By Adam Voiland 19 July 2018 (NASA) – Astronaut and scientist Piers Sellers is no longer with us, but his words still resonate.A posthumous plea from Sellers arrived in July 2018 in the form of an article in PNAS. The topic was one that he cared deeply about: building a better space-based system for observing […]
By Anthony J. Marchese and Dan Zimmerle 2 July 2018(The Conversation) – Natural gas is displacing coal, which could help fight climate change because burning it produces fewer carbon emissions. But producing and transporting natural gas releases methane, a greenhouse gas that also contributes to climate change. How big is the methane problem?For the past […]
By Spencer Dale 13 June 2018(BP) – At first blush, some of last year’s data might seem a little disappointing. Growth in overall energy demand is up; gains in energy intensity are down. Coal consumption grew for the first time in four years. And, perhaps most striking of all, carbon emissions are up after three […]
30 May 2018 (NOAA) – NOAA’s Annual Greenhouse Gas Index (AGGI), which tracks the warming influence of long-lived greenhouse gases, has increased by 41 percent from 1990 to 2017, up 1 percent from 2016 — with most of that attributable to rising carbon dioxide levels, according to NOAA climate scientists. [cf. NOAA’s greenhouse gas index […]
By Paul Voosen 9 May 2018 (Science) – You can’t manage what you don’t measure. The adage is especially relevant for climate-warming greenhouse gases, which are crucial to manage—and challenging to measure. In recent years, though, satellite and aircraft instruments have begun monitoring carbon dioxide and methane remotely, and NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System (CMS), a […]
By Scott Schrage 19 April 2018 (University of Nebraska–Lincoln) – Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and other recent human relatives may have begun hunting large mammal species down to size — by way of extinction — at least 90,000 years earlier than previously thought, says a new study published in the journal Science.Elephant-dwarfing wooly mammoths, elephant-sized ground […]
15 February 2018 (EDF) – Methane emissions from Pennsylvania’s oil and gas sites may be more than five times higher than what oil and gas companies report to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), according to a new analysis from Environmental Defense Fund.Methane is both a powerful climate pollutant and the primary ingredient of […]
By Lisa Friedman 12 February 2018 (The New York Times) – The Trump administration on Monday moved to repeal one of the last unchallenged climate-change regulations rushed into place in the waning days of the Obama presidency — a rule restricting the release of planet-warming methane into the atmosphere. The rule, which applied to companies […]
By Josh Gabbatiss 3 February 2018 (The Independent) – Toxic nitrogen dioxide emissions around major ports and sea routes in the UK are four times higher than previously suggested, according to a report for the Government. Levels of sulphur dioxide, another harmful pollutant, are three times higher. Experts say shipping pollutants, which are concentrated around […]
By Chelsea Harvey 8 February 2018 (ClimateWire) – Ending financial assistance for fossil fuel companies has long been discussed as a tactic to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and encourage investment in renewables. Oil, natural gas and coal companies worldwide receive hundreds of billions of dollars each year in tax breaks or other subsidies—and some experts […]
