Australia carbon emissions rise in off-season for first time in a decade

By Michael Slezak and Nick Evershed 7 June 2017 (The Guardian) – Australia’s carbon emissions jumped at the start of 2017, the first time they have risen in the first few months of a year for more than a decade, according to projections produced exclusively for the Guardian.Emissions in the first three months of the […]

Peatlands, already dwindling, could face further losses – “There is a tremendous amount of peatland in Southeast Asia, but almost all of it has been deforested”

By David Chandler 12 June 2017 (MIT News) – Tropical peat swamp forests, which once occupied large swaths of Southeast Asia and other areas, provided a significant “sink” that helped remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But such forests have been disappearing fast due to clear-cutting and drainage projects making way for plantations. Now, research […]

India hits back at Trump in war of words over global warming – “There is absolutely no reality in what Trump alleged”

By Huizhong Wu 6 June 2017New Delhi (CNN) – India has hit back at US President Donald Trump, after he accused the country of receiving “billions” of dollars in return for signing the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.”First of all, there is absolutely no reality [in what Trump alleged],” India’s Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj told […]

Tiny shells indicate big changes to global carbon cycle – Ocean acidification “affects atmospheric and ocean carbon dioxide concentrations on time scales of thousands of years”

By Kat Kerlin 25 May 2017 (UC Davis) – Experiments with tiny, shelled organisms in the ocean suggest big changes to the global carbon cycle are underway, according to a study from the University of California, Davis.For the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, scientists raised foraminifera — single-celled organisms about the size of […]

Record-breaking weather in 2016 pushes world into “truly uncharted territory” – World Meteorological Organization

21 March 2017 (United Nations) – Global temperatures set yet another record last year and the world witnessed exceptionally low sea ice, and unabated sea level rise and ocean heat, the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said today, warning that the extreme weather and climate conditions have continued into 2017. According to the agency’s […]

Thawing Alaska permafrost sends autumn CO2 emissions surging – “Tundra soils appear to be acting as an amplifier of climate change”

By Bob Berwin8 May 2017 (InsideClimate News) – Soaring temperatures in the Arctic have triggered a huge seasonal surge in carbon dioxide emissions from thawing permafrost and may be tipping the region toward becoming a net source of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, a new study shows. Even into early winter, when the ground would have been […]

Current climate change measurements mask trade-offs necessary for policy debates

By B. Rose Kelly3 May 2017 (Woodrow Wilson School) – Scientists and policymakers use measurements like global warming potential to compare how varying greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide and methane, contribute to climate change. Yet, despite its widespread use, global warming potential fails to provide an accurate look at how greenhouse gases affect the environment […]

Atmospheric CO2 just exceeded 410 ppm – “It’s pretty depressing that it’s only a couple of years since the 400 ppm milestone was toppled”

By Brian Kahn20 April 2017 (Climate Central) – The world just passed another round-numbered climate milestone. Scientists predicted it would happen this year and lo and behold, it has. On Tuesday, the Mauna Loa Observatory recorded its first-ever carbon dioxide reading in excess of 410 parts per million (it was 410.28 ppm in case you […]

Global warming could destroy far more Arctic permafrost than we thought – “The current pattern of permafrost reveals the sensitivity of permafrost to global warming”

By Chelsea Harvey 10 April 2017 (The Washington Post) – Climate change could cause another 4 million square kilometers, or about 1.5 million square miles, of permafrost to disappear with every additional degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, of warming, a new study suggests. The estimate, which was published Monday in the journal Nature Climate […]

Video: “First protest in space” targets Trump with an astronaut’s famous words

By Ben Guarino 14 April 2017 (The Washington Post) – On Wednesday, 12 April 2017, 56 years to the day after Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, a Phoenix-based collective called the Autonomous Space Agency Network launched a weather balloon to about 90,000 feet. The balloon, Aphrodite 1, weighed a little […]

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