https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/29/climate/climate-change-ocean-fish-iceland.html Source:   By Kendra Pierre-Louis, The New York Times. Excerpt: ISAFJORDUR, Iceland ... warming waters associated with climate change are causing some fish to seek cooler waters elsewhere, beyond the reach of Icelandic fishermen. Ocean temperatures around Iceland have increased between 1.8 and 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 20 years. For the past two seasons, Icelanders have not been able to harvest capelin, a type of smelt, as their numbers plummeted. The warmer waters mean that as some fish leave, causing financial disruption, other fish species arrive, triggering geopolitical conflicts. ...Different species of fish evolved to live in specific water temperatures, with some fish like sea bass requiring the temperate ocean climates like those found off the mid-Atlantic region of the United States, and tropical fish like the Spanish hogfish preferring warmer waters such as those in the Caribbean.

https://eos.org/articles/antarctic-ice-cores-offer-a-whiff-of-earths-ancient-atmosphere Source:   By Katherine Kornei. Eos/AGU. Excerpt: To determine how Earth’s climate has varied over time, scientists are constantly on the lookout for the oldest whiffs of our planet’s atmosphere. The current record holders, recently extracted from Antarctic ice cores and dated to over 2 million years old, reveal concentrations of gases like carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and methane in ancient Earth’s atmosphere. Researchers have now shown that levels of these greenhouse gases fluctuated less millions of years ago than they did in more recent times. That discovery has implications for how Earth transitioned between two climatic periods roughly a million years ago, the team reported. ...The climatic history of Earth has been far from constant: For the past 800,000 years, continental-scale ice sheets have repeatedly grown and retreated in glacial-interglacial cycles occurring roughly every 100,000 years (t

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/11/new-un-climate-report-offers-bleak-emissions-forecast Source:   By Nathaniel Gronewald, E&E News, Science Magazine. Excerpt: Global emissions are expected to keep climbing despite promises from almost 200 nations to address climate change, propelling temperatures upward and threatening to shatter the threshold of 2°C that scientists say would invite dramatic changes to ecology and the economy. The 10th Emissions Gap Report [ https://www.unenvironment.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2019 ] by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), released today, warned that there's "no sign" greenhouse gases will hit their zenith anytime soon. It arrived a day after the World Meteorological Organization revealed record-high concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. "The summary findings are bleak," the UNEP report said. "Countries collectively failed to stop the growth in globa

https://eos.org/articles/dire-and-drier-future-for-lake-victoria Source:   By Kimberly M. S. Cartier, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Lake Victoria in eastern central Africa supports over 40 million people, the industrial sectors of three large nations, and the largest freshwater tropical ecosystem in the world. New research, however, suggests that the lake might not be around to do all of this in the not-so-distant future. ...“Historically, the level of Lake Victoria has dropped pretty drastically,” and past research has shown that the lake twice dried out completely, 15,000 and 17,000 years ago. The team’s research showed that the lake also dried out at least once more in the past 100,000 years. ... Under the driest projected conditions—less than half the current amount of rainfall—Lake Victoria would stop supplying a major tributary of the Nile in about a decade. All major lakeside cities in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania could lose access to the lake in as little as 100 years, and the shoreline

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/24/us/florida-keys-flooding-king-tide.html Source:  By Patricia Mazzei, The New York Times. Excerpt: A brutal “king tides” season made worse by climate change has flooded the streets of a Florida Keys community for nearly three months. ... For nearly three months, the residents of Stillwright Point’s 215 homes have been forced to carefully plan their outings and find temporary workarounds to deal with the smelly, stagnant water — a result not of rain, but a rising sea — that makes their mangrove-lined streets look more like canals. Another Key Largo neighborhood, Twin Lakes, is similarly inundated. Scientists say a combination of factors, including disruptive hurricanes, have contributed to this year’s exceptionally high tides. “King tides” take place predictably each fall, when the alignment of the moon, sun and Earth creates a stronger gravitational pull on the warm oceans. Rising sea levels caused by climate change make the flooding worse. ... Geo

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/11/brazil-s-deforestation-exploding-and-2020-will-be-worse Source:   By Herton Escobar, Science Magazine. Excerpt: Development, most of it illegal, destroyed more than 9700 square kilometers of Brazilian Amazon rainforest in the year ending in July, according to a government estimate released on Monday—an increase of 30% from the previous year and the highest rate of deforestation since 2007–08.... See also "Massive Australian blazes will ‘reframe our understanding of bushfire’ [ https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/11/massive-australian-blazes-will-reframe-our-understanding-bushfire ]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/21/climate/farms-climate-change-crops.html Source:   By John Schwartz, The New York Times. Excerpt: The damage from the destructive spring flooding in the Midwest has been followed in parts of the country by a miserable autumn that is making a bad farming year worse, with effects that could be felt into next spring. ... many farmers couldn’t get crops in the ground or had to delay planting until perilously late in the season. “Farmers told me in Eastern Illinois it felt like they were in a monsoon from April til May.” It was the wettest year on record for the lower 48 states, with the kind of extreme rainfall events that are increasingly associated with climate change. And then fall came in with unseasonably heavy rains and snow....

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/21/world/australia/fires-water-tankers-climate-change.html Source:   By Damien Cave, The New York Times. Excerpt: As climate change pushes California’s fire season into Australia’s, an intricate system of resource sharing struggles with the load. SYDNEY, Australia — Sharing the giant air tankers that fight fires 5,000 gallons of water at a time used to be simpler. California’s wildfires faded before Australia’s bush fires surged, leaving time to prepare, move and deploy planes from one continent to another. But climate change is subverting the system. Fire seasons are running longer, stronger, hotter. The major fires now blanketing Sydney in smoke started early, within days of the last California blazes. And the strain is global. Countries that used to manage without extra help, like Chile, Bolivia and Cyprus, have started competing for plane and helicopter contracts as their own fires intensify. That is stretching capacity for the companies that pro

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/11/massive-australian-blazes-will-reframe-our-understanding-bushfire Source:   By John Pickrell, Science Magazine. Excerpt: SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA—Australia is on fire like never before—and this year’s “bushfire” season, which typically peaks in January and February, has barely begun. Driven in part by a severe drought, fires have burned 1.65 million hectares in the state of New South Wales, more than the state’s total in the previous 3 years combined. Six people have died and more than 500 homes have been destroyed. As Science went to press, some 70 uncontrolled fires were burning in adjacent Queensland, and South Australia was bracing for potentially “catastrophic” burns. David Bowman, a fire ecologist and geographer and director of the Fire Centre at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, spoke with Science about the crisis. The flames have charred even moist ecosystems once thought safe, he says. And the fires have become “white-hot politically,”

https://eos.org/articles/climate-change-will-make-us-sicker-and-lose-work-hours Source:   By Jenessa Duncombe, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Climate change has medical experts worried about our health, according to a recent report from the Lancet Countdown, an interdisciplinary group of 34 academic institutions and United Nations agencies. Authors include climate scientists, doctors, economists, and other experts. Heat and air pollution are some of the worst offenders, according to the report. Rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions will be the only way to lower health risks in the long run. Here are four major takeaways from the report for public health in the United States: 1. Worker productivity is dropping because of soaring temperatures. 2. Older adults are more and more at risk from heat waves. 3. Soot and small particles from burning coal and oil are killing people. 4. Children will face a lifetime of health risks from climate change....

https://eos.org/articles/modeling-how-groundwater-pumping-will-affect-aquatic-ecosystems Source:   By Adityarup Chakravorty, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Almost 30% of Earth’s freshwater supply lies hidden from view as groundwater. These waters, though mostly invisible, are vital for us humans. Groundwater provides about half the global supply of drinking water and is used to grow the majority of the world’s irrigated crops. Groundwater is also an inextricable cog in the global water cycle. In many areas, discharge from groundwater replenishes streams and rivers, helping sustain aquatic ecosystems. Many of these ecosystems are now under threat, according to a new study. Inge de Graaf, a hydrological environmental systems researcher at the University of Freiburg, and colleagues simulated on a global scale how current rates of groundwater extraction will affect surface streams and rivers and the ecosystems associated with them. “Almost 20% of the regions where groundwater is pumped currently su

https://eos.org/articles/peatlands-are-drying-out-across-europe Source:    By Michael Allen, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Peatlands are some of the world’s largest reservoirs of soil carbon, but new research finds that in Europe they are drying out, putting them at risk of turning from carbon sinks to carbon sources. These wetlands are vitally important for carbon storage, holding roughly 30% of global soil carbon, despite covering only around 3% of Earth’s surface. It is their saturated surface conditions that make peatlands such effective carbon stores. When peat mosses die, they sink into this wet environment, and the low-oxygen, often acidic conditions prevent microbes that decompose plant litter elsewhere from working effectively. Instead of breaking down, the dead mosses slowly build up, trapping the carbon dioxide that they sucked out of the atmosphere during photosynthesis underground. But a new study suggests that in Europe peatland water tables are falling. In the journal Nature Geo

https://eos.org/articles/toxic-algal-blooms-are-worsening-with-climate-change Source:    By Kate Wheeling, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Every summer, vast blooms of harmful algae erupt in freshwater lakes across the United States. This year, blue-green mats of algae blanketed more than 1,500 square kilometers of Lake Erie’s surface by August; toxic algae forced officials to close New Jersey’s largest lake to recreational activities, and officials in North Carolina and Georgia warned dog owners to keep their pets out of the water after at least four dogs died after swimming in contaminated water. Although these harmful algal blooms are not new to freshwater lakes, they do appear to be getting worse. But researchers weren’t certain whether freshwater blooms are actually intensifying or scientists are just paying closer attention. ...A new study that looked back at 3 decades of satellite data finds that these summertime algal blooms are indeed worsening in large freshwater lakes around the world

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/01/science/blue-holes-hurricanes.html Source:   By Katherine Kornei,  The New York Times   Excerpt: Scientists assembled a 1,500-year history of big storm activity by retrieving sediment from the island country’s submarine caverns. ... researchers have assembled a 1,500-year history of hurricanes in the Bahamas, based on sand and shell fragments pulled up from submarine caverns known as blue holes. Their results, published in October in Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology [ https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019PA003665 ], show that hurricane activity has varied over time. In fact, recent hurricane activity in the Bahamas has been low compared with historical highs, despite intense activity elsewhere in the Atlantic arena. The fluctuations are likely driven by changes in atmospheric and oceanic circulation and volcanism, the scientists suggest. ... Cooler ocean surface temperatures have been linked to reduced hurricane activit

https://eos.org/research-spotlights/oceans-vented-carbon-dioxide-during-the-last-deglaciation Source:    By  Kate Wheeling, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: A new boron isotope record from South Pacific marine sediments offers a more complete picture of ocean-atmosphere carbon dioxide exchange during the late Pleistocene. During the late Pleistocene epoch, ice sheets advanced and retreated in tandem with changing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Researchers have long sought to understand the complex processes that modulate rising and falling carbon dioxide concentrations—a line of research with important implications today as levels reach highs not seen since roughly 3 million years ago in the Pliocene, when the Arctic was forested. ... The authors ...found widespread outgassing of carbon dioxide, particularly during the last deglaciation, which could be explained by an increase in upwelling of the gas from the deep ocean, according to the authors. ...The study fills an important gap in boron i

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/09/business/wine-scandinavia-climate-change.html Source:   By  Liz Alderman, The New York Times. Excerpt: Hotter weather is fueling efforts to create a commercial wine industry in Denmark, Norway and Sweden.....

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/09/science/seals-distemper.html Source:   By Karen Weintraub, The New York Times. Excerpt: Thawing sea ice may have opened the door, allowing the infection to cross oceans, a new study suggests.....

https://eos.org/articles/drones-capture-icelands-shrinking-glaciers Source:    By Jenessa Duncombe, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Photographs of Iceland’s southern glaciers show pools of water where walls of ice once stood....

https://eos.org/articles/keystone-pipeline-spills-9120-barrels-of-oil-in-dakota-wetlands Source:   By Kimberly M. S. Cartier, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: The leak took place along a preexisting section of the Keystone Pipeline. This is the pipeline’s fourth spill in 9 years. A section of the Keystone Pipeline spilled half an Olympic swimming pool’s worth of sludgy oil into a North Dakota wetland on 29 October. Cleanup is underway, but ecologists say that residue from this type of oil spill could persist in the wetlands for a long time. ...The tar sands oil that runs through the pipeline from Canada “contains a heavy oil called bitumen,” she said. “This bitumen is like peanut butter. It’s hard to push peanut butter through a straw. Likewise, it’s hard to push bitumen through a pipeline.” The industry cuts the sludge with a lighter gas, called a diluent, to flow it through the pipes, “somewhat like thinning a soup that’s too thick.”...

https://eos.org/articles/manure-happens-the-environmental-toll-of-livestock-antibiotics Source:   By Laura Poppick, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: The widespread, routine use of antibiotics in livestock farming has generated fears of antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” that could threaten human health. Now, a new study suggests that threats of agricultural antibiotics extend beyond the realm of human health and into the environment, where they can alter microbial activity as they enter the soil through animal manure. “The fact that there are so many ecosystem processes mediated by microbes makes this pretty interesting,” said Carl Wepking, a biologist at Colorado State University and lead author on the new paper. Wepking and colleagues found that soil microbes consumed carbon less efficiently and released carbon dioxide more readily into the atmosphere when stressed by certain antibiotics. ...As the use of agricultural antibiotics continues to swell with human population growth, potentially increa

https://eos.org/research-spotlights/where-does-the-carbon-go-when-permafrost-coasts-erode Source:   By Kate Wheeling, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Arctic coastlines have not been considered carefully in carbon cycles for long, but new research suggests that eroding permafrost may emit more greenhouse gases than previously thought. The Arctic is warming faster than almost anywhere else on Earth. As a result, the region is changing rapidly: Glaciers are melting, sea ice is disappearing, and permafrost is thawing, which could accelerate climate change. The northern permafrost region covers roughly a quarter of the land in the Northern Hemisphere and stores vast amounts of carbon—more than double the amount in the atmosphere today—much of it still locked away, frozen. Researchers have known for some time that permafrost could become a major source of greenhouse gases as the soil thaws and once-dormant microbes wake up and break down organic matter. This thaw is accelerated in places along Arctic

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/11/new-reactor-could-halve-carbon-dioxide-emissions-ammonia-production Source:    By Robert F. Service, Science. Excerpt: To feed more than 7 billion hungry souls, humanity relies on the century-old Haber-Bosch process to convert nitrogen from the air and methane from natural gas into ammonia, the starting material for fertilizer. But that process belches out more than 450 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually—about 1% of all human emissions, and more than any other industrial chemical reaction. Now, a new type of ceramic reactor could cut that in half. If it can be scaled up, the new technique could also lower the global price of fertilizer by making it easier to produce in small chemical plants close to where it’s used.....

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/opinion/climate-change-clothing-policy.html Source:   By Elizabeth L. Cline, The New York Times. Excerpt: The clothing and footwear industry is responsible for 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, nearly the same as the entire European Union, according to a study by the environmental services group Quantis. [https://quantis-intl.com/measuring-fashion-report-2018/] Without abrupt intervention, the industry’s impact on the climate is on track to increase by almost half by 2030. ... clothing affects every other environmental problem we care about. Let’s say you wear a cotton T-shirt — it required thousands of gallons of water to make. If that T-shirt is viscose rayon, it may well have come from a tree felled in the Amazon (viscose rayon is made from plants). And if it’s polyester, acrylic or nylon, you’re wearing plastic. When those plastic clothes get washed, they junk up our oceans with microplastic pollution. ...The clothing industry, lik

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/climate/trump-paris-agreement-climate.html Source:   By Lisa Friedman, The New York Times. Excerpt: WASHINGTON — The Trump administration formally notified the United Nations on Monday that it would withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change, leaving global climate diplomats to plot a way forward without the cooperation of the world’s largest economy....