http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/23/science/americas-first-offshore-wind-farm-may-power-up-a-new-industry.html Source:   By Justin Gillis, The New York Times For Investigation:   10.3 Excerpt: A just-completed project off the coast of Rhode Island, though relatively tiny, is at the forefront of a sea-based transition to renewable energy. ...By global standards, the Block Island Wind Farm is a tiny project, just five turbines capable of powering about 17,000 homes. Yet many people are hoping its completion, with the final blade bolted into place at the end of last week, will mark the start of a new American industry, one that could eventually make a huge contribution to reducing the nation’s climate-changing pollution. ...The technology has been proved in Europe, where offshore wind farms as large as 300 turbines are being developed, with each turbine costing up to $30 million to build, install and connect to the power grid. But the first major proposal in the Uni...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/20/us/shishmaref-alaska-elocate-vote-climate-change.html Source:   By Christopher Mele and Daniel Victor, The New York Times For Investigation:   10.3 Excerpt: Residents of a small Alaskan village voted this week to relocate their entire community from a barrier island that has been steadily disappearing because of erosion and flooding attributed to climate change. ...Shishmaref is not alone in facing a move because of the effects of climate change. In January, the federal government allocated $48 million to relocate Isle de Jean Charles, La., an island that is sinking into the sea. The effort earned the residents the title of the United States’ first “climate refugees.” As many as 200 million people could be displaced by 2050 because of climate change, according to a study for the British government. In Alaska, 31 villages face “imminent threat of destruction” from erosion and flooding, according to the Arctic Institute, a nonprofit group i...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/18/world/asia/china-coal-health-smog-pollution.html Source:   By Edward Wong, The New York Times For Investigation:   Excerpt: BEIJING — Burning coal has the worst health impact of any source of air pollution in China and caused 366,000 premature deaths in 2013, Chinese and American researchers said on Thursday. Coal is responsible for about 40 percent of the deadly fine particulate matter known as PM 2.5 in China’s atmosphere, according to a study the researchers released in Beijing. ...The study attributed 155,000 deaths in 2013 related to ambient PM 2.5 to industrial coal burning, and 86,500 deaths to coal burning at power plants. Fuel combustion of both coal and biomass in households was another major cause of disease that year, resulting in 177,000 deaths, the study concluded. The researchers also found that transportation was a major cause of mortality related to PM 2.5, with 137,000 deaths attributed to it in 2013. In recent years, C...

http://www.sfgate.com/world/article/Melting-glaciers-pose-threat-beyond-water-9146303.php Source:   By Associated Press For Investigation:   10.3 Excerpt: PASTORURI GLACIER, Peru — The tropical glaciers of South America are dying from soot and rising temperatures, threatening water supplies to communities that have depended on them for centuries. But experts say that the slow process measured in inches of glacial retreat per year also can lead to a sudden, dramatic tragedy. The melting of glaciers like Peru’s Pastoruri has put cities such as Huaraz, located downslope from the glacier about 35 miles away, at risk from what scientists call a “glof” — glacial lake outburst flood. A glof occurs when the weak walls of a mountain valley collapse under the weight of meltwater from a glacier. Recent examples include the rapid draining in 2013 of a lake at Chile’s Ventisquero glacier in the Bernardo O’Higgins National Park, six years after another, nearby lake essentially disappea...

https://eos.org/research-spotlights/does-water-vapor-from-volcanic-eruptions-cause-climate-warming Source:   By Alexandra Branscombe, Earth & Space News EoS (AGU) For Investigation:   10.3 Excerpt: ...A longstanding question involves whether gases emitted by volcanoes help trap energy on a global scale. Specifically, water vapor—which traps more radiation in the atmosphere than any other gas, alone accounting for half of the greenhouse gas effect—is of great interest to scientists studying volcanoes and global climate change. In theory, the force of eruptions could inject water vapor into the stratosphere, where the water vapor could reside for months and cause significant warming.  ...Sioris et al. took measurements from the 2015 eruption of the Calbuco volcano in Chile to see how much vapor a moderate-sized volcanic eruption would spew into the stratosphere. The researchers used the Aura satellite to take samples of the water vapor in the volcanic plume followi...