climate change – Page 31 – Desdemona Despair

Physiological response curves may shift as soil microbiomes respond to drought. In the short term (minutes to days), physiological acclimation may help to sustain function, such as soil carbon decomposition. Over weeks to decades, community shifts and evolution could alter response curves to maintain functioning under dry conditions. Broken lines indicate potential variation in the breadth of the shifted response curves. Graphic: Evans, et al., 2022 / Functional Ecology

April 16, 2023

Droughts destroying Earth’s biggest carbon sink on land: study – If more carbon-releasing microbes survive than carbon-sequestering microbes, we could end up with carbon-depleted soils

By Mark Waghorn 12 April 2023 (SWNS) – Droughts are destroying Earth’s biggest carbon sink on land, according to new research. Soil stores more greenhouse gas than plants and the atmosphere combined – thanks to the microbes that live in it. Moisture plays a key role in the process. Lack of rainfall is disrupting this […]

A strain of Candida auris cultured in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention laboratory. The CDC reports that the fungus is causing infections in healthcare facilities.Photo: Shawn Lockhart / Associated Press

April 16, 2023

This rapidly spreading deadly fungus is a warning about climate change

By Arjun V.K. Sharma 12 April 2023 (Los Angeles Times) – Last month, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change charted global temperatures to be 1.1 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels and on a destructive trajectory to surpass 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming by the early 2030s. This intersects surprisingly with another piece of news: the […]

People up for Easter sunrise services on Cocoa Beach, Florida encountered heavy seaweed, 9 April 2023. Photo: Malcolm Denemark / Florida Today

April 15, 2023

Sargassum seaweed soils Space Coast beaches at record levels in 2023 – “This year’s Sargassum bloom will likely be the largest ever recorded, with major impacts throughout the next few months”

By Jim Waymer 12 April 2023 (Florida Today) – We’re already in the weeds. All that stringy stuff that washed up on Brevard County beaches this past week is just the beginning of what scientists predict will grow into the largest-ever bloom of Sargassum seaweed ever recorded. Sargassum, which the Caribbean Sea delivers seasonally to the Gulf Stream […]

World map showing surface air temperature anomaly for March 2023 relative to the March average for the period 1991-2020. Data source: ERA5. Graphic: Copernicus Climate Change Service / ECMWF

April 15, 2023

Earth has second-warmest March in 2023 even before arrival of planet-heating El Niño – It was the 529th consecutive month to feature temperatures above the 20th-century average – “What I still find shocking is that the last eight years were the eight warmest years on record”

By Matthew Cappucci 7 April 2023 (The Washington Post) – March 2023 will go down in the books as tying for the second warmest March on record. That’s according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service of the European Union. Temperatures globally were several degrees above average in most places outside the western U.S., where a […]

Aerial view of homes buried in snow in Soda Springs, California in March 2023. Photo: Josh Edelson / The Washington Post

April 15, 2023

A wet winter won’t stave off the Colorado River’s water cuts – “There are discussions going on but they’re not making much progress. The level of distrust and animosity is really remarkable.”

By Joshua Partlow 3 April 2023 GRAND JUNCTION, Colorado (The Washington Post) – The abundant snow in the Rocky Mountains this year has been a welcome relief, but is not enough to overcome two decades of drought that has pushed major reservoirs along the Colorado River down to dangerous levels, Camille Calimlim Touton, the commissioner […]

Global monthly mean atmospheric carbon dioxide, 1979-2022. The global surface average for CO2 rose by 2.13 parts per million (ppm) to 417.06 ppm, roughly the same rate observed during the last decade. Atmospheric CO2 is now 50% higher than pre-industrial levels. 2022 was the 11th consecutive year CO2 increased by more than 2 ppm, the highest sustained rate of CO2 increases in the 65 years since monitoring began. Prior to 2013, three consecutive years of CO2 growth of 2 ppm or more had never been recorded. The Global Monitoring Division of NOAA/Earth System Research Laboratory has measured carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases for several decades at a globally distributed network of air sampling sites. This graph shows monthly mean abundance of carbon dioxide globally averaged over marine surface sites. Graphic: NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory

April 15, 2023

Greenhouse gases continued to increase rapidly in 2022 – Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide rise further into uncharted levels – “Greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at an alarming pace and will persist in the atmosphere for thousands of years”

5 April 2023 (NOAA) – Levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide, the three greenhouse gases emitted by human activity that are the most significant contributors to climate change, continued their historically high rates of growth in the atmosphere during 2022, according to NOAA scientists. The global surface average for CO2 rose by 2.13 […]

World map showing sea surface temperatures as of 14 April 2023, with warm colors indicating higher temperatures. Ocean surface temperatures hit an all-time high in April 2023, breaking every record since satellite measurements began in the 1980s. Graphic: ClimateReanalyzer.org

April 15, 2023

The surface of the ocean is now so hot it’s broken every record since satellite measurements began

By Stephanie Pappas 14 April 2023 (Live Science) – Ocean surface temperatures have hit an all-time high this month, breaking every record since satellite measurements began in the 1980s. Temperatures reached a global average of 69.98 Fahrenheit (21.1 degrees Celsius) in the first days of April. The previous record of 69.9 F (21 degrees C) […]

James Richard and Katherine Arroyo trudge through the water in Hollywood, Florida, on 13 April 2023. MOre than 25 inches of rain fell in South Florida since Monday, causing widespread flooding. Photo: Mike Stocker / South Florida Sun-Sentinel / AP

April 15, 2023

Rain of “biblical proportions”: Fort Lauderdale residents stranded in homes, cars – “This is way more scary and terrifying than any hurricane I’ve been through down here”

By Peter Charalambous 14 April 2023 (ABC News) – More than 2 feet of rain has brought Fort Lauderdale to a standstill, shutting down the city’s airport and stranding drivers on flooded streets — and more flash flooding is on its way. Drivers caught in Wednesday’s flood waters overwhelmed the Broward County Sheriff’s Office with […]

Population histories for all species of California salmon to 2021. On 6 April 2023, the Pacific Fishery Management Council, a quasi-federal body that oversees West Coast fisheries, finalized a decision to recommend closing the salmon season spring of 2024, due to years of drought conditions. Graphic: The Nature Conservancy / casalmon.org

April 15, 2023

Years of drought force shutdown of salmon fishing season off California

By Dino Grandoni 6 April 2023 (The Washington Post) – Years of drought have taken such a toll on California’s fall run of Chinook salmon that, for the first time in 14 years, fishery managers are canceling next year’s fishing season off the state’s coast to help the population recover. The Pacific Fishery Management Council, […]

A car is stranded on a flooded road near Corcoran, California, on 23 March 2023. Photo: David McNew / Getty Images

April 4, 2023

A long-dormant lake has reappeared in California, bringing havoc along with it – “This impending monster – a 50-foot-plus deep snowpack that we haven’t seen in 75 years – is sitting up there, and we just don’t know how fast it’s going to turn into water and come out of the mountains”

By Evan Bush 2 April 2023 (NBC News) – People have worked for a century to make California’s Tulare Basin into a food grower’s paradise. That pastoral landscape now looks more like the Pacific Ocean in many areas. Months of atmospheric river storms have pummeled the area and saturated the basin’s soil, which sits about […]