global warming – Page 57 – Desdemona Despair

Satellite view of changes to the Sierra Nevada snowpack, 2006-2021. Photo: NASA

December 25, 2021

Sierra Nevada snowpack, a crucial water resource, could disappear in 25 years – “A low-to-no-snow future has massive implications for where and when water is stored in the western U.S.”

By Denise Chow 1 December 2021 (NBC News) – The Sierra Nevada snowpack, a major source of water for California, could largely disappear in 25 years if global warming continues unchecked, according to a recent study. The worrisome findings, published 26 October 2021 in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, have serious implications for California’s […]

Aerial view of flattened homes after Typhoon Rai hit Surigao City, southern Philippines on 16 December 2021. Photo: Jilson Tiu / AP

December 24, 2021

Super Typhoon Rai leaves trail of destruction in Philippines – Desperation grows for 400,000 people – “Red Cross emergency teams are reporting complete carnage in the coastal areas. Homes, hospitals, school, and community buildings have been ripped to shreds.”

By Matt Hills 23 December 2021 (The Guardian) – Typhoon Rai has devastated the Philippines, killing at least 375 people, and causing damage in excess of $500m (£375m). The system developed on 13 December, tracked westwards across the Philippines on the 16th and 17th, before crossing the South China Sea on the 18th. Rai reached […]

Debt as percentage of GDP in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs), 1970-2020. COVID-19 pushed debt in developing economies to the highest level in more than 50 years. By the end of 2020, private debt in EMDEs reached a record 142 percent of GDP. Graphic: World Bank

December 24, 2021

World Bank’s 2021 Year in Review in 11 Charts: The Inequality Pandemic

By Venkat Gopalakrishnan, Divyanshi Wadhwa, Sara Haddad, and Paul Blake 21 December 2021 (World Bank) – From uneven economic recovery to unequal access to vaccines; from widening income losses to divergence in learning, COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on the poor and vulnerable in 2021. It is causing reversals in development and is dealing a […]

(a) Linear sea surface temperature (SST) trend (°C yr-1) for August of each year from 1982 to 2021. The trend is only shown for values that are statistically significant at the 95 percent confidence interval; the region is shaded gray otherwise. White shading is the August 2021 mean sea ice extent, and the yellow line indicates the median ice edge for Aug 1982-2010, (b, c) Area-averaged SST anomalies (°C) for August of each year (1982-2021) relative to the 1982-2010 August mean for (b) Baffin Bay and (c) Chukchi Sea regions shown by blue boxes in (a). The dotted lines show the linear SST anomaly trends over the period shown and trends in °C yr-1 (with 95 percent confidence intervals) are shown on the plots. Mean August SST warming trends from 1982 to 2021 persist over much of the Arctic Ocean, with statistically significant (at the 95 percent confidence interval) linear warming trends of up to +0.1°C yr-1 (a). Overall, Baffin Bay SSTs are becoming warmer in August with a linear warming trend over 1982-2021 of 0.05 ± 0.01°C yr-1 (b). Similarly, Chukchi Sea August mean SSTs are warming, with a linear trend of 0.06 ± 0.03°C yr-1 (c). Mean August SSTs for the entire Arctic (the Arctic Ocean and marginal seas north of 67° N) exhibit a linear warming trend of 0.03 ± 0.01°C yr-1. Graphic: Timmermans and Labe / NOAA

December 24, 2021

NOAA’s 2021 Arctic Report Card: Rapid and pronounced warming continues to drive the evolution of the Arctic environment

By T. A. Moon, M. L. Druckenmiller, and R. L. Thoman 6 December 2021 (NOAA) – As the influences of human-caused global warming continue to intensify, with the Arctic warming significantly faster than the globe overall, the 2021 Arctic Report Card (ARC2021) brings a broad view of the state of the Arctic climate and environment. […]

The village of Aceredo, in Galicia, Spain on 22 November 2021, after it emerged from years of being underwater. Aceredo was one of five villages that were inundated when the Lindoso Reservoir was built in 1992. Record drought in Spain reduced the reservoir’s water to its lowest level since it was filled. Photo: Miguel Riopa / AFP

December 24, 2021

Drought reveals abandoned Spanish village after 30 years underwater – Lindoso Reservoir level drops to record low

2 December 2021 (Love Exploring) – We’re used to reports that climate change will soon plunge the world’s beloved landmarks underwater. But this curious Spanish village has an opposite story: once engulfed by water, it recently re-emerged due to extremely low rainfall. Read on to discover the fascinating tale – plus see more amazing photos […]

$Satellite view of Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier on 28 December 2015 (left) and 31 March 2021 (right). On 13 December 2021, Ice scientists at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in New Orleans warned that great cracks and fissures had opened up both on top of and underneath the Thwaites glacier, one of the biggest in the world, and it may fracture and collapse, possibly within five years. Photo: ESA Sentinel-1$

December 22, 2021

Antarctica’s “doomsday” glacier: how its collapse could trigger global floods and swallow islands – “If Thwaites were to collapse, it would drag most of West Antarctica’s ice with it”

By Ella Gilbert 22 December 2021 (The Conversation) – The massive Thwaites glacier in West Antarctica contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by 65 centimeters if it were to completely collapse. And, worryingly, recent research suggests that its long-term stability is doubtful as the glacier haemorrhages more and more ice. Adding 65 centimeters to global sea levels […]

$Globally averaged atmospheric CO2 mole fraction (left) and growth rate (right), 1984-2020. In 2020, the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2), the most important greenhouse gas, reached 413.2 parts per million in 2020 and is 149 percent of the pre-industrial level. Graphic: WMO$

December 13, 2021

WMO Greenhouse Gas Bulletin 2021: Another year, another record – “CO2 in the atmosphere breached the milestone of 400 parts per million in 2015. And just five years later, it exceeded 413 ppm.”

GENEVA, 25 October 2021 (WMO) – The abundance of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere once again reached a new record last year, with the annual rate of increase above the 2011-2020 average. That trend has continued in 2021, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Greenhouse Gas Bulletin. Concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2), the most […]

Video shows a large, nighttime tornado whirling in Sacramento, Kentucky, illuminated only by lightning, on the night of 10 December 2021. Video: ABC News

December 12, 2021

Night of devastating tornadoes likely kills more than 100 in Kentucky – “The Mississippi River Valley and Ohio River Valley are increasingly vulnerable to more tornadic activity with time”

By Suman Naishadham and Seth Borenstein 12 December 2021 WASHINGTON (Associated Press) – The calendar said December but the warm moist air screamed of springtime. Add an eastbound storm front guided by a La Nina weather pattern into that mismatch and it spawned tornadoes that killed dozens over five U.S. states. Tornadoes in December are unusual, but […]

Map showing the near-surface air temperature differences from the 1981-2010 average for January to September 2021. Data are from the ERA5 reanalysis product. Graphic: C3S / ECMWF

December 12, 2021

State of the Climate in 2021: Past seven years are on track to be the seven warmest on record – “Extreme events are the new norm”

GENEVA, 31 October 2021 (WMO) – Record atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and associated accumulated heat have propelled the planet into uncharted territory, with far-reaching repercussions for current and future generations, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The past seven years are on track to be the seven warmest on record, according to the provisional WMO […]

Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels, 1959-2021. Global CO2 emissions bounced back after COVID-19 restrictions and reached pre-pandemic levels in 2021. Graph: Global Carbon Project

December 12, 2021

Global carbon emissions rebound to pre-pandemic levels after unprecedented drop in 2020 – “The fast recovery in CO2 emissions, following last year’s sharp drop, should come as no surprise”

By Pep Canadell, Corinne Le Quéré, Glen Peters, Pierre Friedlingstein, Robbie Andrew, and Rob Jackson 3 November 2021 (The Conversation) – Global carbon dioxide emissions have bounced back after COVID-19 restrictions and are likely to reach close to pre-pandemic levels this year, our analysis released today has found. The troubling finding comes as the COP26 climate talks […]