https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/07/un-climate-panel-confronts-implausibly-hot-forecasts-future-warming Source: By  Paul Voosen , Science Magazine.  Excerpt: Next month, after a yearlong delay because of the pandemic, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will begin to release its first major assessment of human-caused global warming since 2013. The report...will drop on a world that has starkly changed in 8 years, warming by more than 0.3°C to nearly 1.3°C above preindustrial levels. Weather has grown more severe, seas are measurably higher, and mountain glaciers and polar ice have shrunk sharply. ...But as climate scientists face this alarming reality, the climate models that help them project the future have grown a little too alarmist. Many of the world’s leading models are now projecting warming rates that most scientists, including the modelmakers themselves,  believe are implausibly fast . ...scientists have scrambled to understand what went...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/24/us/charleston-sc-flooding-climate-change.html Source: By  Richard Fausset  and  Christopher Flavelle , The New York Times.  Excerpt: A city known for extraordinary architecture is coming to terms with intensifying storms, a rising sea and streets that flood with distressing regularity....  

https://eos.org/articles/climate-litigation-has-a-big-evidence-gap Source: By  Kimberly M. S. Cartier , Eos/AGU  Excerpt: Climate change has found its way into courtrooms around the world more and more often in recent years: Plaintiffs have brought more than 1,500 cases of climate litigation since 1986, and  an increasing number of cases  are filed each year. ... However, climate litigation has failed more often than not to hold greenhouse gas emitters accountable for  climate-related impacts  like flooding and damage from drought or wildfires. ...The researchers examined 73 cases across 14 jurisdictions worldwide that made a claim that a defendant’s emissions negatively impacted the plaintiffs. In those cases, courts did not dispute the general idea that greenhouse gases cause climate change. “What was more of a challenge,” Stuart-Smith said, “was establishing a causal relationship between greenhouse gas emissions of an individual entity…and specific impac...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/23/science/drought-montana-fly-fishing.html Source: By  Jim Robbins , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The state is imposing more restrictions on fishing this year as the combination of extreme conditions, including low river levels, fish die-offs and the crush of anglers, poses long-term problems....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2021/07/23/passive-cooling-heat-wave/ Source: By  Sarah Kaplan , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: On a warming planet, passive cooling can help protect people without access to air conditioning and lighten the load on the electrical grid from those who do. It can also help reduce greenhouse gas emissions produced by burning fossil fuels for power — a necessary step for tackling climate change and the only hope we have for avoiding an even hotter future. ...Having vegetation around your building can prevent the walls from heating up as well. ...“Cool roofs” also make a big difference, Rempel said. Topping a building with light-colored, highly reflective materials prevents it from soaking up the sun’s heat. Even better: Build a rooftop garden. ...As night falls and the outdoor air temperature drops, it’s time to open up your windows. Create cross ventilation by opening windows and doors on opposite sides of rooms. ...if indoor air t...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/22/climate/subway-design-flooding-china.html Source: By  Hiroko Tabuchi  and  John Schwartz , The New York Times. Excerpt: Swift, deadly flooding in China this week inundated a network that wasn’t even a decade old, highlighting the risks faced by cities globally. ...Subway systems around the world are struggling to adapt to an era of extreme weather brought on by climate change.... 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/extreme-heat-no-air-conditioning/2021/07/22/110f5c0e-e66a-11eb-a41e-c8442c213fa8_story.html Source: By Marc Fisher, Carissa Wolf and Michael Hingston, The Washington Post.  Excerpt: In Edmonton, Alberta — nobody’s idea of a sweltering summer spot — Ellen Campbell no longer mocks neighbors who own air conditioners, but she’s not about to buy one herself. When highs topped 90 degrees for a few days before returning to the more ordinary 60s, she checked her grandkids and herself into a local hotel for the AC and the pool. But she will not buy her own AC unit. That’s not the kind of place where she lives. In Portland, Ore., however, the heat finally got to Vivek Shandas. He’s lived in the Pacific Northwest for 21 years and had resisted buying an air conditioner until this summer. “This thing broke us,” he said.  After highs hit 108, 112 and 116 degrees  on successive days last month, he bought a portable unit, put it in his bedroom and ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/07/22/china-floods-henan-rains/ Source: By Pei Lin Wu and Rebecca Tan, The Washington Post.  Excerpt:   The death toll from torrential rains lashing China’s central Henan province rose to 33 on Thursday, local officials said, with at least eight people still missing and 3 million affected . ...Central China, where multiple tributaries of the Yellow River crisscross and monsoon rains are exceptionally heavy, has long been subject to flooding. But the rainfall that hit low-lying Zhengzhou on Tuesday was the   heaviest on record   in the country, with nearly eight inches of precipitation between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m.... See also   Rescue efforts launched after record floods in central China displace 1.2 million   and New York Times article, ‘ Please Save Us!’ Grim Scenes in China as Flood Inundates a Subway .  

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/07/europe-s-deadly-floods-leave-scientists-stunned By  Warren Cornwall , Science Magazine.  Excerpt: ...As the magnitude of the destruction becomes clear, European scientists are wrestling with how such damage could happen in some of the world’s wealthiest and most technologically advanced countries, despite major investments in flood forecasting and preparation catalyzed by previous inundations. And they are examining whether climate change helped fuel the disaster—and what that might mean for the future. Beginning on 13 July, intense storms dropped as much as 15 centimeters of rain in 24 hours, swelling streams that then washed away houses and cars and triggered massive landslides. At least 196 people had died as of 20 July—165 in Germany and 31 in Belgium—and the number is expected to rise....  

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/18/climate/napa-wine-heat-hot-weather.html Source: By  Christopher Flavelle , The New York Times.  Excerpt: ST. HELENA, Calif. — Last September, a wildfire tore through one of Dario Sattui’s Napa Valley wineries, destroying millions of dollars in property and equipment, along with 9,000 cases of wine. November brought a second disaster: Mr. Sattui realized the precious crop of cabernet grapes that survived the fire had been ruined by the smoke. There would be no 2020 vintage. A freakishly dry winter led to a third calamity: By spring, the reservoir at another of Mr. Sattui’s vineyards was all but empty, meaning little water to irrigate the new crop. Finally, in March, came a fourth blow: Mr. Sattui’s insurers said they would no longer cover the winery that had burned down. Neither would any other company. In the patois of insurance, the winery will go bare into this year’s burning season, which experts predict to be especially fierce. ...In Napa...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/17/world/europe/siberia-fires.html Source: By Anton Troianovski, The New York Times.  Excerpt: ...For the third year in a row, residents of northeastern Siberia are reeling from the worst wildfires they can remember, and many are left feeling helpless, angry and alone. ...in recent years, summer  temperatures in the Russian Arctic  have gone as high as 100 degrees, feeding enormous blazes that thaw what was once permanently frozen ground. ...Last year, wildfires scorched more than 60,000 square miles of forest and tundra, an area the size of Florida. That is more than four times the area that burned in the United States during its devastating 2020 fire season. This year, more than 30,000 square miles have already burned in Russia, according to government statistics, with the region only two weeks into its peak fire season. Scientists say that the huge fires have been made possible by the extraordinary summer heat in recent years in northern...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/16/business/economy/green-energy-jobs-economy.html Source: By  Noam Scheiber , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The  Green New Deal , first introduced in 2019, sought to “create millions of good, high-wage jobs.” And in March, when President Biden unveiled his $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan, he  emphasized  the “good-paying” union jobs it would produce while reining in climate change. ...Building an electricity plant powered by fossil fuels usually requires hundreds of electricians, pipe fitters, millwrights and boilermakers who typically earn more than $100,000 a year in wages and benefits when they are unionized. But on solar farms, workers are often nonunion construction laborers who earn an hourly wage in the  upper teens  with modest benefits — even as the projects are backed by some of the largest investment firms in the world. In the case of Assembly Solar, the backer is D.E. Shaw, with more than $50 billion in as...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/16/world/europe/germany-floods-climate-change.html Source: By   Melissa Eddy ,   Jack Ewing ,   Megan Specia   and   Steven Erlanger , The New York Times.  Excerpt: ...a European weather agency issued an “extreme”   flood   warning after detailed models showed storms that threatened to send rivers surging to levels that a German meteorologist said on Friday had not been seen in 500 or even 1,000 years. ...with more than 100 people dead and 1,300 unaccounted for, as helicopter rescue crews plucked marooned residents from villages inundated sometimes within minutes, raising questions about lapses in Germany’s elaborate flood warning system. Numerous areas, victims and officials said, were caught unprepared when normally placid brooks and streams turned into torrents that swept away cars, houses and bridges and everything else in their paths. ...Extreme downpours like the ones that occurred in Germany are one of the mo...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/07/16/true-cost-of-american-food-system/ Source: By  Laura Reiley , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: ...The true cost of food is even higher than you think, a new report out Thursday says. The U.S. spends $1.1 trillion a year on food. But when the impacts of the food system on different parts of our society — including rising health care costs, climate change and biodiversity loss — are factored in, the bill is around three times that, according to  a report  by the Rockefeller Foundation, a private charity that funds medical and agricultural research. Using government statistics, scientific literature and insights from experts across the food system, the researchers quantified things like the share of direct medical costs attributable to diet and food, as well as the productivity loss associated with those health problems. They also looked at how crop cultivation and ranching, and other aspects of U.S. food production impac...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/16/business/energy-environment/china-carbon-market.html ] Source: By   Chris Buckley , The New York Times.  Excerpt: China, the world’s biggest source of greenhouse gas pollution, opened a national carbon emissions trading market on Friday, a long-awaited step aimed at fighting climate change. The market turns the power to pollute into an allowance that can be bought and sold, and is part of an array of policies that the Chinese government is putting in place as it tries to demonstrate its commitment to significantly reducing carbon dioxide emissions in the coming decades. ...China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has sought to cast his country as an environmentally responsible world power, and has pledged to tackle climate change. The new carbon market, which is immediately the world’s largest by volume of emissions, is the latest of Beijing’s efforts....   

https://eos.org/research-spotlights/half-of-u-s-tidal-marsh-areas-vulnerable-to-rising-seas Source: By  Sarah Stanley , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Adaptation appears possible in some areas, with northerly marshes having a greater capacity to form new soil and gain elevation, whereas some southerly marshes can migrate inland. ...New research by  Holmquist et al.  investigates the vulnerability of tidal marshes to sea level rise across the contiguous United States. The findings show, for the first time, that opportunities for resilience differ between more northerly and more southerly marshes across the country.... 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/14/climate/renewable-energy-batteries.html Source: By   Brad Plumer , The New York Times.  Excerpt: WASHINGTON — The Energy Department on Wednesday   announced a new effort   to tackle one of the toughest technical challenges facing President Biden’s push for an electric grid dominated by solar and wind power — namely, what to do when the sun stops shining and the wind stops blowing. The government is chasing a promising but uncertain solution: a low-cost way to store electricity generated by the sun or wind for hours, days or even weeks at a time, saving it for when it’s most needed. ...While dozens of companies   are working on different ideas   for so-called “long-duration energy storage,” most are still too expensive to be useful. As part of its initiative, the Energy Department wants to drive down the cost of long-duration storage 90 percent below the cost of today’s lithium-ion batteries by 2030. ...The announcement is ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/14/climate/border-carbon-tax-united-states.html Source: By  Lisa Friedman , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The party’s $3.5 trillion budget plan would include a carbon tariff, as well as a host of other climate actions.... See also  Europe Unveils Plan to Shift From Fossil Fuels, Setting Up Potential Trade Spats , ...  Europe Is Proposing a Border Carbon Tax. What Is It and How Will It Work? , and  How Europe’s Ambitious New Climate Agenda Will Affect Businesses .

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/14/climate/amazon-rainforest-carbon.html ] Source: By  John Schwartz ,  The New York Times    Excerpt: Portions of the Amazon rainforest are now emitting more carbon dioxide than they absorb — a troubling sign for the fight against climate change, a  new study suggests  ... published Wednesday in the journal Nature . Deforestation and an accelerating warming trend have contributed to change in the carbon balance, which is most severe in the southeastern region of the Amazon, where there are both rising temperatures and reduced rainfall in the dry season. The most affected regions have warmed by 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit during the dry season in the last 40 years, comparable to the changes seen in the rapidly-warming Arctic.... 

https://eos.org/articles/heating-up-the-hot-spots Source: By  Damond Benningfield , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Climate change is affecting American military operations and infrastructure—and could have security implications across the globe. ...For the American military, perhaps the most immediate threats are infrastructure damage and training restrictions. Hurricanes, inland storm systems, and wildfires have caused extensive damage in the past few years. In 2018, for example, Hurricane Florence caused  $3.6 billion worth of damage  to Camp Lejeune, a Marine Corps base in North Carolina that supports a  population of more than 130,000  marines, sailors, retirees, their families, and civilian employees. The following year, Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska suffered  $1 billion in damages  when major flooding hit the Midwest. Wildfires in 2016 burned  10,000 acres  (4,047 hectares) at Vandenberg Air Force Base (now Vandenberg Space Force Base) in ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/13/business/hydrogen-climate-change.html Source: By  Stanley Reed  and  Jack Ewing , The New York Times.  Excerpt: ...A consensus is forming among governments, environmentalists and energy companies that deep cuts in carbon emissions will require large amounts of a clean fuel like hydrogen. ...It could be used to power long-haul trucks and train and air travel. ...All told, more than 200 large-scale projects are underway to produce or transport hydrogen, comprising investments of more than $80 billion. Daimler and Volvo, the world’s largest truck makers, plan in a few years to begin mass producing long-haul electric trucks that run on devices called fuel cells that convert hydrogen to electricity. Water will be the trucks’ only emission. ...industries like oil refining use large quantities of so-called gray hydrogen that is mostly made by separating hydrogen from natural gas. And that process generates more greenhouse-gas emissions tha...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/13/us/acequias-drought-new-mexico-southwest.html Source: By  Simon Romero , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Acequias, the fabled irrigation ditches that are a cornerstone of New Mexican culture, have endured centuries of challenges. Can they survive the Southwest’s megadrought? ...Making subsistence farming feasible in arid lands, New Mexico’s communally managed acequias persisted through  uprisings ,  epidemics  and wars of  territorial conquest , preserving a form of small-scale democratic governance that took root before the United States existed as a country. But in a sign of how climate change has begun to upend farming traditions across the Southwest, the  megadrought  afflicting New Mexico and neighboring states may amount to the acequias’ biggest challenge yet.... 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/11/business/energy-environment/biden-climate-transmission-lines.html Source: By  Ivan Penn  and  Clifford Krauss , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The president and energy companies want new transmission lines to carry electricity from solar and wind farms. Some environmentalists and homeowners are pushing for smaller, more local systems. ...Mr. Biden has secured $73 billion for thousands of miles of new power lines in an infrastructure proposal he and  senators from both parties agreed to in June . That deal includes the creation of a Grid Development Authority to speed up approvals for transmission lines. Most energy experts agree that the United States must improve its aging electric grids, especially after millions of Texans  spent days freezing this winter  when the state’s electricity system faltered. ...But many of Mr. Biden’s liberal allies argue that solar panels, batteries and other local energy sources should be...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/07/09/western-reservoirs-drought-california-nevada/ Source: By Diana Leonard,  Laris Karklis , and  Zach Levitt , The Washington Post  Overview: Over the last 20 years, human-caused warming has intensified what would have been an ordinary dry period in the Southwest into a potential “megadrought” — in some ways the driest such period in 1,200 years....  See also  Crushing heat wave in Pacific Northwest and Canada cooked shellfish alive by the millions .

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/07/how-managed-retreat-can-help-communities-facing-sea-level-rise .  By  Meagan Cantwell , Science Magazine.  EXCERPT: In 2016, the residents of Isle de Jean Charles, a small strip of land off the coast of Louisiana, received a $48 million grant to relocate their entire community. Faced with sea-level rise and rapid erosion, many made the decision to seek higher ground. Communities around the world—from Miami to Mumbai—will have to grapple with similar choices. Watch [ VIDEO ] to learn how researchers approach climate-induced relocation and read more about the topic in Science’s  special issue. ... 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/09/climate/marine-heat-wave.html Source: By  Catrin Einhorn , The New York Times.  Excerpt: An early estimate points to a huge die-off along the Pacific Coast, and scientists say rivers farther inland are warming to levels that could be lethal for some kinds of salmon. ...Dead mussels and clams coated rocks in the Pacific Northwest, their shells gaping open as if they’d been boiled. Sea stars were baked to death. Sockeye salmon swam sluggishly in an overheated Washington river, prompting wildlife officials to truck them to cooler areas. The combination of extraordinary  heat  and drought that hit the  Western United States  and  Canada  over the past two weeks has killed hundreds of millions of marine animals and continues to threaten untold species in freshwater, according to a preliminary estimate and interviews with scientists.... 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/07/07/pacific-northwest-heat-wave-climate/ Source: By  Matthew Cappucci , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: ...last week’s heat wave in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia was essentially unprecedented. Seattle hit 108 degrees, Portland spiked to 116 and Canada broke its national temperature record three days in a row,  hitting 121 degrees on June 29 .  Hundreds of excess deaths were blamed on the brutal heat , which established records by margins of 10 degrees or more in spots. ...Christopher Burt, an expert on world weather extremes, wrote ...“the most anomalous extreme heat event ever observed on Earth since records began two centuries ago.” An analysis conducted by the  World Weather Attribution group , which specializes in using computer modeling to examine the links between ongoing weather events and climate change, finds that the extreme heat wave would have been “virtually impossible” without human influenc...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/07/07/pacific-northwest-heat-wave-climate/ Source: By  Matthew Cappucci , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: ...last week’s heat wave in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia was essentially unprecedented. Seattle hit 108 degrees, Portland spiked to 116 and Canada broke its national temperature record three days in a row,  hitting 121 degrees on June 29 .  Hundreds of excess deaths were blamed on the brutal heat , which established records by margins of 10 degrees or more in spots. ...Christopher Burt, an expert on world weather extremes, wrote ...“the most anomalous extreme heat event ever observed on Earth since records began two centuries ago.” An analysis conducted by the  World Weather Attribution group , which specializes in using computer modeling to examine the links between ongoing weather events and climate change, finds that the extreme heat wave would have been “virtually impossible” without human influenc...

https://eos.org/opinions/chiles-glacier-protection-law-needs-grounding-in-sound-science Source: By  Alfonso Fernández , Shelley MacDonell, Marcelo Somos-Valenzuela, and Álvaro González-Reyes, Eos/AGU  Excerpt: In the works for more than a decade, proposed legislation to protect glacial and permafrost environments in Chile suffers from uncertainties and omissions that could sow conflict instead of solutions.... 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2021/07/05/kelp-forests-destroyed-sea-urchins/ ] Source: By Lucy Sherriff, The Washington Post  Excerpt: Kelp forests cover a quarter of the world’s coastlines, ...providing food and shelter for thousands of species, while sucking carbon from the atmosphere. ...The fate of the world’s kelp forests may depend on controlling its sworn enemy — sea urchins — and the Nature Conservancy ...says it has a plan. It is touting urchins as a culinary cuisine, hoping to appeal to commercial fishermen who could scoop them out of the ocean. It is also attempting to increase the population of their natural predators, sea stars and growing kelp in controlled environments before releasing the algae back into the sea. ...Kelp are essentially the ocean’s equivalent of trees. They absorb carbon dioxide and nitrogen compounds, helping clean the atmosphere while capturing  up to 20 times more  carbon per acre than land forests. They also provide ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/02/climate/trees-cities-heat-waves.html Source: By  Catrin Einhorn , The New York Times.  Excerpt: At a time when climate change is making heat waves more frequent and more severe, trees are stationary superheroes: They can lower urban temperatures 10 lifesaving degrees, scientists say.... 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/02/climate/trees-cities-heat-waves.html By  Catrin Einhorn , The New York Times.  Excerpt: At a time when climate change is making heat waves more frequent and more severe, trees are stationary superheroes: They can lower urban temperatures 10 lifesaving degrees, scientists say. ...Research shows that heat already kills more people in the United States than hurricanes, tornadoes and other weather-events, perhaps  contributing to 12,000 deaths per year . Extreme heat this week in the Pacific Northwest and Canada has  killed hundreds . Trees ...also reduce electricity demand for  air conditioning , not only sparing money and emissions, but helping avoid potentially catastrophic  power failures during heat waves .…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/07/01/underpaid-firefighters-overstretched-budgets-us-isnt-prepared-fires-fueled-by-climate-change/ Source: By  Sarah Kaplan , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: PORTLAND, Ore. — On the heels of one of the worst wildfire years on record, the federal government is struggling to recruit and retain staff as firefighters grapple with low wages, trauma and burnout from increasingly long and intense fire seasons. Heat waves have toppled temperature records across the nation, and firefighters are actively battling 48 large blazes that have consumed more than half a million acres in 12 states. But land management agencies are carrying out fire mitigation measures at a fraction of the pace required, and the funds needed to make communities more resilient are one-seventh of what the government has supplied.... . 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/climate/arctic-sea-ice-climate-change.html Source: By  Henry Fountain , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The region, which could provide a last refuge for polar bears and other Arctic wildlife that depends on ice, is not as stable as previously thought, according to a new study....  

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/07/colorado-river-shrinking-hard-choices-lie-ahead-scientist-warns Source: By  Erik Stokstad , Science Magazine.  Excerpt: ...As a warming climate reduces the river’s flow, ...public debate over water resources ...is too often clouded by wishful or outdated thinking. The biggest delusion: that there will be enough water in a drier future to satisfy all the demands from cities, farmers, power producers, and others, while still protecting sensitive ecosystems and endangered species. The hard truth, according to long-term scenarios produced by Schmidt and his colleagues, is that some users will have to consume less water, and that policymakers will face agonizing choices sure to produce winners and losers. Those are messages that many players aren’t eager to hear, especially states planning to drain more water from the river to fuel growth. But Schmidt says he and his colleagues simply want everyone to understand the potentially divisive trade...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/us/heat-wave-deaths-oregon-canada-washington.html Source: By Sergio Olmos, Winston Choi-Schagrin and  Shawn Hubler , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The heat wave in parts of the Pacific Northwest played a role in the deaths of dozens of people, some of whom lived alone....  See also  Deaths Spike as Heat Wave Broils Canada and the Pacific Northwest , and Washington Post articles:  Historic heat wave in Pacific Northwest has killed hundreds in U.S. and Canada over the past week ,  ‘Hard to comprehend’: Experts react to record 121 degrees in Canada  ...The  all-time high of 121 degrees set in British Columbia on Tuesday  has left weather and climate experts all over the world shocked, speechless and deeply concerned about the future of the planet. The scorching temperature set in the village of Lytton obliterated Canada’s previous national temperature record, established before this week’s heat wave, by 8 ...