Canada in a Changing Climate. Environment and Climate Change Canada.
* extra links added April 29th *
Canada's failure to fight climate change 'disturbing,' environment watchdog says. Mia Rabson, National Observer. Apr. 3, 2019.
'This is a wake-up call:' swift action needed on rising seas, experts say. Michael Tutton, National Observer. Apr. 8, 2019.
Last time CO2 levels were this high, there were trees at the South Pole. Damian Carrington, Guardian. Apr. 3, 2019.
Trees growing near the South Pole, sea levels 20 metres higher than now, and global temperatures 3C-4C warmer. That is the world scientists are uncovering as they look back in time to when the planet last had as much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as it does today.
* CO2 Levels are now at a 3 million-year high. Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch. Apr. 5, 2019.
"Our results imply a strong sensitivity of the Earth system to relatively small variations in atmospheric CO2," Willeit said. "As fascinating as this is, it is also worrying."referencing scientific research article:
* Mid-Pleistocene transition in glacial cycles explained by declining CO2 and regolith removal. Willeit et al. Science Advances. Apr. 3, 2019.
* Researchers Warn Arctic Has Entered 'Unprecedented State' That Threatens Global Climate Stability. EcoWatch. Apr. 8, 2019.
Also last month, as Common Dreams reported, the UN Environment Programme (ENUP) warned in a far-reaching report that winter temperatures in the Arctic are already "locked in" in such a way that significant sea level increases are now inevitable this century.
Rising temperatures, along with ocean acidification, pollution, and thawing permafrost threaten the Arcticreferencing scientific research article:
* Key Indicators of Arctic climate change: 1971- 2017. Jason Box et al, IOP Science. Apr. 8, 2019.
* Permafrost collapse is accelerating carbon release. Merritt R. Turetsky et al, Nature. Apr. 30, 2019.
The sudden collapse of thawing soils in the Arctic might double the warming from greenhouse gases released from tundra
* The Blue Ocean Event and Collapsing Ecosystems. Robert Hunziker, CounterPunch. Apr. 19, 2019.
Sometime in the near future it is highly probable that the Arctic will no longer have sea ice, meaning zero ice for the first time in eons, aka: the Blue Ocean Event.
Surely, the world is not prepared for the consequences of such an historic event, which likely turns the world topsy-turvy, negatively impacting agriculture with gonzo weather patterns, thus forcing people to either starve or fight. But, the problem may be even bigger than shortages of food, as shall be discussed....
* The transpolar drift is faltering—sea ice is now melting before it can leave the nursery. Alfred Wegener Institute, Phys.org. Apr. 3, 2019.
According to the researchers, this development not only takes the planet one step closer to an ice-free summer in the Arctic; as the sea ice dwindles, the Arctic Ocean stands to lose an important means of transporting nutrients, algae and sediments.
* Emissions from thawing Arctic permafrost may be 12 times higher than thought, scientists say. Chiara Giordano, Independent. Apr. 17, 2019.
Emissions from thawing Arctic permafrost may be 12 times higher than previously thought, scientists have discovered.
Permafrost is a mix of soil, rock or sediment that has been frozen for at least two years which is mostly found in the uppermost areas where temperatures are rising more quickly than the rest of the world.
When it thaws because of global warming, it releases large quantities of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, causing temperatures to rise and creating a perpetual cycle where more permafrost melts
* Protecting marine life could be key in fighting climate change as sea creatures trap and store carbon in the ocean, researcher says. Heidi Pearson, Daily Mail. Apr. 19, 2019.
- Ocean is Earth’s largest carbon sink and central element of planet’s climate cycle
- Large animals such as whales can store large quantities of carbon for long time
- Others such as otters promote kelp growth, and kelp forests store carbon
- But, expert warns no policy has been created to protect carbon storage in ocean
As the prospect of catastrophic effects from climate change becomes increasingly likely, a search is on for innovative ways to reduce the risks.
One potentially powerful and low-cost strategy is to recognize and protect natural carbon sinks – places and processes that store carbon, keeping it out of Earth’s atmosphere. Forests and wetlands can capture and store large quantities of carbon. These ecosystems are included in climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies that 28 countries have pledged to adopt to fulfill the Paris Climate Agreement. So far, however, no such policy has been created to protect carbon storage in the ocean, which is Earth’s largest carbon sink and a central element of our planet’s climate cycle.
* ‘Death by a thousand cuts’: vast expanse of rainforest lost in 2018. Damian Carrington, Guardian. Apr. 25, 2019.
Millions of hectares of pristine tropical rainforest were destroyed in 2018, according to satellite analysis, with beef, chocolate and palm oil among the main causes.
The forests store huge amounts of carbon and are teeming with wildlife, making their protection critical to stopping runaway climate change and halting a sixth mass extinction. But deforestation is still on an upward trend, the researchers said.
* Climate change being fuelled by soil damage - report. Roger Harrabin, BBC. Apr. 29, 2019.
There's three times more carbon in the soil than in the atmosphere – but that carbon's being released by deforestation and poor farming.
This is fueling climate change – and compromising our attempts to feed a growing world population, the authors will say.
Problems include soils being eroded, compacted by machinery, built over, or harmed by over-watering.
Hurting the soil affects the climate in two ways: it compromises the growth of plants taking in carbon from the atmosphere, and it releases soil carbon previously stored by worms taking leaf matter underground.
The warning will come from the awkwardly-named IPBES – the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services - a panel studying the benefits of nature to humans.
...
"The thin layer of soil covering the Earth's surface represents the difference between survival and extinction for most terrestrial life. "Only 3% of the planet's surface is suitable for arable production and 75 billion tonnes of fertile soil is lost to land degradation every year."
* Up to a million species face extinction, many within decades, according to the draft UN report. Marlowe Hood, AFP. Apr. 29, 2019.
* 'Catastrophic' decline threatening the Earth. Stephanie Bedo, NZHerald. Apr. 21, 2019.
A global scientific review of insect decline has warned insects will "go down the path of extinction" in a few decades, with "catastrophic" repercussions for the planet's ecosystems. The biodiversity crisis is said to be even deeper than that of climate change.
* Rapidly declining remarkability of temperature anomalies may obscure public perception of climate change. Frances Moore et al, PNAS. March 12, 2019.
Climate change exposes people to conditions that are historically unusual but that will become increasingly common over time. What kind of weather do people think of as normal or unusual under these changing conditions? We use the volume of social media posts about weather to measure the remarkability of different temperatures and show that remarkability changes rapidly with repeated exposure to unusual temperatures. The reference point for normal conditions appears to be based on weather experienced between 2 and 8 y ago. This rapidly shifting normal baseline means warming noticed by the general public may not be clearly distinguishable from zero over the 21st century, with potential implications for both the acceptance of global warming and public pressure for mitigation policies.
* The Problem With Putting A Price on the End of the World. David Leonhardt, NYT Mag. April 9, 2019.
Economists [think they] have workable policy ideas for addressing climate change. But what if they’re politically impossible?
...
“We have a climate problem,” Nordhaus said, “because markets fail, and fail badly, in the energy sector.” The only solution, he argued, was for governments to raise the price of emissions.
* The insanity of global trade. Roar. March 30, 2019.
* Global Climate Coalition: Documents Reveal How Secretive Fossil Fuel Lobby Group Manipulated UN Climate Programs. Matt Hope via naked capitalism. Apr. 25, 2019.
A fossil fuel–backed industry group was able to influence the process behind the United Nations climate assessments for decades, using lobbyists and industry-funded scientists to manipulate international negotiations, a cache of recently discovered documents reveals.
* A Future Without Fossil Fuels? Bill McKibben, NYRB. April 4, 2019.
2020 Vision: Why You Should See the Fossil Fuel Peak Coming: a report by Kingsmill Bond (41 pp., September 2018)
A New World: The Geopolitics of the Energy Transformation: a report by the Global Commission on the Geopolitics of Energy Transformation (88 pp., January 2019)
REVEALED: The five ways the human race could be WIPED OUT because of global warming. Rod Ardehali, Daily Mail. Apr. 10, 2019.
- The deadly possible effects of global warming have been laid bare in a new book that reveals how disease, starvation and rising tides could kill off human beings
- 'FALTER: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?' lists the lethal, and unexpected, ways that humans could become extinct - within a few generations
- Melting ice caps could bring back disease locked in permafrost - killing swathes
- Natural disasters could be triggered by collapsing ice caps - with 65ft waves wiping out any coastal life in its path - repeating what happened 8,000 years ago
- Cereal crops - the cornerstone of human sustenance - could dry out because of global warming with plants unable to grow in parched new lands
- Author Bill McKibben's doomsday book asks whether we are already too late
* Climate research needs to change to help communities plan for the future. Robert Kopp, The Conversation. April 5, 2019.
This reality means society needs to think about climate change in different ways than the past, by focusing on reducing the risk of negative effects. And speaking as a climate scientist, I recognize that climate science research, too, has to change.
Historically, climate science has been primarily curiosity-driven – scientists seeking fundamental understanding of the way our planet works because of the inherent interest in the problem.
Now it’s time for the climate science research enterprise to adopt an expanded approach, one that focuses heavily on integrating fundamental science inquiry with risk management.
Looking past the horizon of 2100. Sonja van Jenssen, Nature Climate Change. Apr. 26, 2019.
Long-term climate dynamics and impacts from sea level rise to heat stress make the case for much stronger mitigation efforts today
* 'Flight shame' has Swedes rethinking air travel. Johannes Ledel, Phys.org. Apr. 10, 2019.
This book ranks the top 100 solutions to climate change. The results are surprising. David Roberts, vox. Apr. 22, 2019.
A chat with Paul Hawken about his ambitious effort to “map, measure, and model” global warming solutions.
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