wetland – Desdemona Despair

Counts (S) of anadromous adults in eight populations of the Santa Monica Mountains BPG. Counts are adjusted by +1 so that zero counts show up on the log scale Graphic: Boughton, 2022 in SWFSC 2022

April 30, 2024

Steelhead trout, once thriving in Southern California, are declared endangered – “The negative trend toward extinction has not reversed”

By Ian James 23 April 2024 (Los Angeles Times) – Southern California’s rivers and creeks once teemed with large, silvery fish that arrived from the ocean and swam upstream to spawn. But today, these fish are seldom seen. Southern California steelhead trout have been pushed to the brink of extinction as their river habitats have […]

Map showing global estuarine areal change, net change in estuarine surface area (ESA)(km2) per estuary. Line plots show gross area gained and lost as well as net estuarine area change per 1° latitude and longitude relative to the total area of gross gain and loss and net area change worldwide, respectively. Hotspots of ESA loss occur in Asia. Graphic: Jung, et al., 2024 / Earth’s Future

April 27, 2024

Humans converted at least 250,000 acres of estuaries to cities, farms in last 35 years

WASHINGTON, 9 April 2024 (AGU) – Worldwide over the past 35 years, dams and land reclamation activities converted 250,000 acres of estuary — an area roughly 17 times the size of Manhattan — to urban land or agricultural fields, with most land conversion and estuary loss in rapidly developing countries, a new study finds. The findings could […]

Map showing areas surrounding New Orleans underwater by 2050 if current trends in sea level rise continue. Graphic: Climate Central

January 1, 2024

Interactive map shows United States areas under the sea in 2050 due to climate change

By John O’sullivan 1 January 2024 (Irish Star) – Several parts of The United States could be underwater by the year 2050, according to a frightening map produced by Climate Central. The map shows what could happen if the sea levels, driven by climate change, continue to rise at rates of 2 mm and 4 mm […]

Tukpahlearik Creek in northwestern Alaska’s Brooks Range runs bright orange where permafrost is thawing. Photo: Taylor Roades / Scientific American

December 28, 2023

Why are Alaska’s rivers turning orange? “It was a famous, pristine river ecosystem, and it feels like it’s completely collapsing now”

By Alec Luhn 24 December 2023 (Scientific American) – It was a cloudy July afternoon in Alaska’s Kobuk Valley National Park, part of the biggest stretch of protected wilderness in the U.S. We were 95 kilometers (60 miles) from the nearest village and 400 kilometers from the road system. Nature doesn’t get any more unspoiled. […]

Flood waters ripple through an orchard of dead and dying pistachio trees in Tulare Lake. Photo: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times

October 30, 2023

Heat, drought, floods, bad air: Will California’s Central Valley survive climate change? “It’s almost like the forecast for the middle, late century – we’re seeing it right now”

By Hayley Smith 25 October 2023 (Los Angeles Times) – One March morning in the small Central Valley town of Woodlake, Joshua Diaz was getting out of bed when he noticed that his carpet was bubbling and that his tile floor had grown slick. He tried to open his front door but felt pressure and […]

A water meter stands in dry wetland in Donana natural park, southwest Spain as unprecedented drought hits the nation in 2023. Photo: Bernat Armangue / Africanews / AP Photo

May 27, 2023

“Murderers” and “criminals”: Meteorologists face unprecedented harassment from conspiracy theorists – “It was one of the hardest experiences in social media in my life”

By Laura Paddison 27 May 2023 (CNN) – “Murderers.” “Criminals.” “We are watching you.” These are just a handful of the threats and abuse sent to meteorologists at AEMET, Spain’s national weather agency, in recent months. They come via social media, its website, letters, phone calls – even in the form of graffiti sprayed across […]

CO2 equivalent mixing ratio of atmospheric greenhouse gases, 1979-2022. The NOAA Annual Greenhouse Gas Index (AGGI) tracks increases in the warming influence of heat-trapping gases generated by human activity, including carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and 15 other gases. This illustration depicts the increase in radiative forcing, relative to 1750, of virtually all long-lived greenhouse gases. The AGGI, which is indexed to 1 for the year 1990, is shown on the right axis. Graphic: NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory

May 24, 2023

NOAA index tracks how greenhouse gas pollution amplified global warming in 2022 – Methane and nitrous oxide rise near record levels – “Alternative energy sources to replace fossil fuels exist, but cutting emissions associated with producing food is perhaps an even more difficult task”

23 May 2023 (NOAA) – Greenhouse gas pollution from human activity trapped 49 percent more heat in the atmosphere during 2022 than those same gases did in 1990, according to an annual NOAA report. NOAA’s Annual Greenhouse Gas Index, known as the AGGI, tracks increases in the warming influence of heat-trapping gases generated by human activity, […]

Global monthly mean atmospheric carbon dioxide, 1979-2022. The global surface average for CO2 rose by 2.13 parts per million (ppm) to 417.06 ppm, roughly the same rate observed during the last decade. Atmospheric CO2 is now 50% higher than pre-industrial levels. 2022 was the 11th consecutive year CO2 increased by more than 2 ppm, the highest sustained rate of CO2 increases in the 65 years since monitoring began. Prior to 2013, three consecutive years of CO2 growth of 2 ppm or more had never been recorded. The Global Monitoring Division of NOAA/Earth System Research Laboratory has measured carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases for several decades at a globally distributed network of air sampling sites. This graph shows monthly mean abundance of carbon dioxide globally averaged over marine surface sites. Graphic: NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory

April 15, 2023

Greenhouse gases continued to increase rapidly in 2022 – Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide rise further into uncharted levels – “Greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at an alarming pace and will persist in the atmosphere for thousands of years”

5 April 2023 (NOAA) – Levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide, the three greenhouse gases emitted by human activity that are the most significant contributors to climate change, continued their historically high rates of growth in the atmosphere during 2022, according to NOAA scientists. The global surface average for CO2 rose by 2.13 […]

Satellite view of the Chibayish marshes in Iraq before and after drying from extended drought. Photo: Planet Labs

December 20, 2022

Politics, climate conspire as Tigris and Euphrates dwindle – “Life has ended here”

By Samya Kullab 18 November 2022 DAWWAYAH, Iraq and ILISU DAM, Turkey (AP) – Next year, the water will come. The pipes have been laid to Ata Yigit’s sprawling farm in Turkey’s southeast connecting it to a dam on the Euphrates River. A dream, soon to become a reality, he says. He’s already grown a […]

Number of Western Monarch butterflies (left) and butterfly surveys (right), 1997-2021. In the western United States, the number of individual butterflies has been steadily decreasing over the past four decades, at a rate of around 1.6% every year, according to a March 2021 study in the journal Science. The iconic Monarch butterfly is one of the species in trouble. Warmer autumn temperatures, an effect of climate change, may be interfering with the butterflies’ hibernation-like period known as diapause. So rather than slowing down ahead of winter, the insects are staying awake longer, expending more energy, and eventually starving to death. In July 2022, the migratory monarch was added to the IUCN’s global endangered species list. Graphic: Catherine Tai / Reuters

December 10, 2022

The collapse of insects – “They’re the fabric tethering together every freshwater and terrestrial ecosystem across the planet”

By Julia Janicki, Gloria Dickie, Simon Scarr and Jitesh Chowdhury 6 December 2022 (Reuters) – As a boy in the 1960s, David Wagner would run around his family’s Missouri farm with a glass jar clutched in his hand, scooping flickering fireflies out of the sky. “We could fill it up and put it by our […]