nitrous oxide – Page 2 – Desdemona Despair

Time series of climate-related responses to anthropogenic drivers, 1990-2020. Out of the 31 tracked planetary vital signs, 18 were at new all-time record lows or highs in 2020. Data obtained before and after the publication of Ripple and colleagues (2020) are shown in gray and red respectively. For variables with relatively high variability, local regression trend lines are shown in black. The variables were measured at various frequencies (e.g., annual, monthly, weekly). The labels on the x-axis correspond to midpoints of years. Sources and additional details about each variable are provided in the supplemental material. Graphic: Ripple, et al., 2021 / BioScience

July 31, 2021

World scientists’ warning of a climate emergency 2021 – Humans face untold suffering from “the consequences of unrelenting business as usual”

28 July 2021 (BioScience) – In 2019, Ripple and colleagues (2020) warned of untold suffering and declared a climate emergency together with more than 11,000 scientist signatories from 153 countries. They presented graphs of planetary vital signs indicating very troubling trends, along with little progress by humanity to address climate change. On the basis of […]

Total greenhouse gas emissions from China and OECD nations, 1990-2019. In 2019, China’s GHG emissions passed the 14 gigaton threshold for the first time, reaching 14,093 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent (MMt CO2e). This represents a more than tripling of 1990 levels, and a 25 percent increase over the past decade. As a result, China’s share of the 2019 global emissions total of 52 gigatons rose to 27 percent. Data: Rhodium Group / UNFCCC. Graphic: Rhodium Group

July 8, 2021

China’s greenhouse gas emissions exceeded the developed world for the first time in 2019

By Kate Larsen, Hannah Pitt, Mikhail Grant, and Trevor Houser 6 May 2021 (Rhodium Group) – Each year Rhodium Group provides the most up-to-date global and country-level greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions estimates through the ClimateDeck (a partnership with Breakthrough Energy). In addition to our preliminary US and China GHG estimates for 2020, Rhodium provides annual estimates of economy-wide emissions—including all […]

Annual Greenhouse Gas Index (AGGI), 1750-2020. For 2020, the AGGI was a record high 1.47, representing an increase in total direct radiative forcing of 47 percent since 1990. This increase in CO2 is accelerating — while it averaged about 1.6 ppm per year in the 1980s and 1.5 ppm per year in the 1990s, the growth rate increased to 2.4 ppm per year during the last decade (2009-2020). Pre-1978 changes in the CO2-equivalent abundance and AGGI based on the ongoing measurements of all greenhouse gases reported here, measurements of CO2 going back to the 1950s from C.D. Keeling [Keeling et al., 1958], and atmospheric changes derived from air trapped in ice and snow above glaciers [Machida et al., 1995, Battle et al., 1996, Etheridge, et al., 1996; Butler, et al., 1999]. Equivalent CO2 atmospheric amounts (in ppm) are derived with the relationship between CO2 concentrations and radiative forcing from all long-lived greenhouse gases. Graphic: Butler and Montzka, 2021 / NOAA

May 26, 2021

Another record high for NOAA Annual Greenhouse Gas Index in 2020 – CO2 increase continues accelerating – No slowdown from Covid pandemic seen

26 May 2021 (NOAA) – […] The atmospheric abundance of CO2 has increased by an average of 1.85 ppm per year over the past 41 years (1979-2020). This increase in CO2 is accelerating — while it averaged about 1.6 ppm per year in the 1980s and 1.5 ppm per year in the 1990s, the growth rate increased to […]

Annual Greenhouse Gas Index (AGGI), 1750-2019. For 2019, the AGGI was a record high 1.45, representing an increase in total direct radiative forcing of 45% since 1990. The increase in radiative forcing from CO2 alone since 1990 was 60.6%. Pre-1978 changes in the CO2-equivalent abundance and AGGI are based on the ongoing measurements of all greenhouse gases reported here, measurements of CO2 going back to the 1950s from C.D. Keeling (Keeling et al., 1958), and atmospheric changes derived from air trapped in ice and snow above glaciers (Machida et al., 1995, Battle et al., 1996, Etheridge, et al., 1996; Butler, et al., 1999). Equivalent CO2 atmospheric amounts (in ppm) are derived with the relationship between CO2 concentrations and radiative forcing from all long-lived greenhouse gases. Graphic: Butler and Montzka, 2020 / NOAA

May 30, 2020

NOAA Annual Greenhouse Gas Index reached another record high in 2019 – Total direct radiative forcing has increased 45 percent since 1990

14 May 2020 (NOAA) – […] The NOAA monitoring program provides high-precision measurements of the global abundance and distribution of long-lived greenhouse gases that are used to calculate changes in radiative climate forcing. Air samples are collected through the NOAA/GML global air sampling network, including a cooperative program for the carbon gases which provides samples […]

Hansen, et al. (1988) projections compared with observations on a temperature vs. time basis (top) and temperature vs. external forcing (bottom). Graphic: Hausfather, et al., 2019 / Geophysical Research Letters

December 15, 2019

Early climate modelers got global warming right, new report finds – “The warming we have experienced is pretty much exactly what climate models predicted it would be as much as 30 years ago”

By Robert Sanders 4 December 2019 (Berkeley News) – Climate skeptics have long raised doubts about the accuracy of computer models that predict global warming, but it turns out that most of the early climate models were spot-on, according to a look-back by climate scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology […]

$Globally averaged CO2 mole fraction (a) and its growth rate (b) from 1984 to 2018. Increases in successive annual means are shown as shaded columns in (b). The red line in (a) is the monthly mean with the seasonal variation removed; the blue dots and line depict the monthly averages. Observations from 129 stations have been used for this analysis. Graphic: WMO$

November 25, 2019

Greenhouse gas concentrations in atmosphere reached yet another high in 2018

GENEVA, 25 November 2019 (WMO) – Levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have reached another new record high, according to the World Meteorological Organization. This continuing long-term trend means that future generations will be confronted with increasingly severe impacts of climate change, including rising temperatures, more extreme weather, water stress, sea level rise […]

Graphs showing change in global human activities from 1979 to the present. Graphic: Ripple, et al., 2019 / BioScience

November 17, 2019

More than 11,000 scientists issue warning of climate emergency – “An immense increase of scale in endeavors to conserve our biosphere is needed to avoid untold suffering due to the climate crisis”

5 November 2019 (BioScience) – Scientists have a moral obligation to clearly warn humanity of any catastrophic threat and to “tell it like it is.” On the basis of this obligation and the graphical indicators presented below, we declare, with more than 11,000 scientist signatories from around the world, clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth […]

Photo of an oxygen bar in Delhi, India on 15 November 2019. A 15-minute session costs $7.00. Photo: Reuters

November 17, 2019

More than half of India coal-fired power plants set to miss pollution deadline – Less than 2 percent currently in compliance

By Sudarshan Varadhan 15 November 2019 NEW DELHI (Reuters) – More than half of India’s coal-fired power plants ordered to retrofit equipment to curb air pollution are set to miss the deadline, private industry estimates and a Reuters analysis show, as millions in the country wake up to toxic air each day. Thermal power companies, […]

Diagram showing an open-loop Marine Exhaust Gas Cleaning System that removes sulfur and nitrogen compounds from a ship’s engine exhaust and dumps them into the surrounding water. Graphic: Tritech Engineers

October 2, 2019

Thousands of ships fitted with “cheat devices” to divert poisonous pollution into sea – “In the North Sea and some parts of the Channel, the water quality has already been heavily degraded”

By Wil Crisp 30 September 2019 (The Independent) – Global shipping companies have spent billions rigging vessels with “cheat devices” that circumvent new environmental legislation by dumping pollution into the sea instead of the air, The Independent can reveal. More than $12bn (£9.7bn) has been spent on the devices, known as open-loop scrubbers, which extract […]

Map showing 2015–2019 five-year average temperature anomalies relative to the 1981-2010 average. Data: NASA GISTEMP v4. through June 2019. Graphic: WMO

September 26, 2019

Landmark “United in Science” report brings together world’s leading climate science organizations

NEW YORK, 22 September 2019 (WMO) – The world’s leading climate science organizations have joined forces to produce a landmark new report [pdf] for the United Nations Climate Action Summit, underlining the glaring – and growing – gap between agreed targets to tackle global warming and the actual reality. The report, United in Science, includes details on the […]