By Tom Howarth , Newsweek.  Excerpt: The Kubuqi Desert in Inner Mongolia, China, is undergoing a remarkable transformation ...satellite images captured by the U.S. Geological Survey's Landsat satellites have revealed vast solar installations reshaping the desert landscape, part of China's ambitious effort to build a renewable energy powerhouse. The project has been dubbed China's "solar great wall," with vast fields of photovoltaic panels now stretching across the dunes. Expected to be completed by 2030, the project will span 250 miles in length and 3 miles in width, with a maximum capacity of 100 gigawatts. China's rapid expansion of  solar power  is a significant step in addressing global climate challenges. By June 2024, China accounted for 51 percent of the world's solar farm capacity, leading the globe in renewable energy generation, according to Global Energy Monitor's (GEM) Global Solar Power Tracker. The Kubuqi project alone is expected to prod...

By Susan T. Mashiyama , Berkeleyside.  Excerpt: As climate-friendly heat pumps replace gas furnaces, two musicians teamed up on a song about a pump “with a lot of love to give.” A decarbonization nonprofit helped them turn it into a music video. …Mike Roberts, a longtime Berkeley resident, musician, music teacher and environmentalist, wants you to get a heat pump. Electric-powered devices that operate similarly to refrigerators to both heat and cool the air in a home, heat pumps have been hailed as one of the easiest ways to fight climate change and the solution to high heating bills . To spread the love for heat pumps, Roberts decided to write a song. …In April, the musical duo behind “ (I’m Your) Heat Pump ” released a music video . In September, they released a video for a follow-up song titled “ (Our Love Is) Geothermal ".  Full article at https://www.berkeleyside.org/2024/12/30/im-your-heat-pump-song-electrification .

By Richard Stone , Science.  Excerpt: The 1831 eruption of Zavaritskii volcano in the Kuril Islands sparked cropped failures and famines. The first sign of an impending cataclysm in the summer of 1831 was an eerie dimming of the Sun, which for days appeared bluish green across the Northern Hemisphere. In the ensuing weeks, foul weather and a long cold snap triggered crop failures and famines in India and Japan. The instigator was long presumed to be a climate-altering plume from a major eruption, but the volcano’s identity had been one of the great unsolved mysteries of volcanology. “It’s like a whodunit,” says Clive Oppenheimer, a volcanologist at the University of Cambridge. At long last, the culprit has been unmasked in a report out today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A team led by volcanologist William Hutchison of the University of St. Andrews describes sulfur isotopes and glassy shards of ash deposited in ice core layers dated to 1831 that trace back...

By Damian Carrington , The Guardian.  Excerpt: The climate crisis caused an additional six weeks of dangerously hot days in 2024 for the average person, supercharging the fatal impact of heatwaves around the world. The effects of human-caused global heating were far worse for some people,  an analysis  by World Weather Attribution (WWA) and Climate Central has shown. Those in Caribbean and Pacific island states were the hardest hit. Many endured about 150 more days of dangerous heat than they would have done without global heating, almost half the year. Nearly half the world’s countries endured at least two months of high-risk temperatures. Even in the least affected places, such as the UK, US and Australia, the carbon pollution from fossil fuel burning has led to an extra three weeks of elevated temperatures. ...“The impacts of fossil fuel warming have never been clearer or more devastating than in 2024 and caused unrelenting suffering,” said Dr Friederike Otto, of Imper...

By The Guardian.  Excerpt: Built like a small bison, weighing as much as a grand piano and covered in thick, shaggy coat, the musk ox is one of the most distinctive species in the high Arctic. ...Musk oxen are relics of the ice age, adapted to thrive in pitch-black polar winters where temperatures can stay below -20C (-4F) for months. They give birth as the light returns for the brief Arctic summer, ready to take advantage of the 24-hour grazing days before the light disappears once again. Often boxed in by ice and geography in isolated populations, they are  among the world’s most inbred mammals . ...Officially,  musk oxen are classified  as a species of least concern on the IUCN red list of threatened species. But in a warming world, rising temperatures are posing new tests of their resilience, raising concern among scientists about the survival of many fragmented populations. Disease and parasites – turbocharged by the changing climate – are on the rise in much of...

By Jonathan Allen , Reuters.  Excerpt: New York state will fine fossil fuel companies a total of $75 billion over the next 25 years to pay for damage caused to the climate under a bill Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law on Thursday. The law is intended to shift some of the recovery and adaptation costs of climate change from individual taxpayers to oil, gas and coal companies that the law says are liable. The money raised will be spent on mitigating the impacts of climate change, including adapting roads, transit, water and sewage systems, buildings and other infrastructure. ...Fossil fuel companies will be fined based on the amount of greenhouse gases they released into the atmosphere between 2000 and 2018, to be paid into a Climate Superfund beginning in 2028. It will apply to any company that the New York Department of Environmental Conservation determines is responsible for more than 1 billion tons of global greenhouse gas emissions. ...New York becomes the second state to p...

By Michelle Lewis , Electrek.  Excerpt: Ampion Renewable Energy  has brought five community solar farms in Maine online, adding nearly 25 megawatts (MW) of clean energy to the grid annually and generating over 28 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity. Located in Franklin (main photo), Aroostook, Penobscot, and Washington Counties, these solar farms serve customers in Versant Power and Central Maine Power territories. Residential households and businesses that subscribe will save up to 15% on their electricity bills while supporting Maine’s transition to clean energy. ...Ampion has signed 1,700 households and 70 businesses to these new community solar projects. The company will also handle billing and customer care for the next 20 years. Ampion manages subscriptions for 48 community solar projects in Maine, amounting to over 215 MW....  Full article at https://electrek.co/2024/12/19/five-solar-farms-come-online-in-maine/ . 

By Paul Voosen , Science.  Excerpt: For more than 20 years, NASA instruments in space have tracked a growing imbalance in Earth’s solar energy budget, with more energy entering than leaving the planet. Much of that imbalance can be pinned on humanity’s greenhouse gases emissions, which trap heat in the atmosphere. But explaining the rest has been a challenge. ...George Tselioudis, a climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies ...and his colleagues now think they can explain the growing gap with evidence collected by a remarkably long-lived [Terra] satellite. They find that the world’s reflective cloud cover has shrunk in the past 2 decades by a small but tangible degree, allowing more light in and boosting global warming. ...Tselioudis ... presented the work  last week at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Climate scientists now need to figure out what’s causing these cloud changes ...whether the trend is a feedback of climate change that mig...

By Saugat Bolakhe , Science.  Excerpt: In the Himalayan mountains, it’s not just climbers who race their way to the top. Trees are locked in a contest, as well. In many places, birch, the dominant tree of these highlands, is losing ground to fir, a slow-growing evergreen conifer, according to a  study published last month in Nature Plants . This shift could reshape habitats for other species and alter the dynamics of the Himalayan ecosystem. ...The Himalayas are experiencing warming and drought events at a faster pace than the global average. How its tree lines—which mark the highest altitude at which trees grow—are responding to these rapid changes is a question that has long fascinated botanist Shalik Ram Sigdel. In his work, he frequently found tree lines comprised of a mix of birches and firs. “I became really curious how one species was responding compared to the other,” he says. ...fir trees are shifting uphill at about 11 centimeters per year—roughly the length of ...

By Catrin Einhorn , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The first evidence was the feathered bodies washing up on Alaskan beaches. They were common murres, sleek black-and-white seabirds that typically spend months at a time away from land. But in 2015 and 2016, officials tallied 62,000 emaciated corpses from California to Alaska. Since then, scientists have been piecing together what happened to the birds, along with other species in the northeast Pacific that suddenly died or disappeared. It became clear that the culprit was an record-breaking marine heat wave, a mass of warm water that would come to be known as the Blob. New findings on its effect on murres,  published on Thursday in the journal Science , are a stark sign of the perils facing ecosystems in a warming world....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/12/climate/alaska-common-murre-birds-ocean-heat.html . 

By Cara Buckley , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Electric heat pumps, the most affordable and energy efficient way to heat and cool homes, continue to outsell gas furnaces nationwide. They can also reduce outdoor pollution and, as a result, save lives, according to  a report issued on Tuesday . The study, by Rewiring America, a nonprofit group that promotes electrification, calculated that if every American household got rid of furnaces, hot water heaters and clothes dryers powered by oil or gas and replaced them with heat pumps and electric appliances, annual greenhouse gas emissions could drop by about 400 million metric tons. Fine airborne particulate matter and other air pollutants could decrease by 300,000 tons, the equivalent of taking 40 million cars off the road. Roughly two-thirds of the country’s households burn fossil fuels such as natural gas, propane and fuel oil for heat, hot water and drying clothes, releasing nitrogen oxides and other pollutants into the air. Wh...

By Barbara Moran , NPR.  Excerpt: Arctic tundra, which has stored carbon for thousands of years, has now become a source of planet-warming pollution. As wildfires increase and hotter temperatures melt long-frozen ground, the region is releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The finding was reported in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's annual  Arctic Report Card , released Tuesday. The new research, led by scientists from the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts, signals a dramatic shift in this Arctic ecosystem, which could have widespread implications for the global climate. NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said ..."This is yet one more sign, predicted by scientists, of the consequences of inadequately reducing fossil fuel pollution." ...Permafrost is full of carbon that has been locked away by plants over millennia. But last year's permafrost temperatures were the second warmest on record, hastening melting of the fr...

By Rambo Talabong , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Coastal wetlands have long been seen as one of the casualties of climate change, doomed by the rising seas that are steadily swallowing their ecosystems. ...New research by Virginia Institute of Marine Science coastal geomorphologist  Matthew Kirwan  has revealed that some marshes, migrating as they adapt to changing conditions, may release carbon (primarily as carbon dioxide) but gain an enhanced capacity to store methane.  Methane  is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and sequestering it may have an atmospheric cooling effect. As sea level rises, freshwater marshes get saltier and turn into salt marshes. Conventional wisdom has long held that as freshwater marshes shrink, they release carbon stored in their soil and biomass. But Kirwan pointed out that as freshwater marshes degrade and salinize, their microbial populations are affected in a way that causes the marshes to  emit less methane . “Even deg...

By Lisa Setyon , CNBC.  Excerpt: Thermal batteries could transform renewable energy storage and provide a cheaper and scalable alternative to lithium-ion technology. “Intermittent wind and solar power are becoming the cheapest forms of energy that humans have ever known, and all kinds of energy storage is now being used to harness that, to drive transportation, to drive the electricity grid,” said John O’Donnell, the founder and chief innovation officer of Rondo Energy. “Heat batteries are a fundamentally new way of storing energy at a small fraction of the cost.”  Heat batteries store excess electricity as heat in materials like bricks or graphite, which can reach temperatures over 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The stored heat can then be released when needed, making thermal batteries ideal for powering the manufacturing of steel, cement and chemicals. Rondo Energy ...built its first commercial heat battery in California’s Central Valley at Calgren Renewable Fuels. ...“We us...

By Richard Stone , Science.  Excerpt: Studies of materials salvaged from 2019 fire are providing insights into everything from construction techniques to climate conditions in medieval France. ...After a devastating fire 5 years ago, a restored Notre Dame de Paris is set to reopen to the public this weekend. But while most visitors will be marveling at the cathedral’s rebuilt roof and radiant stonework, behind the scenes a sprawling scientific enterprise has yielded surprising insights into Notre Dame’s past. ...Those efforts included an analysis of some of the 10,000 pieces of charred wood from Notre Dame’s massive oak frame.... Researchers also used these charred chunks of wood to open a window into local climate conditions during Europe’s Medieval Warm Period, which lasted from approximately 950 to 1250 C.E.....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/notre-dame-s-spectacular-rebirth-offers-bounty-data-scientists . 

By Mark C. Urban , Science.  Abstract: Climate change is expected to cause irreversible changes to biodiversity, but predicting those risks remains uncertain. I synthesized 485 studies and more than 5 million projections to produce a quantitative global assessment of climate change extinctions. With increased certainty, this meta-analysis suggests that extinctions will accelerate rapidly if global temperatures exceed 1.5°C. The highest-emission scenario would threaten approximately one-third of species, globally. Amphibians; species from mountain, island, and freshwater ecosystems; and species inhabiting South America, Australia, and New Zealand face the greatest threats. In line with predictions, climate change has contributed to an increasing proportion of observed global extinctions since 1970. Besides limiting greenhouse gases, pinpointing which species to protect first will be critical for preserving biodiversity until anthropogenic climate change is halted and reversed....

By Gary Thill & Laura Counts, UC Berkeley Has News.  Excerpt: When the U.S. government flexes its $5 trillion annual purchasing power to encourage environmental progress, companies listen—and act. A new study from the UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business shows that firms have reduced toxic emissions, developed greener products, and taken concrete steps to address climate change in their pursuit of government contracts. The study, led by Haas professor Omri Even-Tov, analyzed ten years of data on about 2,700 companies headquartered across more than 350 U.S. counties. The companies seeking government contracts not only started talking more about climate disclosures, but they cut emissions by up to 10,000 pounds per year per county and were 5% more likely to develop green technology patents. “Our research shows that when the government sets expectations as part of procurement, it’s not just greenwashing,” says Even-Tov, an associate professor of accounting and co-faculty director...

By Athar Parvaiz , Science.  Excerpt: Climate-driven melting of snow and ice continues to swell many lakes in the Himalayas, increasing the risk of catastrophic flooding in downstream communities, new data show. Researchers examining 902 lakes across the snowy, mountainous region found that more than half have increased in area since 2011, some by more than 40%. Overall, the area covered by the lakes grew by 11% over the same period,  India’s Central Water Commission reports . The findings highlight the need for “vigorous monitoring” of rapidly changing glacial lakes and water bodies, the researchers write. The lakes are often held in place by unstable ice dams and gravel bars that can fail with little warning, unleashing deadly torrents. Such “outburst floods” have killed thousands of people across the Himalayas over the past decade, and a warming climate has only  increased the risks ....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/himalayas-expan...

By Noah Gordon  and  Daevan Mangalmurti , Vox.  Excerpt: ...Catching their own government by  surprise , Pakistanis have been  installing a massive amount of solar power . ...Pakistan has gone from an inconsequential solar market to the  sixth-largest  in the world. ...In the last three years, Pakistanis have imported  more than 25 gigawatts  of solar panels from China. This disorganized, bottom-up boom has increased Pakistan’s power supply by 50 percent. ...power plants burn  lots  of liquefied natural gas, which became costlier after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. That same year, Pakistan fell into a  foreign exchange crisis  ...which made everything more expensive. All of this opened an  opportunity  for businesses and better-off Pakistanis to begin importing solar panels from China, which can pay for themselves in as little as  two years  and free their users from the expensive,  unreliable ...

By John Dietz , SuccessfulFarming.  Excerpt: Agrivoltaics, a relatively new term, unites cropping practices and solar panels on the same fields. ...Well-established programs exist throughout Europe, as well as in Japan and China. “Agrivoltaics has emerged as a formal pillar of the energy plan for countries with scarce farmland, including France, Germany, and Italy,” Winter explains. It’s catch-up time in North America. ...[Joshua] Pearce calls agrivoltaics in North America “a slam dunk” opportunity. “A few percent of agricultural land in the U.S. could power the entire country,” he asserts. ...In his latest research paper, Pearce posits that as little as 1% of Canadian farmland could provide a quarter to a third of Canada’s electrical energy needs. ...“You can increase the yield for your crop if you do it right ,” he said in an interview. “You do get more food, and you get the added revenue of the solar. [That’s] why agrivoltaics is growing like crazy in the who...

By Michael Levenson , The New York Times.  Excerpt: For 19 years, Richard Burton, a letter carrier in Athens, Ga., drove the classic boxy mail truck, with only a fan on the dashboard to keep the cabin cool in the sweltering summer months. ...about two months ago, Mr. Burton, 46, became one of the first letter carriers in the United States to get a long-awaited upgrade: a new electric mail truck with air-conditioning, a 360-degree camera and a sliding cargo door on the side that allows the unloading of packages directly onto the sidewalk. ...The new mail trucks — 10 years in the making — have started rolling into American neighborhoods, and the early reviews from letter carriers are positive. Many have complained for years that the mail trucks they have been driving, which were introduced in the 1980s, break down frequently and are stiflingly hot, as climate change pushes temperatures to greater extremes. The rear cargo space is so small, they say, that they have to crouch inside to...

By Ariana Bindman , SFGate.  Excerpt: A Cold War relic, Camp Century was supposed to be entombed in ice forever. NASA’s April 2024 expedition to the Greenland Ice Sheet...[was] "...looking for the bed of the ice and out pops Camp Century,” said Alex Gardner, a scientist at NASA’s California-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a  Nov. 25 news release. ...Part research facility, part war machine, the clandestine, underground military site once housed up to  200 soldiers  and scientists who dutifully  studied ice core samples  during the height of the Cold War.  The nuclear-powered operation , complete with  an experimental subsurface railway  ultimately designed to help launch 600 missiles and provide year-round accommodations for its personnel, was supposed to be entombed in  snow for eternity  after authorities decommissioned it in 1967. ...But the bones of “Project Iceworm” may soon reemerge, as scientists worry that global w...

By Skyler Ware , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Massive volcanic eruptions have reshaped Earth and its climate at several points in history. New research suggests that long after these surface eruptions ceased, carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) dissolved in underground magmas could have slowly escaped to the surface. This “cryptic carbon” may have contributed to prolonged periods of warming, slow climate recovery, and mass extinctions. ...extensive volcanism has occurred in conjunction with periods of climate disruption throughout Earth’s history: Large igneous provinces emitted large volumes of greenhouse gases such as CO 2  into the atmosphere, raising temperatures. These events were also sometimes accompanied by major biological changes. The eruptions of the Siberian Traps 252 million years ago coincided with massive biodiversity loss, known as the end-Permian mass extinction, or the Great Dying. But during that event, temperatures and CO 2  levels remained high for about 5 million years aft...

By Ehsan Masood , Nature.  Excerpt: An eleventh-hour deal that rescued the COP29 climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, is a “fragile consensus”, researchers who study climate finance have told  Nature . Visibly relieved COP delegates representing rich countries applauded in the early hours of 24 November, following a last-minute pledge in which rich countries will ‘take the lead’ in increasing climate finance for poor countries to at least US$300 billion annually by 2035. Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), notably China, will also be expected to contribute to international climate funds, a first for a COP agreement. But delegates from some of the largest LMICs, including India, Indonesia and Nigeria, were furious. Some alleged that they had been pressured into a deal, so that the COP meeting did not end in failure. The delegates also did not agree on how much of the $300 billion will be in grants versus loans, nor how much will come from private or public-sector sources. C...

By Julia Simon , NPR.  Excerpt: The U.S. is preparing for a second presidential term for Donald Trump, who has called climate change a hoax and federal investments in climate solutions a " green new scam “. In China, it’s a different story. China has made it clear it plans to be at the forefront of manufacturing climate solutions–and selling them around the globe. China is the world’s largest producer of renewable energy, now constructing almost  two thirds of all large-scale wind and solar power , according to nonprofit Global Energy Monitor. And China is spreading climate solution technologies across the developing world. Walk into an electric vehicle showroom in Colombia, the Dominican Republic, or Kenya these days, and the car on offer is likely made in China. “They’ve set up a situation where it’s good for them to sell clean energy technologies to the world,” says  Alex Wang , a professor of law at UCLA focused on Chinese climate policy. “It’s very good economically,...

By Mitra Taj , The New York Times.  Excerpt: As the glaciers of South America retreat, the supply of freshwater is dwindling and its quality is getting worse. Dionisia Moreno, a 70-year-old Indigenous farmer, still remembers when Shallap River, nearly 13,000 feet up in the Cordillera Blanca, brought crystal clear water brimming with trout to her village, Jancu. “People and animals alike could drink the water without suffering,” she said. “Now the water is red. No one can drink it.”....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/19/science/peru-glaciers-water-pollution.html . 

By Myles R. Allen et al, Nature.  Abstract: Achieving net zero global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), with declining emissions of other greenhouse gases, is widely expected to halt global warming. CO 2  emissions will continue to drive warming until fully balanced by active anthropogenic CO 2  removals. For practical reasons, however, many greenhouse gas accounting systems allow some “passive” CO 2  uptake, such as enhanced vegetation growth due to CO 2  fertilisation, to be included as removals in the definition of net anthropogenic emissions. By including passive CO 2  uptake, nominal net zero emissions would not halt global warming, undermining the Paris Agreement. ...targets should acknowledge the need for Geological Net Zero, meaning one tonne of CO 2  permanently restored to the solid Earth for every tonne still generated from fossil sources....  Full article at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08326-8 .  [not free]

By Warren Cornwall , Science.  Excerpt: More than 41,000 years ago, humans traversed a strip of land that once joined the mainland of Australia to what is today the island of Tasmania, called Lutruwita by its Indigenous inhabitants today. The first humans to reach this land brought a tool they used to transform the landscape and that left the first lasting marks of their presence: fire. Thanks to layers of sediment that formed year by year along the bottom of a lake on a small island off the northeastern tip of Lutruwita, scientists have for the first time chronicled the region’s history of vegetation spanning more than 50,000 years. They found  a surge in fires starting about 41,600 years ago , the researchers report today in Science Advances, the same time as falling sea levels opened a dry corridor allowing humans to migrate to the island. ...The findings come at a time of growing interest in reviving a traditional burning culture on Lutruwita. Aboriginal communities a...

By Robert Sanders , UC Berkeley News.  Excerpt: Industrial plants, such as those that make cement or steel, emit copious amounts of carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas, but the exhaust is too hot for state-of-the-art carbon removal technology. Lots of energy and water are needed to cool the exhaust streams, a requirement that has limited adoption of CO 2  capture in some of the most polluting industries. Now, chemists at the University of California, Berkeley, have discovered that a porous material can act like a sponge to capture CO 2  at temperatures close to those of many industrial exhaust streams. The material — a type of metal-organic framework, or MOF — will be described in a paper to be published in the Nov. 15 print edition of the journal  Science . ...“We need to start thinking about the CO 2  emissions from industries, like making steel and making cement, that are hard to decarbonize, because it’s likely that they’re still going to be emitting CO ...

By Brad Plumer  and  Mira Rojanasakul , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Countries have made scant progress in curbing their greenhouse gas emissions over the past year, keeping the planet on track for dangerous levels of warming this century,  according to a new report  published Thursday. The report by the Climate Action Tracker, a research group, estimates that the climate and energy policies currently pursued by governments around the world would cause global temperatures to rise roughly 2.7 degrees Celsius, or 4.9 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels by 2100. That estimate of future warming has barely budged for three years now, the group said. ...The study was issued during the United Nations climate summit [COP29] in Baku, Azerbaijan....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/14/climate/climate-action-tracker-temperatures-emissions.html . 

By A. Samuel Pottinger et al, Science.  Abstract: Plastic production and plastic pollution negatively affect our environment, environmental justice, and climate change. Using detailed global and regional plastics datasets coupled with socio-economic data, we employ machine learning to predict that, without intervention, annual mismanaged plastic waste will nearly double to 121 Mt (100 - 139 Mt 95% CI) by 2050. Annual greenhouse gas emissions from the plastic system are projected to grow by 37% to 3.35 Gt CO 2  equivalent (3.09 - 3.54 CO 2 e) over the same period. The United Nations plastic pollution treaty presents a unique opportunity to reshape these outcomes. We simulate eight candidate treaty policies and find that just four could together reduce mismanaged plastic waste by 91% (86% - 98%) and gross plastic-related greenhouse gas emissions by one third.  Full article at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adr3837 .  See also A world without plastic ...

By Evrim Yazgin, COSMOS.  Excerpt: More than 700 million years ago, the entire globe was covered in ice in a period called “Snowball Earth”. At least, that’s what scientists think. Now geologists believe they’ve found the best evidence that the “Snowball Earth” was really a global event. For  reasons which remain unclear , a runaway chain of events caused a massive shift in Earth’s climate about 720 million years ago. Global temperatures plunged and ice sheets kilometres thick are believed to have covered the planet from the poles to the equator. Called the  Sturtian glaciation , Snowball Earth lasted about 60 million years. This was quickly followed by another global ice age called the  Marinoan glaciation . Together, these big freezes made up the geological period called the Cryogenian (720–635 million years ago). ...A new study published in the  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences  presents new evidence that these massive glaciers covered the...

By Brad Plumer , The New York Times.  Excerpt: One year after world leaders made a splashy promise to shift away from fossil fuels, countries are burning more oil, natural gas and coal than ever before, researchers said this week. Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels are on track to reach ...a 0.8 percent increase over 2023 levels,  according to new data from the Global Carbon Project . It’s a trend that puts countries farther from their goal of stopping global warming. ...Emissions will most likely decline this year in the United States and Europe, and fossil fuel use in China slowed. Yet that was offset by a surge in carbon dioxide from India and the rest of the world. ...The findings were made public early on Wednesday at the United Nations climate change summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, where diplomats and world leaders have gathered to discuss  how to raise trillions of dollars  to cope with rising global temperatures....  Full article at https://ww...

By Julie Johnson , San Francisco Chronicle.  Excerpt: California air quality regulators on Friday tightened a key environmental program credited with reducing the amount of pollution churned out by cars and trucks but criticized for raising the state’s already high gasoline prices. The California Air Resources Board voted 12-2 on Friday to strengthen the Low Carbon Fuels Standard, which creates financial incentives for oil and gas companies that slash emissions from transportation fuels and adds costs to companies that don’t. ...The air board said the hallmark program, established in 2011, has doubled the volume of low carbon fuels such as renewable diesel on the market, slashed regular diesel consumption in half and generated $4 billion oil and gas industry investments in cleaner fuels and technology. ...The standard works by rewarding oil and gas companies for lowering the carbon intensity of fuels, which encompasses the greenhouse gas emissions produced throughout thei...

By Katherine Kornei , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Human activity is pumping carbon dioxide into Earth’s atmosphere at an unprecedented rate. But centennial-scale increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide—albeit significantly smaller—also persisted in the past. These so-called carbon dioxide jumps are tied to the tilt of Earth’s axis, new research suggests. ...The concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, [at a] level of 315 parts per million was measured in 1958, when modern records began. Today the value is 420 parts per million. On average, the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide has been  increasing by roughly 1–3 parts per million per year since the late 1950s . ...  Etienne Legrain , a paleoclimatologist at the Institut des Géosciences de l’Environnement in Grenoble, France, and his colleagues... analyzed 203 measurements of carbon dioxide concentration ranging in age from 260,000 to 190,000 years before present. ...they spotted seven unusual events in which the carb...

By Rocio Fabbro , Quartz.  Excerpt: Renewable energy stocks plunged following Donald Trump’s election victory Tuesday, as the sector braces for the real possibility that the president-elect actually does  “drill, baby, drill.” That resulted in a roughly  $1.3 billion windfall  for investors betting against the stocks, according to calculations by Bloomberg. Among the most shorted clean energy stocks are Plug Power ( PLUG ), SolarEdge Technologies ( SEDG ), Bloom Energy ( BE ), First Solar ( FSLR ), and Enphase Energy ( ENPH ).... A second Trump presidency is expected to give other areas of the energy sector a major boost — especially oil. The Republican has promised to expand oil drilling on his first day in office, and to do away with clean energy policies....  Full article at https://qz.com/renewable-energy-stocks-short-sellers-donald-trump-oil-1851692959 . 

By Damian Carrington , The Guardian.  Excerpt: Analysis of 19m flights between 2019 and 2023 reveals 50% rise in emissions, condemned as ‘gratuitous waste’. Private jet flights have soared in recent years, with the resulting climate-heating emissions rising by 50%, the most comprehensive global analysis to date has revealed. ...Private flights, used by just 0.003% of the world’s population, are the most polluting form of transport. The researchers found that passengers in larger private jets caused more CO 2  emissions in an hour than the average person did in a year. The US dominated private jet travel, representing 69% of flights.... A  private jet takes off every six minutes  in the UK. ...Industry expectations are that  another 8,500 business jets  will enter service by 2033, far outstripping efficiency gains and indicating that private flight emissions will rise even further. The researchers said their work highlighted the vast global inequality in em...

By Sandra Laville , The Guardian.  Excerpt: Pollution is affecting the climate, biodiversity, ecosystems, ocean acidification and human health, according to analysis. Plastic pollution is changing the processes of the entire Earth system, exacerbating climate change, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, and the use of freshwater and land, according to scientific analysis. Plastic must not be treated as a waste problem alone, the authors said, but as a product that poses harm to ecosystems and human health. ...Microplastics are now everywhere, from  the top of Mount Everest  to  the Mariana Trench , the deepest point on earth. ...“It’s necessary to consider the full life cycle of plastics, starting from the extraction of fossil fuel and the primary plastic polymer production” said the article’s lead author, Patricia Villarrubia-Gómez, at Stockholm Resilience Centre....  Full article at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/07/plastic-pollution-is-ch...

By Saima May Sidik , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: From time to time, when Earth’s tectonic plates shift, the planet emits a long, slow belch of carbon dioxide. In a new modeling study,  Müller et al.   show how this gas released from deep Earth may have  affected climate  over the past billion years. ...Scientists have often estimated the volume of such carbon emissions solely on the basis of the gas released by plate tectonics. But plate tectonics can also  capture  carbon by incorporating it into new crust formed at mid-ocean ridges. In the new work, researchers   drew on  two  recent  studies  about the past billion years of plate movement to more precisely model how much carbon dioxide this process has generated. ...Tectonic activity is a major determinant of Earth’s atmospheric composition over geologic time, the researchers conclude.  https://doi.org/10.1029/2024GC011713 , ....  Full article at https://eos.org/research-sp...

By Yizhou Zhuang  et al, Science.  Abstract: Historically, meteorological drought in the western United States (WUS) has been driven primarily by precipitation deficits. However, our observational analysis shows that, since around 2000, rising surface temperature and the resulting high evaporative demand have contributed more to drought severity (62%) and coverage (66%) over the WUS than precipitation deficit. This increase in evaporative demand during droughts, mostly attributable to anthropogenic warming according to analyses of both observations and climate model simulations, is the main cause of the increased drought severity and coverage. The unprecedented 2020–2022 WUS drought exemplifies this shift in drought drivers, with high evaporative demand accounting for 61% of its severity, compared to 39% from precipitation deficit. Climate model simulations corroborate this shift and project that, under the fossil-fueled development scenario (SSP5-8.5), droughts like the ...

By Meghie Rodrigues , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: In August and September, huge portions of South America were shrouded in intense smoke from wildfires raging in the Amazon and other parts of Brazil and Bolivia. The Brazilian Pantanal—the  world’s largest  tropical wetland—had an  almost eightfold  increase in wildfires this year compared to 2023. From  Manaus  to  São Paulo  and  Buenos Aires , the smoke,  visible from   space , blurred sunlight for weeks and posed a threat to  the health  of  millions . ...South America, according to a  new study  published in  Communications Earth and Environment , is becoming drier, warmer, and more flammable. These conditions favor not only natural wildfires but also the uncontrolled spread of human-caused fire. ...The paper did not uncover the weight of climate change and land use change when it comes to wildfires. Up to what point can we attribute the findings to El ...

By Warren Cornwall , Science.  Excerpt: During a heat wave, many people seek relief by sitting in front of a fan. But public health agencies warn that if it’s too hot, the blowing air can actually make things worse by acting like a convection oven—and they differ on that threshold. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends not using a fan at  temperatures above 32.2°C . Others, including the city of Phoenix, give higher thresholds, and the World Health Organization (WHO) puts the  limit at 40°C . New research from two different groups of thermal physiologists favors the higher temperature limits, especially in humid weather. But the groups don’t agree on a single temperature threshold. One study,  published on 6 November  in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), reports that fans can relieve stress on the heart in elderly people in humid conditions at 38°C. The other,  published on 17 October  in JAMA, co...

By Marina Dunbar , The Guardian.  Excerpt: Every US state except Alaska and Kentucky is facing  drought , an unprecedented number, according to the  US Drought Monitor . A little more than 45% of the US and  Puerto Rico  is in drought this week, according to the tracker. About 54% of land in the 48 contiguous US states is affected by droughts. Even as the country experiences autumn and heads further away from a  summer of record heat , the droughts continue to rise. More than 150 million people in the country – and 149.8 million in the 48 contiguous states – are in a drought this week. That is about a 34% increase since last week and an over 150% increase since last month. The drought is also affecting more than 318m acres of crops, a 57% increase since last month, according to the tracker. That reality is only the latest illustration of global warming and the  climate crisis , spurred primarily by humans’ burning of  fossil fuels . Last month, it...

By James Dinneen , New Scientist.  Excerpt: A common sunscreen ingredient, zinc nanoparticles, may help protect rice from heat-related stress, an increasingly common problem under climate change. ...Researchers have explored such nanoparticles as a way to deliver more nutrients to plants, helping maintain crop yields while reducing environmental  damage from using too much fertiliser . Now  Xiangang Hu  at Nankai University in China and his colleagues have tested how zinc oxide nanoparticles affect crop performance under heatwave conditions....  Full article at https://www.newscientist.com/article/2454728-spraying-rice-with-sunscreen-particles-during-heatwaves-boosts-growth/ . 

By Michela Mariani et al, Science.  Summary: Anthropogenic climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of wildfires in many regions of the world, with devastating consequences. Mariani  et al . suggest that another human activity, colonization, has contributed to increasing high-intensity fires in Australia. The authors used multiple paleoecological proxy datasets to compare vegetation structure between time periods reaching back to the last interglacial (over 100,000 years ago). Shrub cover, which fuels fires and spreads them into the forest canopy, was lower during the Middle to Late Holocene, when indigenous Australians were managing the landscape with burning, than it was during other time periods. Shrub cover has increased substantially since British colonization and the forced removal of indigenous burning practices that came with it. Restoring cultural burning may thus help to prevent megafires. —Bianca Lopez.  Full article at https://www.science...

By Kimberly M. S. Cartier , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Consistently implementing zoning, permitting, and building regulations, all commonplace municipal tools, helped most New Jersey towns avoid floodplain development. New Jersey is one of the most flood-prone U.S. states, and climate change is increasing the hazard by raising sea levels and supercharging severe storms like Hurricane Sandy. The state also faces pressure to develop new housing and infrastructure, often in low-lying inland and coastal areas that are the most vulnerable to flooding. Despite this pressure, a recent analysis of new floodplain development found that 85% of New Jersey towns built relatively little in floodplains over the past 2 decades. Towns achieved this by applying routine land use management tools consistently over time, a slow but steady approach to climate adaptation. ...The most effective way to avoid  flood  damage to homes and infrastructure is to avoid building in a floodplain. ...Instead,...

By Brad Plumer , The New York Times.  Excerpt: One year after world leaders made a landmark promise to move away from fossil fuels, countries have essentially made no progress in cutting emissions and tackling global warming, according to a  United Nations report issued on Thursday ....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/24/climate/un-climate-change-global-emissions-report.html .

By Jennifer K. Balch et al, Science.  Abstract: The most destructive and deadly wildfires in US history were also fast. Using satellite data, we analyzed the daily growth rates of more than 60,000 fires from 2001 to 2020 across the contiguous US. Nearly half of the ecoregions experienced destructive fast fires that grew more than 1620 hectares in 1 day. These fires accounted for 78% of structures destroyed and 61% of suppression costs ($18.9 billion). From 2001 to 2020, the average peak daily growth rate for these fires more than doubled (+249% relative to 2001) in the Western US. Nearly 3 million structures were within 4 kilometers of a fast fire during this period across the US. Given recent devastating wildfires, understanding fast fires is crucial for improving firefighting strategies and community preparedness....  Full article at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk5737 .

By Robert English, TCD—The Cool Down.  Excerpt: Heliene, a  solar panel  manufacturer based in Ontario, is making big strides in the solar energy industry by using  recycled   solar panel  materials in its new ones, according to  Electrek . Partnering with  solar panel   recycling  company  Solarcycle , Heliene will use  recycled  solar glass in its solar panels manufactured in its two factories, in Ontario and Minnesota. Over the next four years, Solarcycle plans to deliver approximately 20 million square meters (about 215 million square feet) of recycled glass to Heliene for use in its products....  Full article at https://www.thecooldown.com/green-tech/recycled-solar-panel-materials-manufacturer-heliene/ .  See also Heliene will make solar panels using SOLARCYCLE’s recycled glass and it’s a big deal and New report finds one major energy source breaking records worldwide: 'Growing faster than people expected' ...

By Emily Conover , Science News.  Excerpt: Last week, both Google and Amazon announced agreements with companies that are developing small modular reactors. Last week, both Google and Amazon announced agreements with companies that are developing small modular reactors. ...Commercial reactors in the United States typically produce around a billion watts of electrical power. Small modular reactors would produce less than a third of that. ...Commercial reactors in the United States typically produce around a billion watts of electrical power. Small modular reactors would produce less than a third of that....  Full article at https://www.sciencenews.org/article/small-modular-nuclear-reactors-amazon .  See also Youtube video The Canadian Reactors that can Burn Nuclear Waste and The Big Lie About Nuclear Waste . 

By Robert Sanders, UC Berkeley Research News.  Excerpt: ...direct air capture, or DAC, is being counted on to reverse the rise of CO 2  levels, which have reached 426 parts per million (ppm), 50% higher than levels before the Industrial Revolution. Without it, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we won’t reach humanity’s goal of limiting warming to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) above preexisting global averages. A new type of absorbing material developed by chemists at the University of California, Berkeley, could help get the world to negative emissions. The porous material — a covalent organic framework (COF) — captures CO 2  from ambient air without degradation by water or other contaminants, one of the limitations of existing DAC technologies. “We took a powder of this material, put it in a tube, and we passed Berkeley air — just outdoor air — into the material to see how it would perform, and it was beautiful. It cleaned the air entirely of CO 2 . Everythin...

By Rory Smith , The New York Times.  Excerpt: In September, a  month’s rain fell in a single day  in some parts of England. The 18 months to March 2024 were England’s  wettest in recorded history . Even on an island that has built at least part of its identity around tolerating inclement weather, it has been impossible to ignore the deluge.  Flooding  has submerged  fields ,  ruined homes , and at times,  cut off whole villages . As sea levels rise and extreme weather becomes more common, experts say that Britain’s traditional defenses — sea walls, tidal barriers and sandbanks — will be insufficient to  meet the threat . It is not alone: in September,  deadly floods in Central Europe  led to the deaths of at least 23 people. ...But on a tendril of land curling out from the coast of Somerset, in southwestern England, a team of scientists, engineers and conservationists have embraced a radical solution. ...In a project costing 20...

By Gwyneth K. Shaw and Judith Katz, Berkeley Law News.  Excerpt: A satellite launched in August by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has close ties to Berkeley Law’s  Center for Law, Energy & the Environment  (CLEE) from the project’s origin to groundbreaking methane emissions research for years to come. The Tanager-1 satellite is part of the broader Carbon Mapper initiative, which aims to detect and quantify methane emissions with unprecedented accuracy. In tandem with MethaneSAT, launched by the Environmental Defense Fund, it can detect both large area methane emissions and leaks within a few meters of their source. ...Methane — a powerful greenhouse gas responsible for about a third of global warming — has been difficult to track. ...Importantly, Carbon Mapper and the Environmental Defense Fund will make the methane data publicly available, allowing nongovernmental organizations, governments, and the general public to access the information — ideally enhan...

By Matthew W. Jones et al, Science.  Editor's Summary: Anthropogenic climate change has made wildfires bigger, hotter, and more common. Jones  et al . used a machine learning approach to break down the “why” and “where” of the observed increases. The authors identified different forest ecoregions, grouped them into 12 global forest pyromes, and described their differing sensitivities to climate, humans, and vegetation. Their analysis shows how forest fire carbon emissions have increased in extratropical pyromes [global regions of fire with similar fire characteristics], where climate is the major control, overtaking emissions from the tropical pyromes, where human influence is most important. It also illustrates the increasing vulnerability of forests to fire disturbance under climate change. —Jesse Smith.  Full article at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adl5889 . 

By Veronique Greenwood , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The ocean is filled with microscopic creatures that thrive in the sunshine. These bacteria and plankton periodically clump up with detritus, like waste produced by fish, and then drift softly downward, transforming into what scientists call  marine snow . In the inky depths of the ocean that the sun can’t reach, other creatures depend on the relentless fall of marine snow for food. Those of us living on land depend on it, too: Marine snow is thought to store vast amounts of carbon in the ocean rather than letting it heat Earth’s atmosphere. Once those particles of marine snow arrive at the ocean bottom, their carbon stays down there for untold eons. ...Researchers ...found that gooey, transparent parachutes considerably slow the snow’s descent.... These findings are described in a paper published last week in the journal Science. ...The bigger the mucus gob, the scientists found, the slower the particle’s fall. ...“We alre...