Tag: Climate variability and change

  • Tipping Points:  Where Things Stand

    Major planetary boundaries that support life are at risk of collapse. This is happening at speeds that climate scientists never thought possible. What are the consequences and what, if anything, can be done? Johan Rockström, Potsdam Institute for Climate Research, Germany, recently gave a 20-mimute TED speech: The Tipping Points of Climate Change. He is a […]

  • Methane Emissions “Fastest in Decades”

    A new study shows methane (CH4) emissions behaving like a sprinter on speed, setting decadal records. This is bad news. It’s 80-times more powerful than CO2 at trapping heat. Global emissions of methane, a powerful planet-heating gas, are ‘rising rapidly’ at the fastest rate in decades, requiring immediate action to help avert a dangerous escalation […]

  • Chomsky and UN Forewarnings Revisited

    I recently attended a family affair in Upstate NY and was informed that climate change articles, like this one, are too negative, causing close relatives to shutdown and going so far as to ignore articles, too gloomy, too negative, do something more positive. My response: Analyzing the planet’s climate system by studying peer-reviewed scientific publications […]

  • Where’s the Water?

    “Whiskey’s for drinking and water’s for fighting,” a popular adage from the chronicles of the American West that’s starting to come back into vogue. The world’s megacities are on a knife’s edge of water stress. Climate change is clobbering water resources and testing the nerves of the world, especially megacities; e.g., Mexico City (pop. 22 […]

  • Deadly Heat in a Political Jungle

    World heat is worse than ever. The entire planet is sweating. Every summer is hot but never like this. In America, it’s a national election year in the face of global record heat. What are candidates’ positions on CO2-infused heat? Graph by Brian Brettschneider, PhD, Climatologist It’s extremely significant that global heat is just as […]

  • Amazon Rainforest Collapse?

    Amazon Rainforest Collapse?

    Photo Credit: Rainforest Trust “A major question is whether a large-scale collapse of the Amazon forest system could actually happen within the twenty-first century.” (Source: Bernardo M. Flores, et al, “Critical Transitions in the Amazon Forest System”, Nature, February 14, 2024). It may seem absurd to consider collapse of the Amazon rainforest (65-million-years-old) which seems […]

  • Permafrost Showdown

    “Deep below the glistening surface of a frozen Arctic lake, something is bubbling—something that could cause global warming to accelerate beyond all previous projections… Now the freezer door is opening, releasing the carbon into Arctic lake bottoms. Microbes digest it, convert it to methane, and the lakes essentially burp out methane.’ Scientists estimate that permafrost […]

  • Surprising Rising Seas “Must Reads”

    Sea levels are surging along the US coastline, exceeding 30-year expectations. Scientists are confused, concerned, searching for answers. In that regard, an excellent new series by The Washington Post d/d April 29th, 2024, “Must Reads” is an eye-opening view into the impact of global warming in real time with real people and real images. For […]

  • The Heat’s On Big Time!

    “Nearly nineteen thousand (19,000) weather stations have notched record high temperatures since Jan. 1.” (Source: “Earth’s Record Hot Streak Might be a Sign of a New Climate Era”, The Washington Post, April 19, 2024). A blistering start to the 2024 year is breaking all-time global temperature records of 2023 and bringing to the forefront a […]

  • Helter Swelter

    Helter Swelter

    In various and fluctuating levels of awareness, we knew this was coming. Rivers ceased to flow. Lakes and reservoirs dropped to record-low levels or dried up altogether. Maybe not every year in every region, but pretty regularly over the last decade. Then, Smokehouse Creek Fire in the Panhandle this past February—the largest wildfire in Texas […]

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