Comparison of living and dead mangroves at two sites along the Gulf of Carpentaria in 2016. Photo: Norman Duke

Unexpected consequences from catastrophic mangrove dieback – “What was concerning was that the dead mangrove forest emitted about eight times more methane than the living forest”

4 July 2019 (Southern Cross University) – When swathes of mangrove forests died along a 1000 kilometre stretch of coastline in northern Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria, there was widespread shock. But the impacts of the catastrophic climate-induced mangrove dieback didn’t end there. In a world first, researchers from Southern Cross University have found that the […]

Aerial view of melting permafrost near a research site in Arctic Canada. The unprecedented melt rate creates thermokarst, an irregular landscape dotted by lakes, holes, and mounds. Photo: Louise Farquharson

Arctic permafrost melting 70 years sooner than expected, study finds – “This change is unprecedented on this kind of time scale”

By Jan Wesner Childs 14 June 2019 (The Weather Channel) – Scientists studying climate change expected layers of permafrost in the Canadian Arctic to melt by the year 2090. Instead, it’s happening now. A new study published this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters revealed that unusually warm summers in the Canadian High Arctic between 2003 […]

Industrial methane emissions are 100 times higher than reported, researchers say

By Amanda Garris 6 June 2019 (Cornell Chronicle) – Emissions of methane from the industrial sector have been vastly underestimated, researchers from Cornell and Environmental Defense Fund have found. Using a Google Street View car equipped with a high-precision methane sensor, the researchers discovered that methane emissions from ammonia fertilizer plants were 100 times higher […]

Reductio ad absurdum: “The big deception is that we have weaned ourselves off coal, when in reality we have just exported our coal burning to someone else’s country”

4 June 2019 (The Consciousness of Sheep) — One of the advantages of being a rocky island in the northeast Atlantic, right underneath the Gulf Stream is that you get to deploy record amounts of offshore wind turbines to delay the day when your economy grinds to a halt. This is the reality of modern […]

Global average abundance of atmospheric carbon dioxide in 2018. Graphic: NOAA

Graph of the Day: NOAA Annual Greenhouse Gas Index, 1700-2018

30 May 2019 (Desdemona Despair) – Last week, the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory posted its annual update to the NOAA Annual Greenhouse Gas Index (AGGI), which measures the climate-warming influence of long-lived trace gases, including carbon dioxide and methane. To nobody’s surprise, the AGGI continued its inexorable rise in 2018 because, for another year, […]

Zonally averaged methane (CH4) growth rate versus sine‐of‐latitude (equal area) and time for 2005–2018. Graphic: Nisbet, et al., 2019 / Global Biogeochemical Cycles

The methane detectives: On the trail of a global warming mystery – “The bottom line is that methane is going up and doesn’t look like it will stop anytime soon”

By Jonathan Mingle 13 May 2019 (Undark) – Every week, dozens of metal flasks arrive at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, each one loaded with air from a distant corner of the world. Research chemist Ed Dlugokencky and his colleagues in the Global Monitoring Division catalog the canisters, and then use a series of […]

Power companies have a plan to save the earth, but it probably won’t work – “In the absence of some kind of national program or policy, we shouldn’t expect to see some dramatic decline in emissions”

Power companies have a plan to save the earth, but it probably won’t work – “In the absence of some kind of national program or policy, we shouldn’t expect to see some dramatic decline in emissions”

By Neil Katz and Joe McCarthy 9 May 2019 (The Weather Channel) – Last month, a thousand well-heeled bankers, scrappy startups and energy CEOs sat down at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance conference in a swanky New York hotel to discuss the billions they would spend over the next 20 years to build cleaner energy […]

Natural climate solutions aren’t enough – “There is still an emissions gap that requires decarbonizing energy and industry”

By Rob Jordan 28 February 2019 (Stanford Report) – In the fight to slow climate change, nature is a powerful weapon. In fact, natural climate solutions, such as reducing deforestation and changing farming practices, can soak up excess carbon in the atmosphere and prevent certain emissions so effectively that it might be tempting to think […]

Recording reveals oil industry execs laughing at Trump access – “We have unprecedented access to people that are in these positions who are trying to help us, which is great”

By Lance Williams 23 March 2019 (Reveal) – Gathered for a private meeting at a beachside Ritz–Carlton in Southern California, the oil executives were celebrating a colleague’s sudden rise. David Bernhardt, their former lawyer, had been appointed by President Donald Trump to the powerful No. 2 spot at the Department of the Interior. Just five […]

25th anniversary edition of WMO’s State of the Climate report shows accelerating global warming impacts – “The data released in this report give cause for great concern”

28 March 2019 (WMO) – The physical signs and socio-economic impacts of climate change are accelerating as record greenhouse gas concentrations drive global temperatures toward increasingly dangerous levels, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization. The WMO Statement on the State of the Global Climate in 2018, its 25th anniversary edition, highlights […]

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