https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/12/26/global-warming-accelerating-climate-change/ By Chris Mooney  and  Shannon Osaka , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: In a paper published last month,  climate scientist  James E. Hansen and a group of colleagues argued that the pace of global warming is poised to increase by 50 percent in the coming decades, with an accompanying escalation of impacts. ...University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann has argued that no acceleration is visible yet: “The truth is bad enough,” he wrote in a  blog post . ...Between 1880 and 1969, the planet warmed slowly — at a rate of around 0.04 degrees Celsius (0.07 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade. But starting aroundthe early 1970s, warming accelerated — reaching 0.19 degrees C (0.34 degrees F) per decade between 1970 and 2023. That acceleration isn’t controversial. ...some scientists believe that the temperature data is simply not yet showing an impending acceleration....

https://www.science.org/content/article/lost-history-antarctica-revealed-octopus-dna By ERIK STOKSTAD .  Excerpt: Some 100,000 years ago, scientists believe Antarctica’s massive western ice sheet collapsed, temporarily opening waterways between a trio of seas surrounding the continent. New evidence for that scenario comes from a surprising source: octopus DNA. ...About 129,000 to 116,000 years ago, a warm spell called the last interglacial gave our planet a brief break in between several million years of ice ages. The average temperature of the planet was about 0.5°C warmer than it is today—and climate projections predict it will be again within decades. The global sea level was also 5 meters to 10 meters higher than current levels. Many scientists believe  the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and consequent melting could have been a primary reason . ...The findings are consistent with growing geological evidence supporting the ice sheet collapse....

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adl5650 ]  By XINGYI HUANG  AND  PENGLI LI , Science.  Excerpt: Clothing plays an indispensable role in maintaining the human body temperature within a comfort range in our daily life, especially when facing sudden temperature changes or in harsh environments ( 1 ). ...Wang  et al . ( 3 ) report a full-day, self-powered, and bidirectional thermoregulatory clothing that can quickly respond to fluctuating temperature. ...Wang  et al . ...designed and fabricated a wearable thermal-management system by combining an organic photovoltaic unit and an electrocaloric unit into a single device with the required flexibility. The device also achieved bidirectional thermal management, providing 10.1 K of cooling to the skin during hot days but also keeping the human body 3.2 K warmer than bare skin in the dark or at night by using additional energy collected by the organic photovoltaic unit.... 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/13/climate/cop28-climate-agreement.html By Brad Plumer  and  Max Bearak , The New York Times.  Excerpt: For the first time since nations began meeting three decades ago to confront climate change, diplomats from nearly 200 countries  approved a global pact  that explicitly calls for “transitioning away from fossil fuels” like oil, gas and coal that are dangerously heating the planet. ...that proposal  faced intense pushback  from major oil exporters like Saudi Arabia and Iraq, as well as fast-growing countries like India and Nigeria. In the end, negotiators struck a compromise: The new deal calls on countries to accelerate a global shift away from fossil fuels this decade in a “just, orderly and equitable manner,” and to quit adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere entirely by midcentury. It also calls on nations to triple the amount of renewable energy, like wind and solar power, installed around the world by 2030 and to slash emissions of methane, a gr

https://eos.org/opinions/a-transformative-carbon-sink-in-the-ocean By Doug Reusch ,  Kayleigh Brisard ,  Gil Hamilton  and  Carson Theriault , Eos/AGU/AGU.  Excerpt: Effectively lowering atmospheric carbon levels will require a range of actions, from  individuals making hard decisions  about lifestyle changes to international cooperation to pursue solutions from a diverse menu of options. Among the options under consideration are methods for  deliberate carbon dioxide removal  (CDR) from the atmosphere.... ...humanity may need to implement CDR on a vast scale to compensate for the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels over the past century.  Ocean alkalinity enhancement  (OAE), in which the addition of ions like Mg 2+  and Ca 2+  (sourced from materials such as olivine or lime) to the ocean drives more dissolution of atmospheric CO 2  to form bicarbonate (HCO 3 – ), holds considerable promise, because the ocean’s capacity for storing bicarbonate is ample on the relevant time frame

https://www.science.org/content/article/cheap-electricity-could-recycle-animal-waste-recover-valuable-chemicals By ROBERT F. SERVICE , Science.  Excerpt: Every year the world’s livestock farms generate more than 3 billion tons of animal waste, equivalent to more than 9000 Empire State Buildings. All that manure pollutes bodies of water and releases noxious fumes and greenhouse gases. But a new recycling technique could reduce those burdens while turning a profit. Researchers have shown that they can  use electricity to break down organic nutrients in animal waste , all while recovering valuable chemicals. Initial projections—reported this month in Nature Sustainability—suggest that in most cases the value of these chemicals would be higher than the costs of the technique, making it profitable for farmers to pursue it. ...renewable power is expected to lower electricity costs in some rural areas to about $0.03 per kWh by 2030. ...Given how efficient the overall process is, she says, the

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/climate/saudi-arabia-cop28-fossil-fuels.html By Lisa Friedman ,  Brad Plumer  and  Vivian Nereim , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading exporter of oil, has become the biggest obstacle to an agreement at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai, where countries are debating whether to call for a phaseout of fossil fuels in order to fight global warming.... The Saudi delegation has flatly opposed any language in a deal that would even mention fossil fuels.... Saudi negotiators have also objected to a provision, endorsed by at least 118 countries, aimed at tripling global renewable energy capacity by 2030. Saudi diplomats have been particularly skillful at blocking discussions and slowing the talks,.... Tactics include inserting words into draft agreements that are considered poison pills by other countries; slow-walking a provision meant to help vulnerable countries adapt to climate change; staging a walkout in a side meeti

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/09/business/energy-environment/two-three-wheel-electric-vehicles.html By Somini Sengupta ,  Abdi Latif Dahir ,  Alex Travelli  and  Clifford Krauss , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Big Oil faces a tiny foe on the streets of Asia and Africa. The noisy, noxious vehicles that run on two and three wheels, carrying billions of people daily, are quietly going electric — in turn knocking down oil demand by one million barrels a day this year. In Kenya and Rwanda, dozens of start-ups are vying to replace oil-guzzling motorcycle taxis with battery-powered ones. In India, more than  half of all new three-wheeled vehicles  sold and registered this year were battery-operated. Indonesia and Thailand are also encouraging electrification of motorcycle taxis. China dominates the market. Its government began promoting electric vehicles decades ago in a bid to clean its smog-choked cities, which explains why a vast majority of the world’s electric two-wheelers are in China

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/a45900085/portugal-renewable-energy/ By DARREN ORF , Popular Mechanics.  Excerpt: For 149 consecutive hours in November, Portugal provided a stunning example of what that could look like, as it used a mix of solar, wind, and hydropower to provide more clean energy than the entire country needed. ...Producing 1,102 GWh (according to the national grid operator Redes Energéticas Nacionais) for both industrial and residential use, the country’s renewable energy sources—a mix of wind, solar, and hydropower—provided 262 GWh more than was needed. ...This exceeds the country’s previous record—it ran for 131 hours on renewable energy back in 2019—and for 95 hours during this recent test, Portugal even exported its excess clean energy to Spain. Although the country’s  gas  plants were on standby, Portugal’s renewable infrastructure proved to be more than up for the task. ...Portugal’s 149 hours of renewable bliss is a hopeful vision of the futu

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/climate/forests-trees-climate-change.html By Manuela Andreoni  and  Leanne Abraham , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Over the last century, governments around the world have drawn boundaries to shield thousands of the world’s most valuable ecosystems from destruction.... These protected areas have offered lifelines to species threatened with extinction, supported the ways of life for many traditional communities and safeguarded the water supplies of cities. ...Now, high in orbit, a new way of seeing forests is making it clear that...protected areas can still be a crucial buffer against climate change. ...a  study ...which was published this year, showed that policies designed to protect nature can also be important for mitigating global warming, Dr. Duncanson said. She called the findings “a beautiful side benefit” of global forest conservation….

https://eos.org/articles/an-electrifying-approach-to-carbon-capture By Bill Morris , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: ...a group of researchers at the University of Calgary is using electricity to enhance seawater’s ability to store carbon. The group is developing an instrument, dubbed  PEACH  (Practical Electrochemical Air Capture and Hydrogen), that uses an electrochemical cell, analogous to a lithium-ion battery, to capture alkaline sodium ions from salt water. ...arrays could be lowered more than 500 meters into the ocean to gather ions, then raised to release them as sodium hydroxide at shallower depths, creating an “alkalinity pump” from deep water to the surface. ...Alkaline surface waters draw carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) from the atmosphere, eventually converting it to bicarbonate, which can securely store carbon in the ocean for more than 10,000 years. A by-product of the ion exchange is hydrogen, which could be stored as a fuel. The group will  present their research  at AGU’s Annual Meeting 20

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/07/climate/climate-change-flooding-east-africa.html By Delger Erdenesanaa , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Heavy rain and floods in East Africa  that started in October have killed at least 300 people and displaced millions more. ...East Africa has an annual rainy season in fall, but this year’s disastrous rainfall is about double what it would have been without human-caused climate change, according to  research made public on Thursday . A natural climate cycle called the Indian Ocean Dipole has also contributed to heavier rain than usual, but this phenomenon alone does not account for the extreme amount…. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/05/climate/air-conditioning-electricity.html By Hiroko Tabuchi , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Sixty nations committed on Tuesday to improve the efficiency of new air-conditioners by 50 percent and reduce greenhouse gas emissions related to those cooling machines by almost 70 percent, the latest in a flurry of global promises that aim to tackle climate change. ...a daunting future facing a warming planet: As global temperatures rise, more people will turn to air-conditioners to ward off the heat. But additional air-conditioning in buildings and other spaces, which is also driven by rising incomes, population growth and urbanization, means that the world could use more than double the electricity it does now to stay cool, leading to more planet-warming emissions, according to research released by the United Nations on Tuesday...

https://eos.org/articles/diverse-forests-store-more-carbon-than-monocultures By Saima May Sidik , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: It pays to mix it up—planted forests containing more than one tree species can store several times as much carbon as monocultures, as shown in a  meta-analysis  published in  Frontiers in Forests and Global Change . Researchers have long known that biodiversity increases forest productivity, ....Forestry companies often plant monocultures, so the study has the potential to affect industry practices. ...Researchers sifted through more than 11,300 studies, including some from a worldwide network of tree diversity experiments called  TreeDivNet , to find 18 that included the information necessary to compare carbon storage in monocultures with that in stands containing two or more species of trees. ...Stands with two or more species contained at least 25% more aboveground carbon than the best-performing monocultures, .... When the researchers focused on forests containing fo

https://grist.org/extreme-weather/marshall-islands-national-adaptation-plan-sea-level-rise-cop28/ By Jake Bittle , Grist.  Excerpt: The Marshall Islands extend across a wide stretch of the Pacific Ocean, with dozens of coral atolls sitting just a few feet above sea level. ...Over the past two years, government officials have fanned out across the country, visiting remote towns and villages as well as urban centers like its capital of Majuro to examine how Marshallese communities are experiencing and coping with climate change. They found that a combination of rapid sea-level rise and drought has already made life untenable for many of the country’s 42,000 residents, especially on outlying atolls where communities rely on rainwater and vanishing land for subsistence. The survey was part of a groundbreaking, five-year effort by the Marshall Islands to craft a sweeping adaptation strategy that charts the country’s response to the threat of climate change. The plan, shared with Grist ahead

https://www.cnn.com/travel/the-long-road-to-guilt-free-flying-climate/index.html By Jacopo Prisco , CNN.  Excerpt: Aviation faces a steep climb towards a greener future. Although it has, like many other industries, committed to slashing its planet-warming pollution by 2050, it is  not on track  to reach its target… ...the sector currently accounts for around 2.5% of global carbon emissions, its actual climate impact is actually  higher , because of the emission of other greenhouse gases and the formation of heat-trapping condensation trails created by jet engines. Meanwhile, demand for air travel is projected to steadily rise, with the global fleet of commercial airplanes doubling in size by 2042 to keep up,  according to Boeing . ...Sustainable aviation fuel, or  SAF , is a type of alternative jet fuel that can curb carbon emissions by  up to 80% . It ...is usually made from plants that have absorbed carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) during their lifetime. When burned, that CO 2 is returned to

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/04/climate/cop28-aljaber-fossil-fuels.html By Lisa Friedman , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Simmering tensions around the decision to hold a global climate summit in a petrostate burst into the open on Monday when Sultan Al Jaber, the Emirati oil executive who is leading the conference, launched into an angry public defense of his position on ending fossil fuel use. Mr. Al Jaber, who runs the state-owned oil company, Adnoc, was under fire for a video that surfaced in which he said there is “no science” behind the idea that fossil fuels must be phased out in order to keep average global temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels. ...“There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says the phaseout of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5,” Mr. Al Jaber said during a panel discussion.... 

https://www.science.org/content/article/al-gore-s-climate-watchdog-spots-rogue-emissions By PAUL VOOSEN , Science.  Excerpt: Backed by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, Climate Trace is a coalition of nonprofits and academics that  made headlines  2 years ago with its first analysis of 72,000 of the world’s largest greenhouse gas sources. Its newest assessment looks at 352 million greenhouse gas sources. “It is really incredibly powerful,” Gore says. “This serves a purpose that is at the top of humanity’s priority list.” Long term, Gore hopes Climate Trace will be integrated into the U.N. process. And in the meantime, it is helping less developed regions  keep track  of their emissions.... 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/02/us/hurricane-season-2023-rapid-intensification.html By William B. Davis  and  Judson Jones , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The 2023 hurricane seasons in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific came to an end this week, with both basins experiencing an above average number of storms, fueled by extremely warm ocean temperatures. The two basins had a combined 37 storms, 13 of which rapidly intensified, sometimes jumping multiple hurricane categories in less than a day. A high proportion of rapid-onset storms this year exceeded the standard definition of rapid intensification — an increase of at least 35 miles per hour in sustained winds, over 24 hours. Experts said that this emphasized the way hurricane seasons are changing and the need for more reliable forecast models. When storms intensify abruptly near land, it becomes more difficult to predict how severely places will be affected, and it leaves officials and residents with little time to prepar

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/02/climate/biden-methane-climate-cop28.html By Jim Tankersley  and  Lisa Friedman , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Vice President Kamala Harris pledged at a United Nations climate summit on Saturday that the United States would spend billions more to help developing nations fight and adapt to climate change.... Her remarks followed an announcement by U.S. officials at the summit the same day that the federal government would, for the first time, require oil and gas producers to detect and fix leaks of methane. It was the most ambitious move to reduce fossil fuel emissions that President Biden’s administration was expected to unveil at the summit, known as COP28. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that wafts into the atmosphere from pipelines, drill sites and storage facilities, and dangerously speeds the rate of global warming. ...Methane is ...the second-most abundant greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide. Methane only lingers in the atmosphere about a dec

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/01/business/energy-environment/us-oil-production-record-climate.html By Clifford Krauss , The New York Times.  Excerpt: American oil fields are gushing again, helping to drive down fuel prices but also threatening to undercut efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Only three years after U.S. oil production collapsed during the pandemic, energy companies are cranking out a record 13.2 million barrels a day, more than Russia or Saudi Arabia. The flow of oil has grown by roughly 800,000 barrels a day since early 2022, and analysts expect the industry to add another 500,000 barrels a day next year. ...The United States now exports roughly four million barrels a day, more than any member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries except Saudi Arabia….