2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #30

Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... John Cook in the News... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week...

Story of the Week...

Major new climate study rules out less severe global warming scenarios

An analysis finds the most likely range of warming from doubling carbon dioxide to be between 4.1 to 8.1 degrees Fahrenheit

Hog Fire near Susanville, CA

Flames ripped through trees as the Hog Fire jumped Highway 36 about five miles from Susanville, Calif., on Monday. (Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images).

The current pace of human-caused carbon emissions is increasingly likely to trigger irreversible damage to the planet, according to a comprehensive international study released Wednesday. Researchers studying one of the most important and vexing topics in climate science — how sensitive the Earth’s climate is to a doubling of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — found that warming is extremely unlikely to be on the low end of estimates.

These scientists now say it is likely that if human activities — such as burning oil, gas and coal along with deforestation — push carbon dioxide to such levels, the Earth’s global average temperature will most likely increase between 4.1 and 8.1 degrees Fahrenheit (2.3 and 4.5 degrees Celsius). The previous and long-standing estimated range of climate sensitivity, as first laid out in a 1979 report, was 2.7 to 8.1 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 to 4.5 Celsius).

If the warming reaches the midpoint of this new range, it would be extremely damaging, said Kate Marvel, a physicist at NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies and Columbia University, who called it the equivalent of a “five-alarm fire” for the planet. 

Click here to access the entire article originally posted on The Washington Post website. 

Major new climate study rules out less severe global warming scenarios by Andrew Freedman & Chris Mooney, Capital Weather Gang, Washington Post, July 22, 2020


Toon of the Week...

2020 Toon 30 

Hat tip to the Stop Climate Science Denial Facebook page.


John Cook in the News...

John Cook is quoted extensively in this article:

Everybody’s entitled to their opinion - but not their own facts': The spread of climate denial on Facebook.

'The arguments are that people can't trust scientists, models, climate data. It's all about building doubt and undermining public trust in climate science'

by Louise Boyle, The Independent (UK). July 24, 2020


Coming Soon on SkS...


Climate Feedback Claim Review...

Greenhouse gases cause global warming by trapping infra-red radiations, not by “causing more holes in the ozone layer”

CLAIM: Greenhouse gases emitted into the ocean are causing more holes in the ozone layer … “the ozone layer has holes in it causing global temperature to rise”

VERDICT: Incorrect

SOURCE: Otis Holland, Instagram, July 11, 2020

KEY TAKE AWAY: It is a common misconception that Global Warming would be due to holes in the ozone layer caused by Greenhouse gases (GHG). Instead, GHGs warm the Earth’s surface by trapping infra-red radiations, limiting the natural process by which the Earth’s surface cools. Holes in the stratospheric ozone layer are caused by anthropogenic emissions of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC), halons, and other ozone-depleting substances. Reductions in ozone-depleting substances due to the Montreal Protocol have prevented the formation of more and deeper ozone holes.

Greenhouse gases cause global warming by trapping infra-red radiations, not by “causing more holes in the ozone layer” by Nikki Forrester, Climate Feedback Review, July 21, 2020


SkS Week in Review... 


Poster of the Week...

2020 Poster 30 

Posted by John Hartz on Sunday, 26 July, 2020


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