Exxon disputed climate findings for years. Its scientists knew better. “ExxonMobil scientists knew about this problem to a shockingly fine degree as far back as the 1980s, but company spokesmen denied, challenged, and obscured this science.”

Summary of all global warming projections (nominal scenarios) reported by ExxonMobil scientists in internal documents and peer-reviewed publications (gray lines), superimposed on historically observed temperature change (red). Solid gray lines (and asterisked numerical labels) indicate global warming projections modeled by ExxonMobil scientists themselves; dashed gray lines indicate projections internally reproduced by ExxonMobil scientists from third-party sources. Shades of gray and numerical labels scale with model start dates, from earliest (1977: lightest, “1”) to latest (2003: darkest, “12”). Numerical labels correspond to panels in Fig. 1, which displays all original graphical projections reported by ExxonMobil scientists. Observations reflect the smoothed annual average of five historical time series. Graphic: Supran, et al., 2023 / Science

January 21, 2023

Exxon disputed climate findings for years. Its scientists knew better. “ExxonMobil scientists knew about this problem to a shockingly fine degree as far back as the 1980s, but company spokesmen denied, challenged, and obscured this science.”

By Alice McCarthy 12 January 2023 (The Harvard Gazette) – Projections created internally by ExxonMobil starting in the late 1970s on the impact of fossil fuels on climate change were very accurate, even surpassing those of some academic and governmental scientists, according to an analysis published Thursday in Science by a team of Harvard-led researchers. Despite those […]

U.S. billion-dollar climate disaster events, 1980-2022. Storms, floods, wildfires and droughts caused a total of $165 billion in damages in the US last year, $10 billion more than the 2021 total and the third most costly year since records of major losses began in 1980, according to new US government data. With 18 disasters costing at least $1 billion in damages, 2022 was only marginally behind 2020 and 2021 in terms of the number of severe events. A total of 474 people died last year from these major calamities. Graphic: NCEI / NOAA

January 10, 2023

Extreme weather left 474 people dead and cost $165 billion in the U.S. in 2022 – “It does not seem likely that these trends will reverse. Perhaps we need to be more prepared for a future that has rapidly become our present.”

By Oliver Milman 10 January 2023 (The Guardian) – The US endured a particularly painful year as communities wrestled with the growing impacts of the climate crisis, with 18 major disasters wreaking havoc across the country as planet-heating emissions continued to climb. Storms, floods, wildfires and droughts caused a total of $165 billion in damages […]

Yearly change in life expectancy in the U.S. and 30 other countries, 1901-2022. Data: Schöley, et al., 2022. Graphic: Fortune

January 10, 2023

The first global decline in life expectancy since World War II poses a major threat to the economy

By Matthew Heimer and Nicolas Rapp6 December 2022 (Fortune) – COVID’s devastation shows up starkly in life expectancy data: The pandemic’s peak marked the first time since World War II that LE (as demographers call it) declined across the globe. The graphic above is based on a data set that focuses mostly on Europe, but similar […]

Global average surface temperature compared to a preindustrial baseline, 1940-2022. Data: Copernicus / ECMWF. Graphic: The New York Times

January 10, 2023

The last 8 years were the hottest on record – “The rare event now would be to see a really cold year”

By Henry Fountain and Mira Rojanasakul 10 January 2023 (The New York Times) – The world remained firmly in warming’s grip last year, with extreme summer temperatures in Europe, China, and elsewhere contributing to 2022 being the fifth-hottest year on record, European climate researchers said on Tuesday. The eight warmest years on record have now […]

The atmospheric river hitting California on 9 January 2023 simulated by the high-resolution HRRR weather model. Graphic: WeatherBell

January 9, 2023

California’s deadly floods won’t break the megadrought – “We are in the middle of a flood emergency and also in the middle of a drought emergency”

By Neel Dhanesha 6 January 2023 (Vox) – A “river” more than 100 miles wide is gushing through the air high above California, bringing with it heavy rain, winds, and snow. It’s the third in a series of weather systems known as atmospheric rivers — long, heavy columns of water vapor in the sky — to hit the state in the […]

Regional glacier mass change and contributions to sea level rise from 2015 to 2100. Discs show global and regional projections of glacier mass remaining by 2100 relative to 2015 for global mean temperature change scenarios. Discs are scaled based on each region’s contribution to global mean sea level rise from 2015 to 2100 for the +2°C scenario by 2100 relative to preindustrial levels, and nested rings are colored by temperature change scenarios showing normalized mass remaining in 2100. Regional sea level rise contributions >1 mm SLE for the +2°C scenario are printed in the center of each disc. The horizontal bars below each disc show time series of area-averaged annual mass balance from 2015 to 2100 for +1.5°C (top bar) and +3°C (bottom bar) scenarios. The colorbar is saturated at −2.5 m w.e., but minimum annual values reach −4.2 m w.e. in Scandinavia. Graphic: Rounce, et al., 2022 / Science

January 7, 2023

Half of glaciers will be gone by 2100 even under Paris 1.5C accord, study finds

By Phoebe Weston 5 January 2023 (The Guardian) – Half the planet’s glaciers will have melted by 2100 even if humanity sticks to goals set out in the Paris climate agreement, according to research that finds the scale and impacts of glacial loss are greater than previously thought. At least half of that loss will happen […]

FAO Food Price Index in real terms, 1961-2022. In 2022, the U.N. organization’s Food Price Index hit the highest level since its records began in 1961, according to FAO data. Data: UN FAO. Graphic: James P. Galasyn

January 6, 2023

Global food prices in 2022 hit record high amid drought, war

ROME, 6 January 2023 (AP) – Global prices for food commodities like grain and vegetable oils were the highest on record last year even after falling for nine months in a row, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said, as Russia’s war in Ukraine, drought and other factors drove up inflation and worsened hunger worldwide. The FAO […]

Beds in acute NHS trusts taken by UK influenza patients in winter 2021/22 compared with winter 2022/23. Data: NHS Digital. Graphic: The Times and The Sunday Times

January 5, 2023

UK after Brexit: “Shocking” emergency room delays “killing up to 500 people a week” as NHS care collapses – “We are seeing equivalent levels of pressure to the early months of Covid”

By Rhys Blakely and Henry Zeffman 2 January 2023 (The Times) – As many as 500 people are dying each week because of delays in emergency NHS care, a senior doctor has said. Dr Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), said that a bad flu season was piling pressure on […]

Surface temperatures anomalies in Europe, 31 December 2022 - 2 January 2023. Temperatures are in degrees Celsius. On New Year’s Day, at least seven countries saw their warmest January weather on record as temperatures surged to springtime levels: Latvia hit 52 degrees (11.1 Celsius); Denmark 54.7 degrees (12.6 Celsius); Lithuania 58.3 degrees (14.6 Celsius); Belarus 61.5 degrees (16.4 Celsius); the Netherlands 62.4 degrees (16.9 Celsius); Poland 66.2 degrees (19.0 Celsius); and the Czech Republic 67.3 degrees (19.6 Celsius). Graphic: Weatherbell.com

January 2, 2023

Thousands of records shattered in historic winter warm spell in Europe – At least seven countries saw warmest January weather on record on New Year’s Day – “It’s the most extreme event ever seen in European climatology. Nothing stands close to this.”

By Ian Livingston 2 January 2023 (The Washington Post) – As 2022 turned to 2023, an exceptionally strong wintertime heat dome pounced on much of Europe, producing unprecedented warmth for January. As temperatures soared 18 to 36 degrees Fahrenheit (10 to 20 Celsius) above normal from France to western Russia, thousands of records were broken […]

Energy footprints of British households in 2019, from international and domestic aviation (red) and everything else (grey), in the top 10 percent and the bottom 20 percent of incomes. The 102 gigajoules (GJ) used for flying by the average adult in the top 10% of earners in that year was more than the average person in the bottom fifth of earners used for everything, including flying, driving, and heating their homes. Data: Baltruszewicz, et al., 2022 / Ecological Economics. Graphic: Tom Prater / Carbon Brief

December 31, 2022

Richest people in UK use more energy flying than poorest do overall – “There is so much social injustice engrained in those who don’t have enough energy”

By Josh Gabbatiss 14 December 2022 (Carbon Brief) – The wealthiest people in the UK burn through more energy flying than the poorest use in every aspect of their lives, according to new research. The analysis of data from 2019 highlights “significant inequalities” in energy use across the country. Those in the top 10% of […]

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