Indonesians wade through flood water on a street in Jakarta, Indonesia, Tuesday, 25 February 2020. Overnight rains caused rivers to burst their banks in greater Jakarta sending muddy water into residential and commercial areas, inundating thousands of homes and paralyzing parts of the city's transport networks, officials said. Photo: Tatan Syuflana / AP Photo

Thousands caught in floods in Indonesia’s sinking capital – More rain expected for the next two weeks – Disaster agency head resigns

By Niniek Karmini 25 February 2020 JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) – Floods that have crippled much of Indonesia’s capital worsened Tuesday, inundating thousands of homes and buildings, including the presidential palace, and paralyzing transport networks, officials and witnesses said. Overnight rains caused more rivers to burst their banks in greater Jakarta starting Sunday, sending muddy water […]

Satellite images acquired by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) show melting on the ice cap of Eagle Island, Antarctica on 4 February 2020 and 13 February 2020. Photo: Joshua Stevens / NASA Earth Observatory

Image of the Day: Antarctica melts under its hottest days on record

By Kasha Patel 21 February 2020 (NASA) – On 6 February 2020, weather stations recorded the hottest temperature on record for Antarctica. Thermometers at the Esperanza Base on the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula reached 18.3°C (64.9°F)—around the same temperature as Los Angeles that day. The warm spell caused widespread melting on nearby glaciers. The warm […]

Global surface temperature anomalies, 1880-2019, compared with the 1880-1899 average. The year 2019 was the second warmest year on record, capping the warmest decade since measurements began. Data: Gavin Schmidt / NASA GISTEMP. Graphic: InsideClimate

2010-2019: Earth’s hottest decade on record marked by extreme storms, deadly wildfires – “The climate of the 20th Century is gone. We’re in a new neighborhood.”

By Bob Berwyn 19 December 2019 (InsideClimate News) – Deadly heat waves, wildfires and widespread flooding punctuated a decade of climate extremes that, by many scientific accounts, show global warming kicking into overdrive. As the year drew to a close, scientists were confidently saying 2019 was Earth’s second-warmest recorded year on record, capping the warmest […]

Greenland ice thickness loss, 1993-2019. Graphic: IMBIE / CPOM / Leeds University

Greenland losing ice seven times faster than in the 1990s – Sea level rise from Greenland melt tracking highest climate projections

10 December 2019 (Utrecht University) – Greenland is losing ice seven times faster than in the 1990s and is tracking the IPCC’s high-end climate warming scenario, which would see 40 million more people exposed to coastal flooding by 2100. The findings, published in Nature today, show that Greenland has lost 3.8 trillion tonnes of ice […]

People walk on catwalk set up on the occasion of a high tide, in a flooded Venice, Italy, 12 November 2019. Photo: Luca Bruno / AP Photo

Venice is drowning. It’s a warning of what’s to come.

By Editorial Board 15 November 2019 (The Washington Post) – Venice has always been linked closely with the water that surrounds it. The city is thought to have been founded by refugees seeking protection from Germanic invaders by sheltering in the northwestern Adriatic Sea’s islands and marshes. By the 12th century, the doge would annually […]

NOAA’s GOES East satellite captured this view of the strong Category 1 storm at 8:20 a.m. EDT, just 15 minutes before the center of Hurricane Dorian moved across the barrier islands of Cape Hatteras. Photo: NOAA

Rising sea levels are swallowing North Carolina’s Outer Banks beaches, new report says

By Hayley Fowler 20 November 2019 CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (The Charlotte Observer) – Hurricanes aren’t the only hazard lapping at the shores of the Outer Banks, according to a report examining the threat of climate change on some of the country’s most beloved natural landscapes. Thanks to creeping sea levels and erosion rates, Cape Hatteras […]

Aerial view of Runit Dome, in Enewetak Atoll, the Marshall Islands, where more than 3.1 million cubic feet of U.S.-produced radioactive soil and debris, including lethal amounts of plutonium, are buried. The so-called “Tomb” now bobs with the tide, sucking in and flushing out radioactive water into nearby coral reefs, contaminating marine life. Video: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

How the U.S. betrayed the Marshall Islands, kindling the next nuclear disaster – “More than any other place, the Marshall Islands is a victim of the two greatest threats facing humanity: nuclear weapons and climate change”

By Susanne Rust 10 November 2019 MAJURO, Marshall Islands (Los Angeles Times) – Five thousand miles west of Los Angeles and 500 miles north of the equator, on a far-flung spit of white coral sand in the central Pacific, a massive, aging and weathered concrete dome bobs up and down with the tide. Here in […]

A woman is silhouetted as she walks toward a flooded St. Mark’s Square, during historic flooding in Venice, Italy, 12 November 2019. Photo: Luca Bruno / AP Photo

Venice sees record third exceptional tide – Priceless artwork threatened – “It is a long-term issue. It is not the issue of one flood, we restore, and we go back to normal.”

By Colleen Barry and Luca Bruno 17 November 2019 VENICE, Italy (AP) – Venice was hit Sunday by a record third exceptional tide in the same week while other parts of Italy struggled with a series of weather woes, from rain-swollen rivers to high winds to an out-of-season avalanche. Stores and museums in Venice were […]

The home of Edward and Stella O’Neal is torn down due to damage caused by flooding during Hurricane Dorian in Ocracoke, North Carolina. Photo: Daniel Pullen / The Washington Post

Amid flooding and rising sea levels, residents of one barrier island wonder if it’s time to retreat – “Is this really sustainable? The answer is pretty clearly no.”

By Frances Stead Sellers 9 November 2019 OCRACOKE, North Carolina (The Washington Post) – On any normal late-fall day, the ferries that ply the 30 miles between Swan Quarter and this barrier island might carry vacationing retirees, sports fishermen and residents enjoying mainland getaways after the busy summer tourist season. But two months ago, Hurricane […]

Country-specific total CO2 emission shares GtC per year of the biggest 5 emitters. Graphic: Nauels, et al., 2019 / PNAS

Just 15 years of post-Paris emissions to lock in 20 cm of sea level rise in the year 2300 – “Emissions today will inevitably cause seas to rise a long way into the future. This process cannot be reversed. It is our legacy for humankind.”

5 November 2019 (PIK) – Unless governments significantly scale up their emission reduction efforts, the 15 years’ worth of emissions released under their current Paris Agreement pledges alone would cause 20 cm of sea-level rise over the longer term, according to new research published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). […]

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