Wildfire at about 64°N in the Mirninsky District of the Sakha Republic, Russia, 22 July 2019. Photo: Copernicus Sentinel-2 / Pierre Markuse

More than 100 Arctic wildfires burn in worst-ever fire season – Smoke plumes from huge blazes in Greenland, Siberia, and Alaska visible from space – “These are some of the biggest fires on the planet, with a few appearing to be larger than 100,000 hectares”

By Edward Helmore 26 July 2019 (The Guardian) – The Arctic is suffering its worst wildfire season on record, with huge blazes in Greenland, Siberia, and Alaska producing plumes of smoke that can be seen from space. The Arctic region has recorded its hottest June ever. Since the start of that month, more than 100 wildfires have […]

Scatterplot showing key bumblebee flight performance indicator of endurance, distance flown in meters (A) for both the control (red circle) and pesticide‐treated (blue triangle) groups. Graphic: Kenna, et al., 2019 / Ecology and Evolution

Pesticide exposure causes bumblebee flight to fall short – “The negative effects of pesticide exposure on flight endurance have the potential to reduce the area that colonies can forage for food”

By Hayley Dunning 30 April 2019 (Imperial College London) – Bees exposed to a neonicotinoid pesticide fly only a third of the distance that unexposed bees are able to achieve. Flight behaviour is crucial for determining how bees forage, so reduced flight performance from pesticide exposure could lead to colonies going hungry and pollination services […]

Remote sensing imagery of discolored water and algal blooms in the Florida Bay and the Florida Keys region between 1992 and 2013 showing connectivity of the mainland and the lower Florida Keys, all outlined in red. (a) Landsat true color image on 29 May 1992 shows turbid water in western Florida Bay and discolored, black water in central Florida Bay that extends southward to the lower Florida Keys; (b) AVHRR reflectance image on 12 March 1996 shows high turbidity from the Shark River Slough plume extending beyond the lower Florida Keys towards Dry Tortugas; (c, d) VIIRS chlorophyll a anomaly images show phytoplankton blooms off Shark River Slough reaching the lower Florida Keys that were partially composed of the cyanobacterium, Synechococcus, on (c) 24 November 2013 and (d) 27 January 2014. Graphic: Lapointe, et al., 2019 / Marine Biology

Nutrient loading lowers resistance to thermal stress in Florida Keys corals – “These data make clear that this is not an ‘either temperature or nutrients’ situation, but rather a ‘both/and’ combination of multiple stressors”

By Gisele Galoustian 15 July 2019 (FAU) – Coral reefs are considered one of the most threatened ecosystems on the planet and are dying at alarming rates around the world. Scientists attribute coral bleaching and ultimately massive coral death to a number of environmental stressors, in particular, warming water temperatures due to climate change. A […]

Map of wildfires around Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk, 21 July 2019. Graphic: The Siberian Times

Major Siberian cities choking from wildfire smoke

22 July 2019 (The Siberian Times) – Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk are suffering smoke pollution and infernos rage in forests after hot, dry weather. Pictures show the scale of the smoke in major population centres from the raging wildfires with the cause seen mainly as out-of-control forest fires in Krasnoyarsk region, the second largest in Russia. […]

An array of Direct Air Capture (DAC) fans for capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Photo: Carbon Engineering, Ltd

Can direct air capture technology save us from global warming? “By the end of the century, DAC could require the equivalent of over half of today’s global energy needs”

By Simon Levey 22 July 2019 (Grantham Institute) – “We’ve fallen in and out of love with outlandish technologies in the hope that they might save us from climate change,” says Dr Ajay Gambhir, Senior Research Fellow at the Grantham Institute – Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London. “Some are just unicorns; […]

Impact of the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA) pledges. To keep global warming within 1.5 °C of pre-industrial levels, there needs to be a substantial decline in the use of coal power by 2030 and in most scenarios, complete cessation by 2050. Graphic: Jewell, et al., 2019 / Nature Climate Change

Current coal phase-out pledges are insufficient to hit Paris climate goal

27 June 2019 (Chalmers University of Technology) – ​The Powering Past Coal Alliance, or PPCA, is a coalition of 30 countries and 22 cities and states that aims to phase out unabated coal power. But analysis led by Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, published in Nature Climate Change, shows that members mainly pledge to close […]

Schematic of factors contributing to the quantification of a remaining carbon budget. Graphic: Rogelj, et al., 2019 / Nature

Humanity’s climate “carbon budget” dwindling fast – At current CO2 emission rates the budget will be exhausted in less than 14 years – “The trillion-dollar question is how much of a carbon budget do we have left?”

17 July 2019 (AFP) – The concept of a carbon budget is dead simple: figure out how much CO2 humanity can pump into the atmosphere without pushing Earth’s surface temperature beyond a dangerous threshold. [cf. What Counts for Our Climate: Carbon Budgets Untangled and Budgeting for our future climate. –Des] The 2015 Paris climate treaty […]

Committed CO2 emissions from existing and proposed energy infrastructure. Estimates of future CO2 emissions by industry sector and country/region Emissions from existing infrastructure are shown by darker shading, and emissions from proposed power plants (i.e. electricity) are more lightly shaded. Graphic: Tong, et al., 2019 / Nature

“Committed” CO2 emissions jeopardize international climate goals – Existing, planned fossil fuel-burning infrastructure must be retired early, replaced – “Without such radical changes, we fear the aspirations of the Paris agreement are already at risk”

IRVINE, California, 1 July 2019 (UCI News) – The nations that have signed agreements to stabilize the global mean temperature by 2050 will fail to meet their goals unless existing fossil fuel-burning infrastructure around the world is retired early, according to a study [pdf] – published today in Nature – by researchers at the University […]

World map showing risk assessment of future changes in potential tree cover. (A) Illustration of expected losses in potential tree cover by 2050, under the “business as usual” climate change scenario (RCP 8.5), from the average of three Earth system models commonly used in ecology (cesm1cam5, cesm1bgc, and mohchadgem2es). (B) Quantitative numbers of potential gain and loss are illustrated by bins of 5° along a latitudinal gradient. Graphic: Bastin, et al., 2019 / Science

Expert reaction to study looking at trees, carbon storage, and climate change – “It is time to stop suggesting there is a ‘nature-based solution’ to ongoing fossil fuel use. There isn’t. Sorry.”

4 July 2019 (Science Media Centre) – A new study, published in Science, reports on the capacity for trees to reduce atmospheric carbon levels. Dr James Borrell, Researcher at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, said: “Global forest restoration clearly has remarkable potential to address climate change, but restoring forest on this scale is a significant […]

Energy consumption and income inequality in the Philippines, 1990-2015. Data: McGee and Greiner, 2019 / Energy Research and Social Science. Graphic: James P. Galasyn

Shifts to renewable energy can drive up energy poverty, study finds – “We don’t think of energy as a human right when it actually is”

By Cristina Rojas 12 July 2019 (PSU) – Efforts to shift away from fossil fuels and replace oil and coal with renewable energy sources can help reduce carbon emissions but do so at the expense of increased inequality, according to a new Portland State University study. [Data available here: Renewable energy injustice McGee and Greiner […]

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