Arguments
“Serious stress, serious stress.”
“An industry in its last days.”
“Steady decline [in growth, demand] for the past decade.”
“Cratering.”
Those are a few of the characterizations of today’s oil, natural gas, and coal industries put forward by several independent journalists, writers, and analysts in the new edition of the “This is Not Cool” video series.
… And then, along came the coronavirus and the COVID-19 challenges, providing one more blow to the energy industry.
Even pre-pandemic, the conventional energy sector “already had plans to cancel major infrastructure projects like pipelines,” independent journalist Keith Schneider told Yale Climate Connections. And with the pandemic, oil and gas experienced “the worst body blow in its modern contemporary history,” he said.
Journalist and writer Antonia Juhasz agrees, pointing to “an industry in its last days, it’s just getting hit from too many sides.”
“Most of the new electricity generation coming online today is coming from wind and solar,” says Houston Chronicle reporter Chris Tomlinson. And professor Dan Kammen of the University of California Berkeley says solar and wind have been the cheapest energy options worldwide for at least the past three consecutive years.
Kammen also says that he believes solar and wind energy initiatives can advance two to three times as many job opportunities as traditional fossil fuel projects: That would be critical to help long-time coal and other fossil fuel industry employees whose decades of work has been critical to economic development … and who society cannot simply leave stranded as momentum turns toward a clean economy. Tending to the plight of those workers whose jobs are lost will have to be part of the energy-options puzzle, interviewees say.
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #33, 2020
Posted on 19 August 2020 by doug_bostrom
Two epic review reports
AMS have released State of the Climate 2019 (50MB pdf), a comprehensive review of Earth's climate as it stood in 2019.
With much less fanfare Walsh et al have produced Extreme weather and climate events in northern areas: A review, 55 pages of scrupulous literature synopsis, synthesis and cautious projection supported by 20 pages of citation references. A true "don't miss" publication. The reference section is a goldmine for further exploration.
Both items are open access.
RCP8.5 is normal
In this week's "nudges" Schwalm et al remind us of the stubbornly droopy nature of the Keeling Curve:
Climate simulation-based scenarios are routinely used to characterize a range of plausible climate futures. Despite some recent progress on bending the emissions curve, RCP8.5, the most aggressive scenario in assumed fossil fuel use for global climate models, will continue to serve as a useful tool for quantifying physical climate risk, especially over near- to midterm policy-relevant time horizons. Not only are the emissions consistent with RCP8.5 in close agreement with historical total cumulative CO2 emissions (within 1%), but RCP8.5 is also the best match out to midcentury under current and stated policies with still highly plausible levels of CO2 emissions in 2100.
95 Articles
Observations of global warming & effects
AMS State of the Climate 2019 (open access)
Extreme weather and climate events in northern areas: A review (open access)
Death Valley, California, may have recorded the hottest temperature in world history
Posted on 18 August 2020 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters
Death Valley, California hit an astonishing 129.9 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4°C) at 3:41 p.m. PDT Sunday, August 16, 2020, which was rounded to 130 degrees Fahrenheit in the final report from NOAA.
According to weather records experts Christopher Burt, who wrote the comprehensive weather records book “Extreme Weather,” and Maximiliano Herrera, who tweets under the Twitter handle Extreme Temperatures Around the World, the observation may be the hottest reliably recorded temperature in world history, breaking the 129.2 degrees Fahrenheit readings at Death Valley in 2013 and in Kuwait in 2016.
Cautions about the record
Herrera and Burt are cautious about accepting the new record set at the Furnace Creek Visitor’s Center in Death Valley. The measurement came in mid-August. But extreme high temperature records are much easier to set in July, which is the hottest month of summer. Also concerning was the fact that Sunday’s temperatures at Furnace Creek showed some odd jumps during the day. (See the raw high-resolution data here by choosing a time up to six days in the past from the drop-down menu, then choosing “Decoded Data.”)
However, there were some relevant wind direction changes at Furnace Creek that occurred during these temperature jumps, bolstering the idea that the temperature changes were real. The National Weather Service noted that transient high cirrus clouds may have played a role in the temperature changes. Further support for the 130 degrees Fahrenheit reading at Furnace Creek came from the nearby Stovepipe Wells site in Death Valley, which peaked at 125 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday. That site, which lies in a cooler part of the valley and is 200 feet higher in elevation, is typically three to five degrees cooler than the Furnace Creek site.
The Greenland Ranch USWB weather shelter in Death Valley, California, site of the official world record extreme temperature of 134 degrees Fahrenheit on July 10, 1913. Photo is the oldest known photograph of the weather station (circa late 1910s to as late as 1921) and is looking west. (Image credit: NWS Las Vegas archives via Chris Burt)
Scientists remember 'Koni' Steffen, glaciologist who died after fall into crevasse in Greenland
Posted on 17 August 2020 by Bud Ward
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections
If, as they say, passing on – aka dying – is best when it comes “doing the thing they most enjoyed and loved doing,” then Konrad Steffen did it the right way, his way.
One of the world’s leading Greenland ice scientists, the 68-year-old Koni (pronounced as in “Connie”) Steffen died in early August after falling into an ice crevasse near Illuissat in Greenland. For more than three decades, he had conducted ambitious research projects on enormous ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland.
The Swiss-born and, as the Washington Post’s Matt Schudel described him, “charismatic” Steffen had led students on annual research trips to Greenland, often doing so during his tenure with the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Studies, or CIRES, at the University of Colorado in Boulder. At the time of his death he was a professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.
A respected climate change educator and communicator, he was also effective in speaking with policymakers and the general public on issues on which his expertise was unquestioned. He earned respect from other top climatologists and glaciologists.
“Koni’s passing is very unfortunate and a great loss to the global glaciological community,” said Ohio State University’s Lonnie Thompson. “Koni was deeply passionate about glaciers and ice sheets, especially Greenland, and the critical roles they play in Earth’s climate system. If Koni had to choose where to depart this life, Greenland would have been at the top of his list.”
“Huge loss. He was a towering figure in our field. Hard to tell even where to begin,” said Richard Alley of Penn State. “His leadership portfolio was spectacular.”
2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #33
Posted on 16 August 2020 by John Hartz
Story of the Week... El Niño/La Niña Update... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week...
Story of the Week...
Going, Going ... Gone: Greenland’s Melting Ice Sheet Passed a Point of No Return in the Early 2000s
A new study finds that the accelerating retreat and thinning of Greenland’s glaciers that began 20 year ago is speeding the ice sheet toward total meltdown.
Water from the Greenland ice sheet flows through heather and peat during unseasonably warm weather on Aug. 1, 2019. Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
The Greenland Ice Sheet managed to withstand the warming brought by the first 150 years of the industrial age, with enough snow piling up each winter to balance the ice lost to spring and summer melting. But, according to a new study, that all changed 20 years ago.
Starting in 2000, Greenland's glaciers suddenly began moving faster, their snouts rapidly retreating and thinning where they flow into the sea. Between 2000 and 2005, that acceleration led to an all-but irreversible "step-increase" of ice loss, scientists concluded in the new research, published this week in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment.
If the climate were to stop warming today, or even cool a little, Greenland's ice will continue to melt, said Ohio State University Earth scientist Ian Howat, co-author of the research paper. "Glacier retreat has knocked the dynamics of the whole ice sheet into a constant state of loss," he said. "Even if we were to stabilize at current temperatures, the ice will continue to disintegrate more quickly than if we hadn't messed with the climate to begin with."
Click here to acces the entire article originally posted on the InsideClimate New website.
Going, Going ... Gone: Greenland’s Melting Ice Sheet Passed a Point of No Return in the Early 2000s by Bob Berwyn, InsideClimate News, Aug 15, 2020
2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #33
Posted on 15 August 2020 by John Hartz
Editor's Choice
Most of UN climate science report likely to be delayed beyond 2021 Glasgow summit
Only the first section of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, about the science of global warming, is set to be ready before the postponed Glasgow summit
Camels, Danakil Depression, Ethiopia Ian Swithinbank /Flickr
Most of a blockbuster UN scientific report on climate change is likely to be delayed beyond a UN climate summit due in Glasgow, Scotland, in November 2021 because of Covid-19.
The three parts of the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the main guide to policymakers around the world had originally been due in 2021 in an update of the last global assessment completed in 2014.
The expected publication in 2021 of the reports by the IPCC, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, had been one of few benefits when the UN and host Britain postponed the climate summit in Glasgow to November 2021 from the original date of November 2020 because of the pandemic.
On current plans, however, only the first section of the IPCC report about the science of global warming, including scenarios for temperatures and sea level rise, is now expected to be issued before the summit in Glasgow as timetables slip, IPCC sources said.
The other two main sections – about the impacts of climate change and ways to curb greenhouse gas emissions – will not be published before the summit because of a series of delays to author meetings and scientific research caused by the pandemic. That will also delay a final synthesis report, tying up work by the three working groups due in 2022.
Click here to acces the entire article originally posted on the Climate Home News website.
Most of UN climate science report likely to be delayed beyond 2021 Glasgow summitby Alister Doyle, Climate Home News, Aug 13, 2020
Why children must emit eight times less CO2 than their grandparents
Posted on 14 August 2020 by Zeke Hausfather
This is a re-post from Carbon Brief
Global emissions of CO2 need to decline precipitously over the next few decades, if the world is to meet the Paris Agreement goals of limiting global warming to “well below 2C” and, ideally, below 1.5C.
If these goals are to be met, young people would have to live the greater part of their lives without contributing significantly to global emissions. Essentially, they would have fewer “allowable” CO2 emissions during their lifetime, compared with older generations.
To determine just how much smaller their personal CO2 limits would be, Carbon Brief has combined historical data on emissions and population with projections for the future. In a world where warming is limited to 1.5C, the average person born today can emit only an eighth of the lifetime emissions of someone born in 1950.
The interactive tool, below, shows the size of each person’s “carbon budget” during their lifetime – based on when and where they were born.
It looks at two different scenarios: one where the world limits warming to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels by 2100; and one were warming is limited to 1.5C.
It also considers two different ways of sharing future allowable emissions: one where each country tracks “optimal” pathways taken from models; and another, focused on equality, where each person can use the same portion of future emissions, no matter where they live.
In all cases, younger generations will have to make do with substantially smaller lifetime carbon budgets than older generations, if the Paris limits are to be respected. This is because most of the allowable emissions have already been used up, meaning young people will not have the luxury of unmitigated emissions enjoyed by older generations.
The idea for this analysis was first proposed to Carbon Brief by Dr Ben Caldecott at the University of Oxford. The methodology used – and its limitations – are explained in detail at the end of this article. Carbon Brief is now working to further develop the analysis with Dr Caldecott and his colleagues.
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #32, 2020
Posted on 12 August 2020 by doug_bostrom
Respecting the journal editorial process
Each week we scan between 450 and 650 articles for relevance to Skeptical Science's remit: communication of the science of climate change itself the many affected branches of scientific inquiry by climate change.
The 100+ journals we cover encompass a galaxy of expertise we cannot hope to replicate, let alone exceed. Our appropriate role is to assess the raw filtrates from our feeds purely for what they may add to public understanding of our central topic. "Does this article connect to climate change?" That's the sole question we ask of each item appearing on the screen.
We also don't bring "an agenda" to this process. The single qualitative metric we employ is "did a team of journal editors and reviewers deem this work worth publishing?" Our raw feed filters are fed directly from journal publishing systems, so the answer to that question is always "yes."
For these reasons readers from time to time (and all too rarely) will spot articles identifying potential benefits of global warming. Some articles come from academic branches we didn't even know exist, and that have the whiff of scary unfamiliarity. Commonly we see articles identifying and trying to correct insufficient understanding of some particular aspect of global warming or its upshots. These latter are not warts or defects. Iterative progress and refinement is of course the norm in scientific research.
Skeptical Science was founded to combat denial of climate science and New Research is part of that effort. Exposing the torrent of scientific publication around climate science is helpful to grasping climate change as an unavoidable challenge. In doing this work we've learned that the final two stops on the railroad of climate science denial are "The System Isn't Fair" followed shortly down the track by the slightly less populated "They're All Lying In Concert." These destinations are actually figments of denier imagination. Even Brigadoon is more plausible.
In reality we see a process that is not error-free but sometimes does contort itself to be inclusive of outré thinking. A fine example of that is how the Taylor and Francis journal Temperature has squeezed in a paper by Valentina Zharkova claiming (yet again) upcoming global cooling, as an "editorial." Zharkova's work is a redo of a previous publication that was retracted due to a basic misunderstanding on the behavior of the barycenter of the solar system. In an abundance of generosity, here's a second attempt gifted to Zharkova by the only means possible. Unfair? Hardly.
We publish journal editorials in New Research from time to time, in the section "Informed opinion and nudges." Often these are synthesis of many results suggesting possible or obvious topics for concentrated scrutiny. Zharkova's "editorial" doesn't really fit that standard model. Normally we'd expect such a work to appear as a regular peer-reviewed research result. But we'd rather err on the side of fairness; the last thing we want is to appear to be suppressing research that doesn't "go with the flow." The editors of Temperature chose to publish Zharkova's latest work and we'll take that as enough, perhaps bending over a bit backward to be consistent with our general principles of operation. And after all, links to articles here are reports, not endorsements.
Look for "Editorial" in the "Other" section if you're interested in Zharkova's take on future climate. Open access and free to read.
87 Articles
Physical science of global warming & effects
Implications of different aerosol species to direct radiative forcing and atmospheric heating rate
Scientists discover new ‘human fingerprint’ on global drought patterns
Posted on 11 August 2020 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Carbon Brief by Daisy Dunne
Human-caused climate change has “intensified” patterns of extreme rainfall and drought across the globe, a new study finds.
There is a detectable “human fingerprint” on decreasing rainfall over the US, central Asia and southern Africa, according to the results. It is also detectable on increasing rainfall in the Sahel region of Africa, India and the Caribbean.
In addition to increasing greenhouse gas emissions, aerosols released by human pollution and large volcanic eruptions have also been “major contributing agents” to global drought patterns through the industrial era, the research says.
The findings “tackle the problem of identifying the human influence of drought patterns across the world”, a climate scientist tells Carbon Brief.
Fingerprints
Droughts are among the most expensive weather-related disasters in the world (pdf), affecting ecosystems, agriculture and human society.
But understanding how climate change is affecting drought risk at a global scale can be fraught, explains Dr Andrew King, a climate extremes research fellow at the University of Melbourne. King, who was not involved in the new paper, tells Carbon Brief:
“It is difficult in many regions of the world due to the short observational record coupled with the prolonged nature of droughts. Unfortunately, this yields relatively few events to analyse.”
For the new study, published in Nature Climate Change, scientists made use of an emerging technique in climate science known as “human fingerprinting”. Lead author Dr Céline Bonfils, a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, explains to Carbon Brief:
Cranky Uncle cartoons available as PPT slides
Posted on 10 August 2020 by John Cook
Since finishing the Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change book, I’ve frequently dipped into that 176-page clip-art library, reshaping the cartoons to fit the 1920 x 1080 pixel format for Powerpoint presentations. I’ve also adapted many of the cartoons for the Cranky Uncle video series.
Over the last few weeks, a few people have asked if they could use some of my Cranky Uncle cartoons in their climate talks. In response, I’ve now collected a bunch of 1920 x 1080 Cranky Uncle cartoons and uploaded them all in a freely available Powerpoint presentation. Any educators, scientists, activists, or climate communicators giving a talk about climate change are welcome to use any of the cartoons in your talks. They are free to use (but letting us know the context of how you used them in the comment thread below would be much appreciated).
DOWNLOAD CRANKY UNCLE POWERPOINT
Almost all the cartoons come from the Cranky Uncle book with a few exceptions. One is a cartoon I drew of Scott Pruitt. This was actually in the first draft of the book, which I wrote back when Pruitt was head of the EPA. Pruitt actually featured quite a lot in that first draft – which I think was a way for me to cope with the frustration of the endless series of scandals following him. My editor wisely advised me to trim Pruitt from the book, suggesting it would date very quickly. Sure enough, Pruitt was fired before I even finished the first draft!
Another cartoon I drew after the book was finished was a cartoon I drew for a Guardian article by Dana Nuccitelli. As is usual for Dana, his article was excellent and went viral so that the article got featured on the Guardian homepage – which meant my cartoon appeared on the Guardian homepage for a short while. That was fun!
2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #32
Posted on 9 August 2020 by John Hartz
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Story of the Week...
Drawdown Review 2020: How To Address Global Warming In A Responsible Manner
Source: Project Drawdown
Project Drawdown is a non-profit organization that relies on the collaborative efforts of many scientists, economists, and technology specialists from around the world to craft intelligent ways of meeting the challenge of a warming planet. Three years ago, the group published its first book, entitled Drawdown, which presented 100 strategies for meeting the goals agreed to by the vast majority of the world’s nations in Paris in 2015.
Three years later, it has updated that original with a new report entitled Drawdown Review, which dares to suggest humanity can manage the climate crisis effectively using only the tools available today. Of course, that assumes we have the will to address the problem as responsible adults.
Drawdown Review is too complex and detailed to compress it into a short article. It is packed with graphs, charts, and footnotes, and we urge you to read it for yourself. Its ten most salient findings are reproduced below, prefaced by these words from the foreword:
“At present, global efforts come nowhere near the scale, speed, or scope required [to address the most recent IPCC report]. Yet many of the means to achieve the necessary transformation already exist. Almost daily, there is promising evolution and acceleration of climate solutions, alongside growing efforts to sunset fossil fuel infrastructure and prevent expansion of these antiquated and dangerous energy sources.”
Click here to access the entire article originally posted on the Clean Technica website.
Drawdown Review 2020: How To Address Global Warming In A Responsible Manner by Steve Hanley, Clean Technica, Aug 8, 2020
2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #32
Posted on 8 August 2020 by John Hartz
Editor's Choice
Five Years After Speaking Out on Climate Change, Pope Francis Sounds an Urgent Alarm
The encyclical ‘Laudato Si’ motivated many people to take action on global warming, but governments, the pope said, have lagged far behind.
Pope Francis delivers his blessing from the window overlooking St. Peter's Square at the Vatican during the Sunday Angelus prayer earlier this month. Credit: Filippo Monteforte/AFP/Getty
When Pope Francis issued his landmark teaching document on climate change in 2015, his words went straight to the heart of Susan Varlamoff.
Varlamoff, 70, a biologist, read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in the 1960s and speaks proudly of a Catholic faith that embraces science and calls on church members to take care of the earth. Her sister, she said, died from cancer as a child, and she wondered whether her father's liberal use of pesticides in their suburban yard might have been the cause.
She asked Archbishop Wilton Gregory, who was then the leader of 1.2 million Catholics in Atlanta and across much of Georgia, whether she could write a review for the archdiocese of the Pope's "Laudato Si': On Care for our Common Home," the first encyclical to be dedicated to the environment.
Instead, he asked for an action plan.
Click here to access the entire article as posted on the InsideClimate News website.
Five Years After Speaking Out on Climate Change, Pope Francis Sounds an Urgent Alarm by James Bruggers, InsideClimate News, Aug 7, 2020
Why we don't act: Climate Change Psychology
Posted on 7 August 2020 by Guest Author
Little kids are bad at delayed gratification. But unfortunately so are adults. I take a look at why weighing future benefits against present costs makes climate change such a challenging conundrum.
Support ClimateAdam on patreon: http://patreon.com/climateadam
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #31, 2020
Posted on 5 August 2020 by doug_bostrom
100 Articles
Physical science of global warming & effects
Observations of global warming & effects
Instrumentation and observational methods of climate & global warming
Validation of reanalysis Southern Ocean atmosphere trends using sea ice data (open access)
Differences in tropical high clouds among reanalyses: origins and radiative impacts (open access)
Evaluation of a New Carbon Dioxide System for Autonomous Surface Vehicles (open access)
CLASSnmat: A global night marine air temperature data set, 1880–2019 (open access)
Announcing a new partnership between SkS and Fakebook.eco.br
Posted on 4 August 2020 by BaerbelW
As many good things come in threes (as the saying goes), we are happy to announce a third partnership between Skeptical Science and other websites. Fakebook.eco in Brazil is joining Klimafakten.de in Germany and Nauka o Klimacie in Poland to leverage translated rebuttal material and to make the information readily available in other languages than English and with a focus on a specific region.
Here is Fakebook.Eco's English press release announcing our new partnership:
The world’s prime Web resource against climate denial and Brazil’s first on-line platform to fight environmental disinformation have joined forces. Skeptical Science is the new content partner of Fakebook.eco, having agreed to make its Portuguese content available on the Brazilian website.
Skeptical Science was created by Australian cognitive scientist John Cook, a research assistant professor at George Mason University, as an effort to improve the communication of climate science to the public and fight climate denial. It displays a vast set of rebuttals to the most common fallacies, misunderstandings and myths about climate change, in three levels of depth – from basic to advanced. It is run by a global network of volunteers and volunteer translators and has content available in 23 languages – including Portuguese.
Fakebook.eco is a collaboration among climate activists, journalists and scientists led by Brazilian climate advocacy network Observatório do Clima, with the support of five science and environment news portals and blogs. It offers rebuttals of frequent fallacies about several environmental issues and also near-real-time fact-checks of environmental information in the public discourse.
“I’m thrilled to have Skeptical Science as a partner. From the inception, it has been a big inspiration to Fakebook.eco, and adapting their content will take us to another level”, says Claudio Angelo, founder and senior collaborator of Fakebook.eco.
While incorporating Portuguese rebuttal versions from SkS on their website the Fakebook.eco team will apply tweaks as needed to the rebuttal content in order to make them more applicable to their Brazilian readership or to include newer research findings. In the latter case we'll get the information about updates applied and can in turn use them to also update the original rebuttal versions (and their translations!) - a real win-win situation!
We've been having the wrong debate about nuclear energy
Posted on 3 August 2020 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk
Many Americans these days seem unable to avoid controversy on practically any topic, so why not embrace the discord and wade into the especially volatile arena of nuclear energy? Advocates claim it’s the only way to meet global climate goals, while opponents dig in their heels over safety, national security, and radioactive waste concerns.
And then there’s money, and lots of it, involved: a frequent common thread even – or perhaps especially – on the issues most splitting opinions on all-things-nuclear.
But the debate on both sides often misses key points. A central tenet of much of the pro-nuclear rhetoric is a misleadingly gloomy portrayal of renewable energy options. Meanwhile, absolutist arguments against nuclear energy too often apply primarily to older plants no longer being built. And at times both sides tend to hang their hats on optimistic advances in technologies that may or may not become commercially available in time to make needed progress toward decarbonization.
Given a pressing need to re-think the world’s energy systems, it’s worthwhile talking about nuclear energy. But first, spurious and inflammatory claims have to be cast aside in favor of a fair appraisal of the best and quickest ways to move beyond fossil fuels.
Root of the problem: Need for non-intermittent energy
Progress in greening the U.S. electricity grid is well underway. Coal is declining while renewables grow. But that formula goes only so far. Energy analysts point out that to decarbonize fully, a low- or no-carbon energy source is needed to fill in the gaps around the edges of intermittent generation.
Consider the case of California, a leading state in the deployment of renewables. Although solar energy handles most of the demand during the daylight hours, it cannot keep pace with evening energy use. Presently, natural gas “peaker” plants are used to complement solar and wind, continuing the state’s reliance on fossil fuels.
In order to phase out emissions from natural gas, either carbon capture needs to be added to gas power plants, or a low-carbon option can be used, such as improved renewables storage or nuclear power.
It’s important to note that not all eggs need to go into one basket. The nation’s present energy infrastructure relies on a combination of technologies, and a diverse approach seems likely to continue.
2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #31
Posted on 2 August 2020 by John Hartz
Story of the Week... Opinion of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review...
Story of the Week...
Rising Seas Could Menace Millions Beyond Shorelines, Study Finds
As climate change raises sea levels, storm surges and high tides will push farther inland, a team of researchers says.
Bangladesh, above, is particularly at risk, along with Virginia and North Carolina in the United States, and parts of France, Germany, India and China. Credit: Munir Uz Zaman/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
As global warming pushes up ocean levels around the world, scientists have long warned that many low-lying coastal areas will become permanently submerged.
But a new study published Thursday finds that much of the economic harm from sea-level rise this century is likely to come from an additional threat that will arrive even faster: As oceans rise, powerful coastal storms, crashing waves and extreme high tides will be able to reach farther inland, putting tens of millions more people and trillions of dollars in assets worldwide at risk of periodic flooding.
The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, calculated that up to 171 million people living today face at least some risk of coastal flooding from extreme high tides or storm surges, created when strong winds from hurricanes or other storms pile up ocean water and push it onshore. While many people are currently protected by sea walls or other defenses, such as those in the Netherlands, not everyone is.
If the world’s nations keep emitting greenhouse gases, and sea levels rise just 1 to 2 more feet, the amount of coastal land at risk of flooding would increase by roughly one-third, the research said. In 2050, up to 204 million people currently living along the coasts would face flooding risks. By 2100, that rises to as many as 253 million people under a moderate emissions scenario known as RCP4.5. (The actual number of people at risk may vary, since the researchers did not try to predict future coastal population changes.)
Click here to access the entire article as originally posted on The New York Times website.
Rising Seas Could Menace Millions Beyond Shorelines, Study Finds by Brad Plumer, Climate, New York Times, June 30, 2020
2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #31
Posted on 1 August 2020 by John Hartz
Editor's Choice
The four types of climate denier, and why you should ignore them all
The shill, the grifter, the egomaniac and the ideological fool: each distorts the urgent global debate in their own way
‘Serious debates about what to do about the climate crisis are turning into action. The deniers have nothing to contribute to this.’ Signs of global warming on the Mer de Glace glacier in the French Alps. Photograph: Konrad K/SIPA/REX/Shutterstock
Anew book, described as “deeply and fatally flawed” by an expert reviewer, recently reached the top of Amazon’s bestseller list for environmental science and made it into a weekly top 10 list for all nonfiction titles.
How did this happen? Because, as Brendan Behan put it, “there’s no such thing as bad publicity”. In an article promoting his book, Michael Shellenberger – with jaw-dropping hubris – apologises on behalf of all environmentalists for the “climate scare we created over the last 30 years”.
Shellenberger was named a hero of the environment by Time magazine in 2008 and is a loud advocate of nuclear power, but the article was described by six leading scientists as “cherry-picking”, “misleading” and containing “outright falsehoods”.
The article was widely republished, even after being removed from its first home, Forbes, for violating the title’s editorial guidelines on self-promotion, adding further heat to the storm. And this is why all those who deny the reality or danger of the climate emergency should be ignored. Obviously, I have broken my own rule here, but only to make this vital point once and for all.
The science is clear, the severity understood at the highest levels everywhere, and serious debates about what to do are turning into action. The deniers have nothing to contribute to this.
Click here to access the entire opinion piece as originally posted on The Guardian website.
The four types of climate denier, and why you should ignore them all, Opinion by Damian Carrington, Comment is Free, Guardian, July 31, 2020
The Trump EPA is vastly underestimating the cost of carbon dioxide pollution to society, new research finds
Posted on 30 July 2020 by dana1981
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections
Government rulemakers looking to decide how much money to spend to avoid adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere need a good estimate of what a warming climate will cost in social damages, for example through more extreme weather events.
That point makes the “social cost of carbon” one of the most critically important metrics underlying regulation of climate pollutants. An estimate of the dollar costs of each ton of carbon pollution caused by climate change, the social cost of carbon guides federal agencies that are required to consider the costs and benefits of proposed regulations. Federal agencies so far have used the social cost of carbon while writing regulations with more than $1 trillion in economic benefits.
In 2010, a governmental interagency working group in the Obama administration established the first federal social cost of carbon estimate of $45 per ton of carbon dioxide pollution. In 2017, newly inaugurated President Donald Trump quickly disbanded the interagency group by executive order, and within months his EPA slashed the metric to between $1 and $6. The latest research by an independent team of scientists concludes that the social cost of carbon should actually start at about $100 to $200 per ton of carbon dioxide pollution in 2020, increasing to nearly $600 by 2100.
Should presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden win the presidency in the November election, his federal agency appointees will undoubtedly set about revising the social cost of carbon to reflect the up-to-date climate science and economics research. The revised social cost of carbon will in turn justify more stringent federal climate regulations. A Donald Trump second term would instead result in another four years of underestimated climate impact costs and continued delays in efforts to curb carbon pollution.
A history of attacks
Since its inception, the social cost of carbon has been a target of those opposing climate regulations, including many Republican office holders in Washington, D.C. The neutered social cost of carbon estimate has now been used to justify weakening three major climate regulations: undoing the Clean Power Plan, freezing vehicle fuel efficiency standards, and, in July 2020, setting airplane greenhouse gas standards to levels matching those the industry already has already met.
In December 2017, congressional Democrats asked the Government Accountability Office to examine the Trump EPA’s new method for calculating the social cost of carbon. The GAO published its report in June 2020.
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #30, 2020
Posted on 29 July 2020 by doug_bostrom
86 Articles
Observations & observational methods of global warming & effects
Forced Changes in the Arctic Freshwater Budget Emerge in the Early 21st Century
Ocean Acidification from Below in the Tropical Pacific
Snow cover duration trends observed at sites and predicted by multiple models
New insights into the world's longest series of monthly snowfall (Parma, Northern Italy, 1777‐2018)
Late 1990s’ cool season climate shift in eastern North America
Greening hiatus in Eurasian boreal forests since 1997 caused by a wetting and cooling summer climate
Impacts of Oceanic and Atmospheric Heat Transports on Sea Ice Extent (open access)
Change in the heatwave statistical characteristics over China during the climate warming slowdown
Instrumentation of global warming
Multidecadal trend analysis of in situ aerosol radiative properties around the world (open access)
Modeling & simulation of global warming & global warming effects
Time of Emergence & Large Ensemble Intercomparison For Ocean Biogeochemical trends
Greater Future U.K. Winter Precipitation Increase in New Convection-Permitting Scenarios
Projected Changes in South Asian Monsoon Low Pressure Systems (open access)
Future changes in precipitation-caused landslide frequency in British Columbia
Dynamical and hydrological changes in climate simulations of the last millennium (open access)
Cloudy-sky contributions to the direct aerosol effect (open access)
