world. At the imminent UN Cop28 climate summit in the United Arab Emirates there are likely to be disputes over calls for a phaseout of fossil fuels.

 

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World Facing ‘Hellish’ 3C of Climate Heating, UN Warns Before Cop28​

The world is on track for a “hellish” 3C of global heating, the UN has warned before the crucial Cop28 climate summit that begins next week in the United Arab Emirates.

The report found that today’s carbon-cutting policies are so inadequate that 3C of heating would be reached this century.

World facing ‘hellish’ 3C of climate heating, UN warns before Cop28

‘We must start setting records on cutting emissions,’ UN boss says after temperature records obliterated in 2023

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