Europe – Page 2 – Desdemona Despair

Global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions in GTCO2e, 1990-2023. In 2023, global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions exceeded 40 gigatonnes for the first time ever. Graphic: Energy Institute

June 23, 2024

World energy report reveals 2023 was a year of record highs in an energy-hungry world – “In a year where we have seen the contribution of renewables reaching a new record high, ever increasing global energy demand means the share coming from fossil fuels has remained virtually unchanged at just over 80 percent for yet another year”

20 June 2024 (Energy Institute) – The Energy Institute (EI) and co-authors KPMG and Kearney today released the 73rd annual edition of the Statistical Review of World Energy, presenting for the first time full global energy data for 2023. Five key stories emerge from the 2023 data: EI President Juliet Davenport OBE HonFEI said: “Energy is central […]

A member of Riposte Alimentaire (Food Response) posing after covering Claude Monet’s painting Les Coquelicots at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, France with a sticker. In the video she said of the poster covering Monet’s art that “this nightmarish image awaits us if no alternative is put in place”. Photo: Roberta Fumagalli / AFP

June 1, 2024

Climate activist defaces Monet painting in Paris – “This nightmarish image awaits us if no alternative is put in place”

1 June 2024 (AFP) – A climate activist has been arrested for sticking an adhesive poster on a Monet painting at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris to draw attention to global heating, a police source said. The action by the woman, a member of Riposte Alimentaire (Food Response) – a group of environmental activists and […]

Diagrams showing parameters for the collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). (A) The AMOC strength at 1000 m and 26°N, where the yellow shading indicates observed ranges (60, 61). The cyan-colored lines indicate the magnitude of FH. The red arrow indicates the AMOC tipping point (model year 1758; fig. S1, A and B), and the blue sections indicate the 50-year periods used in (B) to (D). Inset: The hosing experiment where fresh water is added to the ocean surface between 20°N and 50°N in the Atlantic Ocean (+FH) and is compensated over the remaining ocean surface (−FH). The black sections indicate the 26°N and 34°S latitudes over which the AMOC strength and freshwater transport (FovS) are determined, respectively. (B to D) AMOC streamfunction (Ψ) and Atlantic meridional heat transport (MHT; see also fig. S2) for model years 1 to 50, 1701 to 1750, and 2151 to 2200. The contours indicate the isolines of Ψ for different values. Graphic: Van Westen, et al., 2024 / Science Advances

May 27, 2024

Marker for the collapse of key Atlantic current discovered – “We are approaching the tipping point”

By Stephanie Pappas 9 February 2024 (Live Science) – Scientists have discovered a key warning sign before a crucial Atlantic current collapses and plunges the Northern Hemisphere into climate chaos. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) carries warm water north from the Southern Hemisphere, where it releases heat and freezes. The freezing process concentrates salt […]

Measles cases in the UK (top) and Russian Federation (bottom), Jan 2020 - Feb 2024. Graphic: WHO

May 27, 2024

Global measles cases nearly doubled in one year, researchers say – “A crisis among many crises”

By Katherine Dillinger 27 April 2024 (CNN) – The number of measles cases around the world nearly doubled from 2022 to 2023, researchers say, presenting a challenge to efforts to achieve and maintain elimination status in many countries. There were 171,153 cases globally in 2022, according to Dr. Patrick O’Connor of the World Health Organization, […]

Map showing worldwide natural disasters in 2023. Worldwide, natural disasters in 2023 resulted in losses of around US$250 billion (previous year US$250 billion). Loss statistics were characterised by the large number of severe regional storms. Such high thunderstorm losses have never been recorded before in the USA or in Europe: assets worth around US$66 billion were destroyed in North America, of which US$50 billion was insured, while in Europe the figure was US$10 billion (€9.1 billion), of which US$8 billion (€7.3 billion) was insured. A large body of scientific research indicates that climate change favours severe weather with heavy hailstorms. Similarly, loss statistics from thunderstorms in North America and other regions are trending upward. Graphic: Munich Re

May 1, 2024

Munich Re: Record thunderstorm losses in 2023 – “The warming of the earth that has been accelerating for some years is intensifying the extreme weather in many regions, leading to increasing loss potentials”

9 January 2024 (Munich Re) – Worldwide, natural disasters in 2023 resulted in losses of around US$ 250bn (previous year US$ 250bn), with insured losses of US$ 95bn (previous year US$ 125bn). Overall losses tally with the five-year average, while insured losses were slightly below the average figure of US$ 105bn. Unlike in previous years, […]

Twenty-first century groundwater-level trends in globally distributed monitoring wells. Each point represents one monitoring well, coloured to represent the Theil–Sen trend of annual median groundwater levels during the twenty-first century. Blue and red points indicate shallowing and deepening, respectively, of groundwater levels over time, with darker colours indicating faster rates. a, Spatial distributions of groundwater-level trends in globally distributed monitoring wells. b–o, Regional maps illustrating the substantial spatial variability in groundwater-level trends. Supplementary Notes 16 and 17 show monitoring wells and their groundwater-level trends at subcontinental scales (Supplementary Note 16) and in 207 individual aquifer systems. Graphic: Jasechko, et al., 2024 / Nature

April 28, 2024

Groundwater resources are drying up across the globe – “Climate variability and change can impact water supplies underground as well as above-ground”

By Matthew Rozsa 24 January 2024 (Salon) – Humans rely on groundwater for many things, but especially our food. Roughly 30 percent of all the planet’s available freshwater comes from groundwater, or water that is found underground in the spaces between rocks, soil and sand. It is primarily used for agriculture and billions of humans are dependent […]

Reconstructed late-summer/autumn relative temperatures and precipitation in Italy. (A) Comparison between late-summer/autumn dinoflagellate cyst-based W/C ratio (black line + black points) of core GeoB 10709-5 and mean autumn Italian temperatures at 1000-m altitude (blue line). (B) Late-summer/autumn dinoflagellate cyst-based W/C ratio and relative abundance of discharge species (nutrient sensitive) reconstructions (black lines) and the occurrence of epidemics and pandemics in the Roman empire (blue blocks) as well as disease outbreaks in Roman Italy (gray lines) and major historical periods/events. Graphic: Zonneveld, et al., 2024 / Science Advances

April 28, 2024

Plagues that ravaged the Roman empire were linked to periods of cold weather – “The Roman Empire rises and falls and rises and falls. And I think the case is now overwhelmingly clear that both climate change and pandemic disease had a role in many of those episodes.”

By Sarah Kuta 30 January 2024 (Smithsonian) – More than 2,000 years ago, climate change may have played a role in deadly pandemics that swept through the Roman Empire. Scientists have discovered a link between cold, dry periods and devastating bouts of fatal illness between 200 B.C.E. and 600 C.E. in Roman Italy, according to a […]

Annual global mean surface temperature anomalies relative to 1850–1900. Global mean near-surface temperature in 2023 was 1.45 ± 0.12 °C above the 1850–1900 average. The analysis is based on a synthesis of six global temperature datasets. 2023 was the warmest year in the 174-year instrumental record in each of the six datasets. The past nine years – from 2015 to 2023 – were the nine warmest years on record. The two previous warmest years were 2016, with an anomaly of 1.29 ± 0.12 °C, and 2020, with an anomaly of 1.27 ± 0.13 °C. Globally, every month from June to December was record warm for the respective month. September 2023 was particularly noteworthy, surpassing the previous global record for September by a wide margin (0.46 °C–0.54 °C) in all datasets. The second-highest margin by which a September record was broken in the past 60 years (the period covered by all datasets) was substantially smaller, at 0.03 °C–0.17 °C in 1983. July is typically the warmest month of the year globally, and thus July 2023 became the warmest month on record. The long-term increase in global temperature is due to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The shift from La Niña, which lasted from mid-2020 to early 2023, to fully developed El Niño conditions by September 2023 likely explains some of the rise in temperature from 2022 to 2023. However, some areas of unusual warming, such as the North-East Atlantic do not correspond to typical patterns of warming or cooling associated with El Niño. Other factors, which are still being investigated, may also have contributed to the exceptional warming from 2022 to 2023, which is unlikely to be due to internal variability alone. Graphic: WMO

April 28, 2024

WMO: Climate change indicators reached record levels in 2023 – “Sirens are blaring across all major indicators. Some records aren’t just chart-topping, they’re chart-busting. And changes are speeding-up.”

19 March 2024 (WMO) – A new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) shows that records were once again broken, and in some cases smashed, for greenhouse gas levels, surface temperatures, ocean heat and acidification, sea level rise, Antarctic sea ice cover and glacier retreat. Heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires, and rapidly intensifying tropical cyclones […]

Monthly global surface air temperature anomalies (°C) relative to 1850–1900 from January 1940 to March 2024, plotted as time series for each year. 2024 is shown with a thick yellow line, 2023 with a thick red line, and all other years with thin lines shaded according to the decade, from blue (1940s) to brick red (2020s). Data source: ERA5. Graphic: C3S / ECMWF

April 27, 2024

Earth’s warmest March is 10th straight record month, NOAA and NASA find

By Jonathan Erdman 12 April 2024 (Weather.com) – March was Earth’s warmest on record, according to data from three separate agencies, the latest month in a stretch of heat records since the planet’s hottest year in 2023. Another month, another record In a report released Friday, NOAA found March’s globally average temperature was 2.43 degrees Fahrenheit above […]

Map showing notable economic loss events due to natural and climate disasters in 2023. Global economic losses in 2023 were higher than the 21st century average. Economic losses from global natural disasters in 2023 are estimated at $380 billion, above long-term and short-term averages, after adjusting historical losses to today’s values using the U.S. Consumer Price Index. All continents recorded remarkable natural disaster events in 2023 and multiple countries faced the most significant disasters in their modern histories. The global map shows event and peril patterns that contributed to the overall economic losses in 2023. The largest loss driver was earthquake, yet this was largely caused by a handful of events, notably the earthquake sequence in Turkey and Syria. Severe convective storms came second, with the largest individual losses concentrated in the United States and Europe. Graphic: Aon

February 19, 2024

Aon: Number of billion-dollar disasters in 2023 highest on record – Severe convective storms were the most damaging peril for insurers

LONDON, 23 January 2024 (Aon) – Aon plc, a leading global professional services firm, today published its 2024 Climate and Catastrophe Insight report, which identifies global natural disaster and climate trends to help make better decisions to manage volatility and enhance global resilience. The report reveals that the 398 global natural disaster events caused a $380 billion (2022: $355 billion) […]