https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/01/31/orphaned-wells-biden-climate-change/ By  Tik Root . The Washington Post.  Excerpt: The White House on Monday announced new steps to help curb emissions of methane, saying it will send $1.15 billion to states to clean up thousands of orphaned oil and gas wells that leak the powerful planet-warming gas. ...Tens of thousands of abandoned wells dot the country in places where the oil and gas companies or individual owners went out of business, or are otherwise no longer responsible for their cleanup. ...The funds will go to the 26 states that submitted notices of intent to the Interior Department late last year. The allocations range from about $25 million for Alabama, up to $107 million for Texas. More will be spent in the coming months and years as part of grants to states.…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/01/31/world-record-lightning-megaflash-us/ By  Matthew Cappucci , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: The World Meteorological Organization also certified a flash over South America that lasted a record 17 seconds…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/01/27/gas-stoves-kitchens-pose-risk-public-health-planet-research-finds By  Maxine Joselow , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: Gas-burning stoves in kitchens across America may pose a greater risk to the planet and public health than previously thought, new research suggests. The appliances release far more of the potent planet-warming gas methane than the Environmental Protection Agency estimates, Stanford University scientists   found in a study published Thursday in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. The appliances also emit significant amounts of nitrogen dioxide, a pollutant that can trigger asthma and other respiratory conditions. Scientists and climate activists   have increasingly urged homeowners to switch to all-electric stoves, water boilers and other appliances, even as the natural gas industry fights in New York and across the country to keep the signature blue flames of gas-burning stoves   as a staple in

https://eos.org/agu-news/science-off-the-seashore By  Heather Goss , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: In January 2021, the United Nations launched the  Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development . The initiative encourages partner nations to fund scientific research that “achieves the ocean we want by 2030.” ...Ocean thermal energy conversion is a fairly simple concept that could help island nations find independence from fossil fuels, but it’s suffering from the “innovation valley of death.” Read more about the  potential of this ocean-based power source …. ...The  deep-sea mining industry is impatiently waiting for international regulators  to take the leash off so they can begin collection of the rare earth elements waiting on the floor of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the Pacific. We report on the stakes that are all going to become clear in less than 2 years —for the ocean ecosystems, for the investors in deep-sea mining, and for the renewable energy tech that currently depends on the

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/01/20/superstores-can-meet-half-their-electricity-needs-with-rooftop-solar-says-new-report/ By  Tik Root , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: From Walmart to Ikea, a report finds that the rooftops of big-box stores offer enough solar potential to power the equivalent of 8 million American homes.…

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/the-maldives-is-being-swallowed-by-the-sea-can-it-adapt By Tristan McConnell, National Geographic.  Excerpt: ...Twenty-five hundred years of maritime living have shaped the culture and identity of the people of the Maldives, a country of 1,196 low-lying islands arranged into a double chain of 26 coral atolls, so flat they scarcely breach the horizon. ...the Maldives may become the first country on Earth to disappear beneath rising seas. ...Now, as the pace of climate change accelerates, this tiny nation is trying to buy time, in hopes that the world’s leaders will reduce carbon emissions before the Maldives’ inevitable demise. The archipelago has bet its future—along with a substantial sum from the national purse—on construction of an artificial, elevated island that could house a majority of the  population of  nearly 555,000 people. Meanwhile, a Dutch design firm plans to build 5,000 floating  homes  on pontoons anchored in a lag

https://eos.org/articles/large-herbivores-may-improve-an-ecosystems-carbon-persistence By  Rishika Pardikar , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: The grazing habits of wild animals like elephants and boars enable long-term carbon storage, according to new research that stresses the need to align climate mitigation goals with biodiversity conservation.…

https://eos.org/articles/did-volcanoes-accelerate-the-fall-of-chinese-dynasties By  Tim Hornyak , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: After analyzing ice cores and historical documents, researchers found a link between eruptions and political change in China over the past 2 millennia. Researchers in China, Europe, and the United States ...have found that volcanic eruptions (as well as conflict) may have contributed to dynastic collapse because they cooled the climate and affected agricultural production.…

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/11/technology/norway-electric-vehicles.html By  Shira Ovide , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Last year, Norway reached a milestone. Only about 8 percent of new cars sold in the country  ran purely on conventional gasoline or diesel fuel . Two-thirds of new cars sold were electric, and most of the rest were electric-and-gasoline hybrids. ...electric car enthusiasts are stunned  by the speed  at which the internal combustion engine has become an endangered species in Norway. ...Norwegians started with much of the same electric vehicle skepticism as Americans. That changed because of government policies that picked off the easier wins first and a growing number of appealing electric cars. Over time, that combination helped more Norwegians believe electric cars were for them. ...if Norway could do it, the U.S. and other countries could, too. Transportation is the largest source of  greenhouse gas emissions  in the U.S., and climate scientists have said that m

https://eos.org/features/the-uncertain-future-of-antarcticas-melting-ice By  Florence Colleoni ,   Tim Naish ,   Robert DeConto ,   Laura De Santis  and   Pippa L. Whitehouse , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: A new multidisciplinary, international research program aims to tackle one of the grand challenges in climate science: resolving the Antarctic Ice Sheet’s contribution to future sea level rise. ...Among the most visible effects of anthropogenic global warming are rising seas around the world: Since 1880, the global mean sea level (GMSL) has increased by 20 centimeters. ...sea level globally will continue to rise well beyond the 21st century, even if warming of the planet is stabilized below the target set by the  Paris climate agreement  in 2015 of 2°C above the preindustrial average. ...An estimated 800 million people are likely to experience impacts of high-tide flooding by the end of the 21st century, even if the Paris climate agreement target is met. In many coastal settings, even a small

https://eos.org/research-spotlights/health-impacts-of-air-pollution-from-australian-megafires By  Saima Sidik , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: From October 2019 to February 2020,  fire ripped through the Australian bush  with unprecedented intensity, killing 34 people and more than 3 billion animals. In a new study,  Graham et al . seek to quantify the health impacts of an indirect form of fire damage: the damage caused by poor air quality. Like car engines, gas stoves, and cigarettes, fires create fine particles with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers, called PM 2.5 . High PM 2.5  concentrations can exacerbate a  wide range  of  medical conditions , from lung disease to cardiovascular disease, even leading to death. ...Around 437,000 people were exposed to air with a PM 2.5  concentration of least 25 micrograms per cubic meter of air, which is substantially more than the 15 micrograms per cubic meter of air that the  World Health Organization  considers an acceptable level for short-term ex

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/easyjet-first-airline-use-green-22695010 By Nigel Rosser & Barry Ellams , Wales Online.  Excerpt: EasyJet is set to become the world's first major airline to use green hydrogen fuelled aircraft on commercial flights. The low budget carrier is planning to use eco-friendly hydrogen cell technology on passenger flights as early as 2030 in an attempt to slash its carbon footprint. ...Cranfield are being backed by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the Government who have awarded them £7.5 million for development. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has also given the project his approval. ...Experts say hydrogen fuel cells have zero emissions, no battery charge and flight turnaround time is comparable to that of conventional fuels, with fuel costs significantly lower. Converting electricity to hydrogen to make the fuel is also carbon-zero. Cranfield are currently developing a nine-seater Britten-Normander plane to fly for 60 minutes with

https://www.science.org/content/article/lyme-carrying-ticks-live-longer-and-could-spread-farther-thanks-warmer-winters By Elizabeth Pennisi, Science Magazine.  Excerpt: Research reported here this week at the annual meeting of the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology has revealed black-legged ticks infected with the Lyme disease–causing microbe thrive in below-freezing weather and can be active even in winter. The finding suggests the variable winter conditions brought on by climate change could increase ticks’ activity, boosting the odds that people will encounter the ticks and come down with Lyme disease.…

https://eos.org/research-spotlights/the-ai-forecaster-machine-learning-takes-on-weather-prediction By   Aaron Sidder , Eos/AGU A novel approach to weather forecasting uses convolutional neural networks to generate exceptionally fast global forecasts based on past weather data.  

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/climate/fire-forest-management-bootleg-oregon.html By  Henry Fountain , The New York Times.  Excerpt: When the Bootleg fire tore through a nature reserve in Oregon this summer, the destruction varied in different areas. Researchers say forest management methods, including controlled burns, were a big factor. ...thinning of trees in overgrown forests, combined with prescribed, or controlled, burns of accumulated dead vegetation on the forest floor, can help achieve the goal of reducing the intensity of wildfires by removing much of the fuel that feeds them.…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/01/05/climate-disasters-2021-fires/ By  Sarah Kaplan  and  Andrew Ba Tran , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: As climate-fueled extreme weather intensified last year, more than 80 percent of Americans experienced a heat wave. The impacts of fires and severe storms also spread. ...At least 656 people died amid the onslaught of disasters, media reports and government records show. The cost of the destruction tops $104 billion, according to the  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration , even before officials calculate the final toll of wildfires, drought and heat waves in the West. While the Federal Emergency Management Agency identified fewer climate-related disasters in individual counties last year, it declared eight of these emergencies statewide — the most since 1998 — encompassing 135 million people overall.…

https://eos.org/articles/clever-wood-use-could-mitigate-wildfires-and-climate-change By  Andrew Chapman , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: In a study  published early this month  in the  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America , researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, provide a possible path to limiting both carbon emissions and wildfires by turning the low-value wood harvested during forest thinning into new products. ...Two scenarios modeled business-as-usual forest management in California with variations in how much wood is sold. The third introduced a value to the low-value wood generated from forest thinning, allowing it to be used for new products. Smaller trees can be turned into a construction-grade wood product called  oriented strand board , which retains the wood as a carbon store. A mixture of forest residues, including leaves and bark, can be used to make low-carbon fuels, such as hydrogen fuel.…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/01/04/earthship-houses-climate-change/ By Nick Aspinwall, The Washington Post.  Excerpt: Earthships are off-grid, self-reliant houses built from tires, dirt and garbage that have long been an offbeat curiosity for travelers passing by the ski town of Taos, but suddenly look like a haven for climate doomers. Residents of the 630-acre flagship Earthship community treat their own waste, collect their own water, grow their own food, and regulate their own temperature by relying on the sun, rain and earth, which Reynolds and other adherents call natural “phenomena.” At this Earthship community in New Mexico, renters can give sustainable living a try . Reynolds, 76, has been building these structures — he calls them “vessels” — since the early 1970s when, after graduating from architecture school at the University of Cincinnati, he took up off-road motorcycle racing on the high desert plateau around Taos to try to injure himself to avoid

https://www.science.org/content/article/russia-s-new-permafrost-monitoring-system-could-improve-climate-models-protect By Olga Dobrovidova.  Excerpt: With the Arctic warming up to four times faster than the global average, temperatures in the frozen soil, or permafrost, under northern Siberia have been rising, turning firm ground unstable and weakening foundations. On 29 May 2020, the thaw may have helped lead to a disaster, when a diesel fuel depot near the town of Norilsk collapsed and spilled more than 21,000 tons of fuel into a small river. The pollution turned the river rusty-red and ultimately reached the Arctic Ocean. The owner of the fuel depot, Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest miner of nickel and palladium, was fined almost $2 billion for the spill—the largest settlement for an environmental disaster in Russian history. Now, the disaster has spurred the government to set up the first national system to monitor Russia’s permafrost—the world’s largest expanse of frozen soil,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/01/04/earthship-houses-climate-change/ By Nick Aspinwall, The Washington Post.  Excerpt: Earthships originally spawned from the arid climate of Taos, maximizing abundant sunlight while squeezing whatever they can from about eight inches of annual rainfall. Each Earthship shares a set of core organs such as a water organization module, which filters and separates water as it moves throughout the house. In the Earthship ecosystem, water is first used for drinking, showering and hand washing before moving to interior plants, such as fig and banana trees, along with hanging gardens of herbs and flowers. The resulting “gray water” is used to fertilize ornamental outdoor plants and can be safely released into the groundwater supply or used in the toilet, from which “black water” is flushed into a septic tank. ...Another module controls solar power, which is used primarily for lights and appliances. Earthships use about one-sixth as much

https://eos.org/articles/termite-fumigation-in-california-is-fueling-the-rise-of-a-rare-greenhouse-gas By  Jenessa Duncombe , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: New research has suggested that the nationwide rise of the potent greenhouse gas sulfuryl fluoride comes almost entirely from termite fumigations in the greater Los Angeles area. ...The method rose in popularity after the Montreal Protocol phased out another common fumigant, methyl bromide, that was found to erode the ozone layer. But research in  2008  and  2009  revealed that sulfuryl fluoride has a relatively high  global warming potential  and sticks around longer than initially thought. The gas has a global warming potential of more than 4,000 times that of carbon dioxide over 100 years and remains in the atmosphere for about 36 years.…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/01/03/solar-energy-roof-shingles-climate/ By  Tik Root , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: Thousands of Americans install solar energy systems on their roofs each year. Most commonly, that means solar panels mounted on racks, but another option may become more accessible: solar shingles. Starting Monday, one of the largest roofing companies in the United States will be selling a new solar shingle product. The aim is to drive the cost of installation down and the rate of solar adoption up. ...The goal is to lower the cost of rooftop solar by combining roofing and solar installation, said DeBono, .... His traditional roof, he said, cost around $28,000, and the solar panels he installed would be around $24,000, for a total price tag of around $52,000, or about $44,000 after rebates and incentives.... In comparison, he estimated a GAF Energy solar roof would cost approximately $42,000 and drop to around $30,000 after incentives, saving abo