“We face a stark choice [between] radical, disruptive changes to our physical world or radical, disruptive changes to our political and economic systems to avoid those outcomes.”

As people across the globe mobilize to demand bold action to combat the climate crisis and scientific findings about looming “environmental breakdown” pile up, a startling new study published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience warns that human-caused global warming could cause stratocumulus clouds to totally disappear in as little as a century, triggering up to 8°C (14°F) of additional warming.

Stratocumulus clouds cover about two-thirds of the Earth and help keep it cool by reflecting solar radiation back to space. Recent research has suggested that planetary warming correlates with greater cloud loss, stoking fears about a feedback loop that could spell disaster.

For this study, researchers at the California Institute of Technology used a supercomputer simulation to explore what could lead these low-lying, lumpy clouds to vanish completely. As science journalist Natalie Wolchover laid out in a lengthy piece for Quanta Magazine titled “A World Without Clouds“:

The simulation revealed a tipping point: a level of warming at which stratocumulus clouds break up altogether. The disappearance occurs when the concentration of CO₂ in the simulated atmosphere reaches 1,200 parts per million [ppm]—a level that fossil fuel burning could push us past in about a century, under “business-as-usual” emissions scenarios. In the simulation, when the tipping point is breached, Earth’s temperature soars 8 degrees Celsius, in addition to the 4 degrees of warming or more caused by the CO₂ directly…

To imagine 12 degrees of warming, think of crocodiles swimming in the Arctic and of the scorched, mostly lifeless equatorial regions during the [Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum or PETM]. If carbon emissions aren’t curbed quickly enough and the tipping point is breached, “that would be truly devastating climate change,” said Caltech’s Tapio Schneider, who performed the new simulation with Colleen Kaul and Kyle Pressel.

Quanta Magazine also broke down the study’s key findings in a short video shared on social media: https://www.quantamagazine.org/cloud-loss-could-add-8-degrees-to-global-warming-20190225/

The study elicited alarm from climate campaigners along with calls for the “radical, disruptive changes” to society’s energy and economic systems that scientists and experts have repeatedly said are necessary to prevent climate catastrophe:

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the amount of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere has surged from about 280 ppm to more than 410 ppm today. Although concentrations will continue to rise as long as the international community maintains unsustainable activities that generate greenhouse gas emissions, some observers pointed out that atmospheric carbon hitting 1,200 ppm is far from a foregone conclusion.

However, as Washington Post climate reporter Chris Mooney concluded in a series of tweets, “the point is not that this scary scenario is going to happen. Given the current trajectory of climate policy and renewables, it seems unlikely. Rather, the key point—and it’s a big deal—is that there are many things we don’t understand about the climate system and there could be key triggers out there, which set off processes that you can’t easily stop.”

In other words, as MIT professor Thomas Levenson put it: “The really terrifying aspect of this research is the reminder that we do not yet know all the ways catastrophic outcomes can emerge from this uncontrolled experiment on our only habitat.”

This work is licensed by Common Dreams under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

“The most robust study of the ice mass balance of Antarctica to date,” scientists say, “now puts Antarctica in the frame as one of the largest contributors to sea-level rise.”

Antarctica is a continental land mass 98 percent covered by thick ice sheets. It contains 70 percent of Earth’s fresh water and 90 perecent of Earth’s ice. The average ice thickness is 1.5 miles, reaching three miles deep in some regions. Image: NASA

Scientists are expressing alarm over “utterly terrifying” new findings from NASA and the European Space Agency that Antarctica has lost about 3 trillion tons of ice since 1992, and in the past five years—as the atmospheric and ocean temperatures have continued to climb amid ongoing reliance on fossil fuels—ice losses have tripled.

This should be a wake-up call, said University of Leeds professor Andrew Shepherd, a lead author of the report. “These events and the sea-level rise they’ve triggered are an indicator of climate change and should be of concern for the governments we trust to protect our coastal cities and communities.”

Published in the journal Nature, “This is the most robust study of the ice mass balance of Antarctica to date,” said NASA’s Erik Ivins, who co-led the research team. The report offers insight into the future of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, which the authors note “is an important indicator of climate change and driver of sea-level rise.”

“The outlook for the future is looking different to what it was,” explained Shepherd. “There has been a sharp increase, with almost half the loss coming in the last five years alone.”

Up until 2012, “we could not detect any acceleration,” but after that, based on surveys by satellites, they saw a threefold increase in the rate of ice melt. “That’s a big jump, and it did catch us all by surprise,” Shepherd said. “A threefold increase now puts Antarctica in the frame as one of the largest contributors to sea-level rise. The last time we looked at the polar ice sheets, Greenland was the dominant contributor. That’s no longer the case.”

About decade ago, as New Scientist noted, “the official view was that there would be no net ice loss from Antarctica over the next century.”

Even so, Dr. James Hansen, “the father of modern climate change awareness,” warned at the time, “The primary issue is whether global warming will reach a level such that ice sheets begin to disintegrate in a rapid, non-linear fashion on West Antarctica, Greenland or both.”

“Once well under way, such a collapse might be impossible to stop, because there are multiple positive feedbacks,” Hansen wrote for New Scientist in 2007. “In that event, a sea level rise of several meter at least would be expected.”

Fears of so-called feedback loops have long been a critical part of the scientific community’s warnings about what runaway climate change could mean.

According to the report out this week—which was conducted by 84 researchers across 44 institutions—and others that have preceded it, the most serious melting is occuring in West Antarctica. “When we look into the ocean we find that it’s too warm and the ice sheet can’t withstand the temperatures that are surrounding it in the sea,” which is causing glaciers to melt more rapidly into the oceans, Shepherd explained.

East Antarctica, meanwhile, has experienced far less melting because the bulk of its ice is above sea level, he added. That is “an important distinction, because it means it’s insulated from changes in the ocean’s temperature.”

“I think we should be worried. That doesn’t mean we should be desperate,” University of California Irvine’s Isabella Velicogna, one of 88 co-authors,” told the Associated Press. “Things are happening. They are happening faster than we expected.”

“This is extremely concerning news and confirms what we already know about the impacts of burning fossil fuels: our climate is at a dangerous tipping point that is putting the communities of low-lying islands and our coasts at great risk,” said Hoda Baraka, 350.org’s global communications director.

“This is why tens of thousands of people around the world will join the Rise for Climate mobilization on and around the 8th September—to drive climate action within our communities,” Bakara added, “and send a clear message to governments that the science is clear, we have the momentum, the technology for the energy transition is ready and we demand bold action now.”

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

A new study finds human-caused global warming is significantly increasing the rate at which hot temperature records are being broken around the world.

Global annual temperature records show there were 17 record hot years from 1861 to 2005. The new study examines whether these temperature records are being broken more often and if so, whether human-caused global warming is to blame.

The results show human influence has greatly increased the likelihood of record-breaking hot years occurring on a global scale. Without human-caused climate change, there should only have been an average of seven record hot years from 1861 to 2005, not 17. Further, human-caused climate change at least doubled the odds of having a record-breaking hot year from 1926 to 1945 and from 1967 onwards, according to the new study.

The study also projects that if greenhouse gas emissions remain high, the chance of seeing new global temperature records will continue to increase. By 2100, every other year will be a record breaker, on average, according to the new study accepted for publication in Earth’s Future, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

The new findings show how climate change is visibly influencing Earth’s temperature, said Andrew King, a climate extremes research fellow at the University of Melbourne in Australia and lead author of the new study.

“We can now specifically say climate change is increasing the chance of observing a new temperature record each year,” he said. “It’s important to point out we shouldn’t be seeing these records if human activity weren’t contributing to global warming.”

The study strengthens the link between human activity and recent temperature trends, according to Michael Mann, a climatologist and director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, who was not involved with the new research.

“This work builds on previous research establishing that, without a doubt, the record warmth we are seeing cannot be explained without accounting for the impact of human activity on the warming of the planet,” Mann said.

Record-Breaking Heat

Record hot years have been occurring more frequently in recent decades. 2014 was the hottest year on record since 1880, but that record was quickly broken in 2015 and again in 2016. Research published earlier this year in Geophysical Research Letters found these three consecutive records in global temperatures were very likely due to anthropogenic warming.

Record-breaking temperatures tend to attract attention because they are one of the most visible signs of global warming. As a result, understanding how and why the rate of record-breaking is changing is critical for communicating the effects of climate change to the public, King said.

Previous research examined changes in rates of record-breaking temperatures in specific countries or regions. However, these studies couldn’t analyze global temperature trends because they relied on gathering large numbers of daily temperature records from different sources, according to King. Additionally, they didn’t directly attribute changes in record-breaking to human activity.

In the new study, King developed a method to isolate the human role in changing rates of record-breaking temperatures globally. Unlike previous studies, the method uses a single source of temperature data, in this case global annual temperatures, allowing King to study temperature records on a global scale.

King first looked at global temperature data from 1861 to 2005 and identified which years were hot record breakers. He then used a wide array of climate models to simulate global temperatures in this period. Some of the models included only natural influences on the climate such as volcanic eruptions, while other models featured both natural influences and human influences such as greenhouse gas emissions and the release of aerosols into the atmosphere.

King found only the climate models that included human influences had the same number of record-breaking hot years as historical temperature records—15 to 21, on average. The models without human influences only had an average of seven record-breaking hot years from 1861 to 2005.

He also determined human-caused climate change at least doubled the odds of having a record-breaking hot year from 1926 to 1945 and from 1967 onwards. The odds didn’t increase from 1945 to 1967 because man-made aerosol emissions generated a cooling effect, which counteracted warming due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases.

King’s research can also be applied to quantify the influence of human activities on a specific record-setting event. He applied his method to record-setting hot global temperatures in 2016 and record-setting hot local temperatures in central England in 2014. He found human influence led to a 29-fold increase in the likelihood of seeing both new records compared to a situation with no human influence on climate.

While it’s true that Earth’s temperatures and carbon dioxide levels have always fluctuated, the reality is that humans’ greenhouse emissions since the industrial revolution have put us in uncharted territory.

Written by Dr Benjamin Henley and Assoc Prof Nerilie Abrams.
Animated and edited by Wes Mountain for The Conversation.
Music: Kevin Macleod – Faster Does It

Seeing terms like “post-truth” and “alternative facts” gain traction in the news convinces me that politicians, media workers and readers could benefit from a refresher course in how science helps us understand the world. Reporting on science is difficult at the best of times. Trying to communicate complex ideas and distil entire studies into eye-catching headlines and brief stories can open the door to misinformation and limited understanding.

The new NASA global data set combines historical measurements with data from climate simulations using the best available computer models to provide forecasts of how global temperature (shown here) and precipitation might change up to 2100 under different greenhouse gas emissions scenarios.
Image: NASA

Recent headlines about a climate study, “Shifting patterns of mild weather in response to projected radiative forcing”, in the February 2017 issue of Climatic Change illustrate the predicament. Some news outlets implied the study showed countries such as Canada and the U.K. would benefit from increasingly frequent “mild weather days” brought on by climate change. Many failed to convey the true take-home message: Climate change will have devastating consequences for human civilization.

Just ask the study’s author, Karin van der Wiel, research scientist at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute. She studied the frequency of mild weather days as a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. She found a few countries, mostly in the mid-latitudes, will experience slightly more frequent mild weather — defined as days between 18 and 30 C with less than one millimetre of rain and dew point temperature not exceeding 20 C. But that’s not the whole story.

“The climate is changing in many places over the world and these changes are ongoing now,” Van der Wiel said in an email. “Globally, mild weather is decreasing and in many locations summers are going to be increasingly too hot and too humid to be considered mild. These are not desirable changes.”

Van der Wiel chose to examine climate change and mild weather rather than extreme events such as floods, wildfires and drought to make it easier for people to relate to the issue and inspire them to learn more.

“I am happy the research was picked up so widely; that way more people hopefully will learn that climate is changing the weather near them and in the coming decades,” she said, adding, “mild weather is not the only important thing in climate change, and therefore the other, more alarming, aspects of climate change should not be forgotten.”

Van der Wiel points out that mild weather isn’t necessarily good, as it can also create negative conditions.

“If there are projected changes in mild weather, that means there are changes in temperature, precipitation and/or humidity,” she said, noting that although mild weather could create more opportunities for things such as outdoor recreation, it could also have negative consequences like changing snowmelt patterns and threatening water resources.

Mild weather at the wrong time and place can be disastrous. The wildfire that devastated Fort McMurray last year reached city limits on a mild weather day, with an average temperature of 22.1 C and no precipitation, after several weeks of unseasonably warm and dry weather.

“Mild weather is not good for everything,” Van der Wiel wrote. “If you like skiing, increasing mild weather is bad. We haven’t investigated the coincidence of wild fires with mild weather, but such a link might exist and would indicate again that climate change is something the global community should try to mitigate as much as possible.”

This research is an important piece of emerging narrative about the impacts of climate change, but we must consider it in the context of all the work on climate. Prior to her work on mild weather, Van der Wiel studied extreme precipitation and flooding in the U.S. She has since moved to a project investigating climatic conditions that could negatively affect agriculture, to determine if it’s possible to warn farmers and communities in advance of bad crop years.

Science is the most useful tool we have to adapt to climate change and avoid its worst outcomes. But it requires critical thinking and a big-picture perspective to ensure we consider all available evidence. With so many people scrolling through social media feeds for news rather than reading entire articles, facts and clarity can become elusive. It’s up to us all — media and consumers alike — to dig deeper for the full story.

By David Suzuki with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Climate Change and Energy Policy Analyst Steve Kux.

Published with permission from The David Suzuki Foundation.

New York City from Central Park – Photo: Annetta Hoagland

Climate change is causing glaciers to shrink, temperatures to rise, and shifts in human migration in parts of the world, according to a Penn State researcher.

Brian Thiede, assistant professor of rural sociology, along with researchers from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and the International Food Policy Research Institute, examined the effects of climate change on human migration in South America, and found that abnormally high and low temperatures increased migration, with especially strong effects on moves to urban areas. The findings were published recently in the journal Global Environmental Change.

The researchers analyzed over 21 million census records of working-age adults from eight South American countries over almost four decades. ““There have recently been a number of high-quality studies of climate impacts on migration, but they tend to be narrow in geographic scope,” said Thiede. “This is one of the first studies to examine the link between climate change and migration using harmonized data from multiple countries over a long period of time.”

The researchers linked census data with historical rainfall and temperature data so they could draw conclusions about the effects of climate change on migration. “We found that changes in temperature had greater effects on migration than changes in rainfall, and that exposure to both extremely high and extremely low temperatures increased the likelihood of migration,” Thiede explained. “The effect of extreme temperatures was most consistent on movement to urban, rather than rural places. Each month of higher than normal temperatures led to an over three percent increase in migration to urban areas, whereas each month of lower than normal temperatures led to an almost ten percent increase in urban areas.”

Thiede and his team also discovered how factors such as age, gender, and educational attainment affect migration trends. They found that migration rates among certain groups, such as women and adults with low education levels, were more sensitive to gradual changes in climate than others. “One speculative explanation is that these groups tend to work in more flexible and vulnerable occupations that tie them to particular places less than other groups,” said Thiede.

The findings are important because changes in human migration patterns are expected to be one of the major social impacts of climate change. “The study highlights overarching trends in the movement of South Americans in the face of a changing climate — and those movements are often across provinces to urban centers,” Theide explained. “This process raises a set of challenges, particularly for the migrants coming from rural areas who need to adapt to urban life, as well as for the communities they settle in.”

The work also gives policy makers a clearer picture of migration trends. In the future, Theide plans to continue to combine demographic and climate data to examine how climate change affects migration in other areas, as well as other outcomes, such as nutrition and food security.

This work was funded by the Louisiana Board of Regents Support Fund and received support from Penn State’s Population Research Institute, part of the Social Science Research Institute.

In an era of increasing energy prices, many Americans insulate and seal up their homes during the winter months. Although this can result in savings on the monthly power bill, sealing the home can concentrate indoor air pollutants and cause various health problems.

Photo: Luis Fernande Garcia, Wikimedia Commons

“Making a building airtight limits the exchange of fresh air,” explains University of Illinois Extension educator, Chris Enroth.

Volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, are present in many of our modern-day home furnishings and are a major source of indoor air pollution. Benzene is an example of a VOC and is among the top 20 most widely used chemicals in the U.S. Benzene is present in many types of products such as ink, oils, paints, plastics, rubber, detergent, dyes, and more. Homes with gas ranges or an attached garage typically have higher levels of benzene, as it is present in gasoline and vehicle exhaust.

Humans are another major contributor to indoor air pollution. “Think about the cabin of a passenger plane,” Enroth explains. “We exhale the gas carbon dioxide, shed skin cells and hair, sneeze, cough, and so on. When we are outside, humans integrate into a complex web of life that manages these by-products. Seal a bunch of people up in a small artificial space, and you need some serious ventilation.”

Air filters can remove the majority of pollutants, but it is tough to rid a home of trace VOC elements. That’s where indoor plants come in. Several studies have shown that many indoor plants have an ability to filter out VOCs and other air pollutants.

Enroth adds, “It is believed that most of these air pollutants are filtered out as part of the plant’s photosynthesis activities. The air cleansing process is ongoing, so long as the plant is growing and healthy.”

An ongoing study examined five common houseplants and their efficiency at extracting VOCs from the air. It was found that dracaena was the most effective houseplant at absorbing acetone, a commonly used VOC found in products like nail polish remover. However, bromeliads performed best in the removal of six of the eight VOCs tested in the study.

Dracaena reflexa, Photo: Kenpei, Wikimedia Commons

Despite these results, other researchers are casting doubt on the effectiveness of indoor plants in removing pollutants. Earlier research on indoor plants involved small sealed chambers. Critics point out that when these studies are scaled up to the size of an average 1,500-square foot home, it would take 680 plants to clean the air.

Another problem is the amount of VOCs indoor plants are exposed to in a home or office. In one study, it was found that some homes contained up to 180 different airborne compounds. These chemicals are present in various concentrations and mix and interact in a nearly infinite number of ways, but most of the published research focuses on about a dozen different VOCs.

Does this mean you should toss your pothos in the compost?

“Of course not,” Enroth says. “Houseplants have routinely been proven to improve our psychological well-being. Those living or working in buildings like hospitals, extended care facilities, offices, and single- or multi-family buildings report better productivity, learning, and reduced anxiety and depression when indoor plants are present.

“What’s needed is more research on the effects of houseplants in homes and workplaces,” Enroth explains. “We know indoor plants assist in air cleansing; we just don’t know to what extent. Until that research becomes published, all gardeners agree: the world is a better place with more plants. So keep your rubber tree, spider plant, and dracaena. In fact, consider adding more indoor plants to your living and work environments.”

Bromeliads, Public Domain Pictures

News Source: Chris Enroth, 309-837-3939
News Writer: University of Illinois Extension

NASA Guide to Air-Filtering Houseplants

Before the Flood will appear in theaters in NYC and LA starting October 21, and air globally on the National Geographic Channel starting October 30.

Leonardo DiCaprio, President Barack Obama and Texas Tech University climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe discuss climate change, prior to a premier screening of “Before the Flood”.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today launched a new online portal that will provide local leaders in the nation’s 40,000 communities with information and tools to increase resilience to climate change. Using a self-guided format, the Adaptation Resource Center (ARC-X) provides users with information tailored specifically to their needs, based on where they live and the particular issues of concern to them.

Recent statistics from the Office of Management and Budget show the federal government has incurred more than $357 billion in direct costs due to extreme weather and fire alone over the last 10 years. Climate change is also expected to pose significant financial and infrastructural challenges to communities in coming decades. EPA designed ARC-X to help all local government official address these challenges – from those with extensive experience and expertise dealing with the impacts of climate change, to those working in underserved communities who are just beginning to meet those challenges.

“From floods and droughts to dangerous heat islands and other public health effects, communities are facing the very real impacts of climate change,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. “ARC-X is a powerful new tool that can help local governments continue to deliver reliable, cost-effective services even as the climate changes.”

Building on climate adaptation training for local governments EPA launched last year, ARC-X provides another important resource for building climate resiliency.  The system guides users through all steps of an adaptation process, providing information on the implications of climate change for particular regions and issues of concern; adaptation strategies that can be implemented to address the risks posed by climate change; case studies that illustrate how other communities with similar concerns have already successfully adapted, along with instructions on how to replicate their efforts; potential EPA tools to help implement the adaptation strategies; and sources of funding and technical assistance from EPA and other federal agencies.

To access ARC-X: www.epa.gov/ARC-X

For climate adaptation training: www.epa.gov/communityhealth/local-government-climate-adaptation-training

In July, Solar Impulse 2 became the first airplane to fly around the world without using fuel. At the same time, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration has been working on electric planes. These developments mean air travel and transport could become more environmentally friendly, with less pollution and fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and planes would be quieter.

As promising as solar and electric planes may be, these technologies still have a way to go and won’t likely usher in a new era of airline travel soon. That’s unfortunate, because aircraft are major sources of pollution and climate-altering greenhouse gases, contributing the same amount of emissions as Germany, about two per cent of the global total. As air transport becomes increasingly popular, experts project aircraft emissions could triple by 2050.

Analysis by U.K.-based Carbon Brief found that, under business as usual, a growing commercial aviation industry could contribute 27 per cent of allowable emissions between 2015 and 2050 if the world is to meet the 2015 Paris Agreement’s aspirational 1.5 C target for global average temperature increase — and that other factors, such as nitrogen oxide and water vapour emissions and contrails, could exacerbate climate impacts.

Air travel is also an area where there’s a huge discrepancy between those who benefit and those who suffer. The wealthiest three to five per cent of the world’s population are the biggest users of international aviation, while the impacts of climate change fall disproportionately on the world’s poorest.

Despite their emissions, airplanes haven’t been included in climate change accords like the Paris Agreement. That’s changing: A new deal to impose limits on aircraft emissions will be considered for approval at the UN International Civil Aviation Organization assembly in Montreal from September 27 to October 7. Many fear the proposed agreement doesn’t go far enough.

Earlier this year, ICAO’s technical committee agreed on efficiency standards for new aircraft. Although improving each new plane’s efficiency will help slow growth in aviation’s carbon pollution, the numbers of new planes taking to the skies means overall emissions will skyrocket without other measures. In 2013, ICAO committed to agree, by the time of the upcoming 2016 assembly, on a market-based measure to keep net emissions from international flights from rising above 2020 levels.

This pledge means all but the least emitting countries would require their airlines to stabilize emissions at 2020 levels. Airlines that exceed the cap would have to buy offsetting emission reductions from companies that cut their carbon pollution below it. That framework is on the table for the assembly, but it’s been watered down significantly. Any country can opt in or out of the system until 2027, and targets until then are voluntary. That creates uncertainty over whether countries like China will join.

If ICAO’s 191 member nations fail to reach a strong aviation agreement in Montreal, it could undermine the world’s ability to meet the Paris Agreement’s climate goals. In the absence of a robust international agreement on aviation carbon pollution, ICAO member nations would be left to implement their own policies, which could result in an ineffective, piecemeal approach.

The non-profit civil society member organizations of the International Coalition for Sustainable Aviation are urging ICAO to enact a “climate deal which meets the 2020 goal, has the widest possible participation, has environmental and social safeguards for the offsets and alternative fuel used and increases ambition in line with the requirements of the Paris Agreement.”

Although the greater stability international agreements would provide over scattered domestic policies and regulations means the aviation industry is mostly on-board, governments have been reluctant to sign on to strong measures.

It’s time for industry and governments to take much-needed steps to bring this major emissions source under control, especially as air traffic continues to increase. We can hope that new technologies such as solar-powered and electric planes will develop quickly enough to make a difference, and we can try to limit our personal use of air travel, and buy high-quality carbon offsets when we do fly, but international agreements are crucial.

Let’s urge government representatives to come up with a strong, enforceable agreement that helps meet the Paris Agreement objectives. If that speeds up development of planes that produce no emissions or far fewer than current aircraft, even better.

By David Suzuki with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Editor Ian Hanington.

Republished with permission from the David Suzuki Foundation.