global warming – Page 41 – Desdemona Despair

Percent change in ice volume for Swiss glaciers, 2001-2022. Melt rates in 2022 far exceeded the previous records from the hot summer of 2003. Glaciers in Switzerland lost around 3 cubic kilometres of ice in 2022, more than 6 percent of the remaining volume. By way of comparison, up to now, years with an ice loss of 2 percent have been described as “extreme”. The loss was particularly dramatic for small glaciers. Graphic: M. Huss / Swiss Academy of Sciences

October 21, 2022

2022 heat wave drove unprecedented melt of Swiss glaciers – “2022 was a disastrous year for Swiss glaciers: all ice melt records were smashed by the great dearth of snow in winter and continuous heat waves in summer”

By Jamey Keaten 28 September 2022 GENEVA (AP) – Switzerland’s glaciers are melting like never before, an academic study released Wednesday found, with their ice volume declining by 6% this year amid rising concerns about global warming and a summer heat wave that swept across Europe. The Swiss Academy of Sciences reported that the shrinkage […]

Annual wildfire emissions and CO2e emissions in California from individual sectors, 2003-2020. Data: Jerrett, et al., 2022 / Environmental Pollution. Graphic: Los Angeles Times

October 21, 2022

A single, devastating California fire season wiped out years of efforts to cut emissions – “California’s wildfire CO2 emissions from 2020 are approximately two times higher than California’s total greenhouse gas reductions since 2003”

By Hayley Smith 20 October 2022 (Los Angeles Times) – A nearly two-decade effort by Californians to cut their emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide may have been erased by a single, devastating year of wildfires, according to UCLA and University of Chicago researchers. The state’s record-breaking 2020 fire season, which saw more than 4 million acres […]

A couple stands on what was an ancient packhorse bridge exposed by low water levels at Baitings Reservoir in Yorkshire as record high temperatures hit Ripponden, England, 12 August 2022. Widespread drought that dried up large parts of Europe, the United States and China this past summer was made 20 times more likely by climate change, according to a new study. Photo: Jon Super / AP Photo

October 9, 2022

Climate change made 2022 summer drought 20 times more likely – “The impacts are very clear to people and are hitting hard, not just in poor countries, like the flooding Pakistan, but also in some of the richest parts of the world, like western central Europe”

By Drew Costley 5 October 2022 (AP) – Drought that stretched across three continents this summer — drying out large parts of Europe, the United States, and China — was made 20 times more likely by climate change, according to a new study. Drought dried up major rivers, destroyed crops, sparked wildfire, threatened aquatic species, […]

A boy stands beside a sugarcane field, which is submerged by floodwaters due to heavy monsoon rains, in Dera Allahyar area of Jaffarabad, a district of southwestern Baluchistan province, Pakistan, Saturday, 17 September 2022. Photo: Zahid Hussain / AP Photo

September 27, 2022

Fear of widespread hunger after Pakistan floods wreck crops – Dengue surges, hospitals overwhelmed by sheer number of patients – “These rains have destroyed everything for us. We don’t even have anything to eat.”

27 September 2022 (Grain Brokers Australia) – A food crisis of epic proportions is brewing in Pakistan due to torrential rains and catastrophic flooding in late August and early September. Less than 40 per cent of Pakistan’s land area is arable, yet around one-third of the country’s land mass was submerged, demonstrating the sheer scale […]

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addresses the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York City on 20 September 2022. Photo: Anadolu Images

September 27, 2022

UN meeting produces sense that a “new epoch” is arriving – “We are gridlocked in colossal global dysfunction. Our world is in peril – and paralyzed.”

By Edith M. Lederer 27 September 2022 UNITED NATIONS (AP) – The war in Ukraine and its global fallout transfixed the meeting of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly this year. When it wasn’t out front, it lurked in the background of virtually every speech. There were near-unanimous calls for an end to the […]

World corn stocks in consumption days, 2008-2022 and projected to 2023. Poor weather in key agricultural regions from the United States to France and China is shrinking grain harvests and cutting inventories, heightening the risk of famine in some of the world's poorest nations. Data: International Grains Council. Graphic: Prinz Magtulis / Reuters

September 27, 2022

Droughts, Ukraine war push global grain stocks toward worrying decade low – “It’s lining up to be like 2012. No one wants to admit it, but it’s true.”

By Tom Polansek 26 September 2022 CHICAGO (Reuters) – The world is heading toward the tightest grain inventories in years despite the resumption of exports from Ukraine, as the shipments are too few and harvests from other major crop producers are smaller than initially expected, according to grain supply and crop forecast data. Poor weather […]

Potential effect of high-temperature days on global life evaluations, 2021-2030. The estimated 17 percent drop in life evaluation by 2030 again does not take adaptability and recovery into account. However, this estimation is based on the increase in the number of high-heat days people will face globally by 2030, and is substantively meaningful. Graphic: Gallup

September 25, 2022

Rising global temperatures linked to declining wellbeing – “The analysis paints a bleak picture of the future”

By Benedicte Clouet and Nicole Willcoxon 31 August 2022 (Gallup) – As people around the world suffer through concurrent extreme heat waves, droughts, and wildfires, the effects of climate change are becoming a grim, global reality. Despite robust evidence of the environmental and economic costs of rising temperatures, far less is known about how these […]

A darkened street in the Santurce neighborhood of San Juan on Friday, 23 September 2022. People in Puerto Rico fear an extended blackout after Hurricane Fiona struck. Photo: Erika P. Rodriguez / The New York Times

September 25, 2022

Puerto Ricans fear extended blackout after Hurricane Fiona – Crops ravaged near peak harvest, Puerto Rico farmers say

By Laura N. Pérez Sánchez 24 September 2022 SAN JUAN, P.R. (The New York Times) – Michelle Rivera trudged slowly up the stairs of her apartment building, stopping to collect her breath and regain the strength to carry one more gallon of water to her home on the eighth floor. It was Friday, the sixth […]

The location of climate tipping elements in the cryosphere (blue), biosphere (green) and ocean/atmosphere (orange), and global warming levels their tipping points will likely be triggered at 1.5°C. Researchers see signs of destabilisation already in parts of the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, in permafrost regions, the Amazon rainforest, and potentially the Atlantic overturning circulation as well. Graphic: Earth Commission / Globaïa

September 25, 2022

World at risk of passing multiple climate tipping points above 1.5°C global warming

8 September 2022 (Stockholm Resilience Centre) – Multiple climate tipping points could be triggered if global temperature rises beyond 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, according to a major new analysis published in the journal Science. Even at current levels of global heating the world is already at risk of passing five dangerous climate tipping points, and risks […]

Women carry belongings salvaged from their flooded home after monsoon rains, in the Qambar Shahdadkot district of Sindh Province, of Pakistan, 6 September 2022. The war in Ukraine, the lingering coronavirus pandemic and climate change are putting intense pressure on the world's poorest, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development warned. Photo: Fareed Khan / AP Photo

September 25, 2022

OECD: Russia war, COVID virus, and climate hurting world’s poorest – “We are in an era defined by multiple crises, shocks, and uncertainty″

By Paul Wiseman 19 September 2022 WASHINGTON (AP) – Russia’s war against Ukraine, the lingering coronavirus pandemic and the damage of climate change are putting intense pressure on the world’s poorest, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development warned Monday. [States of Fragility 2022 –Des] The Paris-based OECD reported that 60 states, territories and locations […]