carbon dioxide – Page 10 – Desdemona Despair

Excitation near the saddle-node bifurcation and steady-state solutions for global carbon cycle model. Graphic: Rothman, 2019 / PNAS

August 20, 2019

Breaching carbon threshold could lead to mass extinction – Carbon dioxide emissions may trigger “reflex” in global carbon cycle, with devastating consequences

By Jennifer Chu 8 July 2019 (MIT News) – In the brain, when neurons fire off electrical signals to their neighbors, this happens through an “all-or-none” response. The signal only happens once conditions in the cell breach a certain threshold. Now an MIT researcher has observed a similar phenomenon in a completely different system: Earth’s […]

Landsat 8 images from 21 July 2018 (left) and 16 September 2018 (right) illustrating the Taku Glacier transient snowline. The 21 July 2018 snowline is at 975 m and the 16 September 2018 snowline is at 1400 m. Average end-of-summer snowline is 975 m; the 2018 end-of-summer snowline was the highest observed in the 73-year record. Graphic: AMS

August 13, 2019

State of the Climate in 2018: 2018 was the fourth-hottest year on record, behind 2016, 2015, and 2017

12 August 2019 (NCEI) – A new State of the Climate report [pdf] confirmed that 2018 was the fourth warmest year in records dating to the mid-1800s. Last year was the fourth warmest year on record despite La Niña conditions early in the year and the lack of a short-term warming El Niño influence until […]

Graphs from the “Climate Change and Land 2019” report by the IPCC, showing changes relative to 1961 of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, world agricultural production, food demand, and desertification and land degradation. Graphic: IPCC

August 12, 2019

World food security increasingly at risk due to “unprecedented” climate change impact, new UN report warns

8 August 2019 (UN News) – More than 500 million people today live in areas affected by erosion linked to climate change, the UN warned on Thursday, before urging all countries to commit to sustainable land use to help limit greenhouse gas emissions before it is too late. Speaking at the launch of a Special […]

Super yacht the “Rising Sun” at the harbor of Santa Margherita Ligure, 24 June 2016. The “Rising Sun” is owned by billionaire and film producer David Geffen, filmed by a drone. The yacht is the 10th largest in the world. Photo: Fly View

August 1, 2019

A-listers flock to Google summit in private jets, mega yachts to talk climate change – Greta Thunberg will travel to UN summit by sail

By Emily Smith and Ebony Bowden 30 July 2019 (NY Post) – The world’s rich and famous have flocked to a posh Italian resort to talk about saving Mother Earth — but they sure are punishing her in the process. The billionaire creators of Google have invited a who’s who of A-list names— including former […]

Breakup of sea ice on the north coast of Greenland, 14-29 July 2019. Photo: Nick Humphrey / NASA Worldview

July 30, 2019

Siberia forest fires spark potential “disaster” for Arctic – 12 million hectares have burned in Russia this year – “The most important event on the planet right now? Arctic climate chaos.”

30 July 2019 (AFP) – Gigantic forest fires have regularly raged through the vast expanses of Russia’s Siberia, but the magnitude of this year’s blazes has reached an exceptional level with fears of a long-term impact on the environment. As fires sweep across millions of hectares enveloping entire cities in black smoke and noxious fumes, […]

Table showing how many Earths humanity would require if everybody in the world lived like the citizens of selected nations, according to Global Footprint Network in 2019. For the U.S., five Earths would be required. For India, 0.7 Earths would be required. Graphic: Global Footprint Network

July 29, 2019

Earth Overshoot Day 2019 is July 29, the earliest ever

OAKLAND, California, 23 July 2019 – On 29 July 2019, humanity will have used nature’s resource budget for the entire year, according to Global Footprint Network, an international sustainability organization that has pioneered the Ecological Footprint. It is Earth Overshoot Day. Its date has moved up two months over the past 20 years to the […]

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

July 27, 2019

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 […]

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

July 20, 2019

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

July 20, 2019

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

July 18, 2019

“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 […]