https://eos.org/research-spotlights/acidifying-oceans-could-get-help-from-kelp Source:  By   Elizabeth Thompson , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Carbon dioxide is well known as a greenhouse gas, but its effects on climate and environments aren’t limited to the atmosphere. As more carbon dioxide fills the air, more of the gas dissolves into seawater, making the ocean more acidic and threatening marine organisms.   Giant kelp   may offer a local solution. As kelp grows, it captures carbon from the water and produces oxygen, possibly removing enough carbon dioxide to   relieve acidification .   Hirsh et al.   investigate conditions inside and outside a kelp forest in Monterey Bay, Calif., to evaluate kelp’s ability to mitigate ocean acidification in sensitive areas.... .  

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2020/11/27/climate-solutions-seaweed-methane/ Source:  By Tatiana Schlossberg, The Washington Post.  Excerpt: ...Asparagopsis taxiformis and Asparagopsis armata — two species of a crimson submarine grass that drifts on waves and tides all around the world’s oceans... could practically neutralize one of the most stubborn sources of a powerful greenhouse gas: methane emissions from the digestive processes of some livestock, including the planet’s 1.5 billion cows, which emit methane in their burps. ...In lab tests and field trials, adding a small proportion of this seaweed to a cow’s daily feed —   about 0.2 of a percent of the total feed intake in a recent study   — can reduce the amount of methane by 98 percent. That’s a stunning drop when most existing solutions cut methane by about 20 or 30 percent. ...growing seaweed used for the feed supplement could also help sequester carbon dioxide, another greenhouse gas, and reduce ocean acid

https://eos.org/features/a-50-year-old-global-warming-forecast-that-still-holds-up Source:  By Andrei Lapenis, Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: In 1972, Mikhail Ivanovich Budyko used a simple methodology to make climate predictions that remain surprisingly accurate today and that could serve as a new “business-as-usual” scenario. ...He predicted that Earth’s mean global temperature would increase about 2.25°C by 2070 and that the Arctic would no longer be covered by ice year-round by 2050 [Budyko, 1972]. (Budyko briefly discussed the part of his forecast dealing with Arctic ice in a 1972   Eos article   cited more than 100 times since.) Despite his confidence in his work, he cautioned that his estimates were made under assumptions of a significantly simplified climate system and should be viewed accordingly [Budyko, 1972], so it might have surprised him to see how closely actual events aligned with his predictions. Comparing 2019 to 1970, Budyko predicted an increase in the global mean temperatur

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2020/11/24/native-americans-climate-change-swinomish/ Source:  By Jim Morrison, The Washington Post.  Excerpt: ...In 2010, the Swinomish became one of the first communities to assess the problems posed by a warming planet and enact a climate action plan. An additional 50 Native American tribes have followed, creating climate strategies to protect their lands and cultures, ahead of most U.S. communities. The Swinomish see the tasks beyond addressing shoreline risk and restoring habitats. They look at climate adaptation and resilience with the eyes of countless generations. They recognize that the endangered “first foods” — clams, oysters, elk, traditional plants and salmon — are not mere resources to be consumed. They are central to their values, beliefs and practices and, therefore, to their spiritual, cultural and community well-being. ... The Tulalip tribes,   neighbors to the south, are  relocating nuisance beavers   from urban area

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/the-most-important-climate-legislation-has-already-passed Source: By Justin Guay, Greentech Media.  Excerpt: one of the most powerful pieces of climate change legislation the Biden administration will need has already been passed: the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. This legislation, known for creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and other public safeguards against financial wrongdoing, also empowers key agencies including the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission to limit systemic risks to financial stability. The largest systemic risk of them all, climate change, is driven by reckless investments in fossil fuels, exactly the kind of speculative activities Dodd-Frank was designed to bring to a halt ...For investors, one of the greatest risks is losing money on coal, oil and gas infrastructure that is forced into early retirement due to the   ine

ttps://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/11/23/kerry-climate-change/ Source:  By   Brady Dennis ,   Steven Mufson   and     Juliet Eilperin , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: ‘America will soon have a government that treats the climate crisis as the urgent national security threat it is,’ Kerry tweeted after the announcement....    

https://eos.org/research-spotlights/an-extraordinary-winter-in-the-polar-north Source:  By   Kate Wheeling , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: The winter of 2019–2020 in the Northern Hemisphere was one of extremes. The massive region of cold polar air encircled by stratospheric winds, known as the stratospheric polar vortex, was particularly strong, keeping the frigid air whirling above the polar region and leading to a very   mild winter   in many regions farther south. The strong polar vortex coincided with a record-breaking positive   Arctic Oscillation   circulation pattern and record low ozone levels in the Arctic that lasted into spring. In a review, published as part of an AGU   special collection ,   Lawrence et al. outline the unique conditions that allowed this “truly extraordinary” winter season to arise....  

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/fires-can-kindle-biodiversity-sparking-new-approaches-conservation Source:  By  Meagan Cantwell ,  Katie Free , Science Magazine.  Excerpt: Raging fires throughout the United States and Australia over the past year have put  vulnerable species at risk . But not all blazes are devastating—in fact, fire can promote biodiversity. In grasslands, fires prevent trees and roots from taking hold. This allows grazing animals the space and vegetation they need to thrive. As the pattern of wildfires changes, a new review in Science outlines effective ways to  let natural fires burn, while preventing out-of-control blazes . Watch to learn how a few of these techniques have been applied around the world... . 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/18/science/extinction-global-warming.html Source:  By Lucas Joel, The New York Times.  Excerpt: Paleontologists call it the Permian-Triassic mass extinction, but it has another name: “the Great Dying.” It happened about 252 million years ago, and, over the course of just tens of thousands of years, 96 percent of all life in the oceans and, perhaps, roughly 70 percent of all land life vanished forever. The smoking gun was ancient volcanism in what is today Siberia, where volcanoes disgorged enough magma and lava over about a million years to cover an amount of land equivalent to a third or even half of the surface area of the United States. But volcanism on its own didn’t cause the extinction. The Great Dying was fueled, two separate teams of scientists report in two recent papers, by extensive oil and coal deposits that the Siberian magma blazed through, leading to combustion that released greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane. “There was lo

https://eos.org/articles/sea-level-rise-may-erode-development-in-africa Source:  By Hope Mafaranga, Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Sea level rise and extreme weather associated with climate change are threats to human health, safety, food and water security, and socioeconomic development in Africa, climate change experts said in a new report. “Climate change is having a growing impact on the  African continent , hitting the most vulnerable hardest, and contributing to  food insecurity , population displacement and stress on water resources. In recent months, we have seen devastating floods, an invasion of  desert locusts  and now face the looming  specter of drought  because of a La Niña events,” said  Petteri Taalas , secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), when introducing the 2019–2020 “ State of the Climate in Africa .” ...Sea level rise associated with climate change includes an increase in coastal erosion and saltwater intrusion in drinking, hygiene, and irrigatio

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/heat-killing-more-people-ever-scientists-are-looking-ways-lower-risk Source:    By  Elizabeth Pennisi .  Excerpt: High body temperatures are inevitable in firefighting: A study in 2013 uncovered about 50 heat-related injuries across the United States during that fire season. But ...Warmth from the firefighters’ physical exertion, not heat from the fires, was the greatest danger, the researchers found. Another surprise: “The assumption across the fire community was that if somebody went down, it was because they just didn’t drink enough water,” Orcasitas says. But the team found otherwise. “You can’t drink yourself out of a heat-related injury,” explains project leader Joseph Domitrovich, an exercise physiologist at the U.S. Forest Service’s National Technology and Development Program. ...researchers like Domitrovich are working to pin down how heat affects workers and vulnerable populations, such as the elderly. They are studying low-tech measur

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/11/climate/fti-consulting.html Source:  By   Hiroko Tabuchi , The New York Times.  Excerpt: In early 2017, the Texans for Natural Gas website went live to urge voters to “thank a roughneck” and support fracking. Around the same time, the Arctic Energy Center ramped up its advocacy for drilling in Alaskan waters and in a vast Arctic wildlife refuge. The next year, the Main Street Investors Coalition warned that climate activism doesn’t help mom-and-pop investors in the stock market. All three appeared to be separate efforts to amplify local voices or speak up for regular people. On closer look, however, the groups had something in common: They were part of a network of corporate influence campaigns designed, staffed and at times run by FTI Consulting, which had been hired by some of the largest oil and gas companies in the world to help them promote fossil fuels... .  

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/11/business/hydrogen-fuel-california.html Source:  By   Ivan Penn   and   Clifford Krauss , The New York Times.  Excerpt: ...in California, the beginnings of a hydrogen economy may finally be dawning after many fits and starts. Dozens of hydrogen buses are lumbering down city streets, while more and larger fueling stations are appearing from San Diego to San Francisco, financed by the state and federal governments. With the costs of producing and shipping hydrogen coming down, California is setting ambitious goals to phase out vehicles that run on fossil fuels in favor of batteries and hydrogen. ...With about 7,500 hydrogen vehicles on the road, an aggressive state program of incentives and subsidies from cap-and-trade dollars envisions 50,000 hydrogen light-duty vehicles by middecade and a network of 1,000 hydrogen stations by 2030. ...Hydrogen-powered vehicles are similar to electric cars. But unlike electric cars, which have large batteries, these

https://eos.org/opinions/reframing-the-language-of-retreat Source:  By Julie Maldonado, Elizabeth Marino, and Lesley Iaukea.  E xcerpt: With so many communities facing relocation from a changing climate, reframing “managed retreat” is needed to respect people’s self-determination. When faced with the looming effects of climate change   along coasts —larger storms, rising seas, flooding, and eroding shorelines—arguing to promote linguistic framing of climate change–driven migration may seem like a fool’s errand. Does anyone care what it’s called if hundreds of millions of people globally—up to 13.1 million people in the United States alone [ Hauer et al. , 2016]—relocate from coastlines en masse before 2100? ...Implicit in terms like   managed retreat , forced migration, community relocation, and others are assumptions about who is deciding what is appropriate adaptation and how those decisions influence, suggest, or require compliance. How and, especially, by whom these plans are de

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/trump-put-climate-denier-charge-key-us-report Source: By   Scott Waldmann, E&E News .  Excerpt: President Donald Trump’s administration is focused on promoting climate denial even as it counts down the president’s final days. The Trump team is preparing to appoint a climate denier to head development of the National Climate Assessment for the next two months, …. On Friday, the administration quietly removed Michael Kuperberg from his job as executive director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program (GCRP), …. Meanwhile, planning has been underway for weeks to appoint the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s David Legates, a climate change denier recently named as deputy assistant Commerce secretary…. Legates is a geologist from the University of Delaware and an affiliate of the Heartland Institute, which exists to muddy the public’s understanding of climate change. He has said burning more fossil fuels would benefit humanit

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/food-and-farming-could-stymie-climate-efforts-researchers-say Source:  By   Erik Stokstad , Science Magazine.  Excerpt: ...Even if energy, transportation, and manufacturing go entirely green, emissions of greenhouse gases from the food system would put the world on track to warm by more than 1.5°C, a target set in the 2015 Paris climate agreement. For the world to have a chance of preventing significant harm from climate change, the study authors say, all parts of food production need rapid and significant reform—everything from reducing deforestation for new fields to eating less meat. ...Carbon dioxide comes from many sources, such as cutting down tropical forests to make way for fields and pastures, running farm machinery, and manufacture of agrochemicals. Fertilizer also emits nitrous oxide, another greenhouse gas. And cows release methane, a powerful warming gas, in their burps and manure. ...The team assumed no radical changes in how foo

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/climate/paris-climate-agreement-trump.html Source:  By  Lisa Friedman . The New York Times.  Excerpt: WASHINGTON — Au revoir,  Paris Agreement . ...Ever since 2017, when President Trump announced his intention to abandon the pact, he’s spoken about withdrawal as if it was a done deal. In fact, however, pulling out of the Paris Agreement has been a lengthy process. On Nov. 4, 2019, the earliest possible day under United Nations rules that a country could begin the final withdrawal process, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo filed paperwork to do so. It automatically finalized a year later. So, as of Wednesday morning [Nov 4], the United States is officially no longer a part of the group of nations pledging to address climate change. ...Who’s still in, and what are they doing? Almost every country in the world. Of the 195 countries that signed the Paris Agreement,  189 went on to formally adopt  the accord. Initially Nicaragua and Syria withheld their sup

https://eos.org/features/greening-the-friendly-skies Source:  By  Mark Betancourt , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Decarbonizing the aviation industry won’t be easy. The coronavirus pandemic complicates the situation but also presents an opportunity. ...Aviation accounts for  2.4%  of the world’s carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions, and demand for flights is  projected to double  within the next 2 decades. If the industry’s current decarbonization goals aren’t met, aviation could contribute  up to one quarter  of the world’s entire carbon budget by 2050....  

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/several-us-utilities-back-out-deal-build-novel-nuclear-power-plant Source:  By  Adrian Cho , Science Magazine.  Excerpt: ...Plans to build an innovative new nuclear power plant—and thus revitalize the struggling U.S. nuclear industry—have taken a hit as in recent weeks:  Eight of the 36 public utilities that had signed on to help build the plant have backed out of the deal . The withdrawals come just months after the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS), which intends to buy the plant containing  12 small modular reactors from NuScale Power , announced that completion of the project would be delayed by 3 years to 2030. It also estimates the cost would climb from $4.2 billion to $6.1 billion. ...critics of the project say the developments underscore that the plant, which is designed by NuScale Power and would be built at the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Idaho National Laboratory, will be untenably expensive....  

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/01/world/asia/typhoon-goni-philippines-manila.html Source:  By  Hannah Beech  and  Jason Gutierrez , The New York Times.  Excerpt: When Typhoon Goni made landfall in the disaster-plagued nation on Sunday morning, with sustained winds of 135 miles per hour, it ranked as the most powerful storm to hit the Southeast Asian nation in years. ...by day’s end, Goni, known locally as Rolly, appeared to have largely bypassed the capital, with no fatalities reported there. At least 16 people were confirmed to have died from the typhoon in the Bicol region southeast of the capital, according to the regional Office of Civil Defense, with three people reported missing. Rivers overflowed, tree branches flew and wet concrete-like mudflows poured down the slopes of a volcano. ...now climate change is exacerbating the Philippines’ exposure to natural disasters, making it one of the most vulnerable countries on the planet, scientists say. ...Mass deforestation, including