https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/29/business/artificial-intelligence-data-centers-green-power.html By Patrick Sisson , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Artificial intelligence’s booming growth is radically reshaping an already red-hot data center market, raising questions about whether these sites can be operated sustainably. ...The carbon footprint from the construction of the [data] centers and the racks of expensive computer equipment is substantial in itself, and their power needs have grown considerably. ...Just a decade ago, data centers drew 10 megawatts of power, but 100 megawatts is common today. The Uptime Institute, an industry advisory group, has identified 10 supersize cloud computing campuses across North America with an average size of 621 megawatts. ...The data center industry has embraced more sustainable solutions in recent years, becoming a significant investor in renewable power at the corporate level. Sites that leased wind and solar capacity  jumped 50 percen...

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/28/climate/plant-based-treaty-climate.html By Cara Buckley , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Amsterdam ... Los Angeles ...are signatories to the  Plant Based Treaty,  which was launched in 2021 with the aim of calling attention to the role played by greenhouse gases that are generated by food production. ...Anita Krajnc ...and other activists modeled the Plant Based Treaty after the  Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty , which calls on governments to stop new oil, gas and coal projects. ...The first municipality to sign on was Boynton Beach, Fla., in September 2021.... Twenty-five other municipalities have since joined, including Los Angeles, Amsterdam and more than a dozen cities in India. ...Globally, food systems make up a third of planet-heating greenhouse gasses, with the environmental toll of the meat and dairy industries being particularly high. Livestock accounts for  about a third  of methane emissions, which have 80 ...

https://apnews.com/article/electric-school-buses-diesel-exhaust-environmental-justice-4263455c7d55e34acd6f35dceb6db7c0 By ALEXA ST. JOHN , Associated Press.  Excerpt: Areli Sanchez’s daughter, Aida, used to be one of 20 million American kids who ride a  diesel bus  to school each day. Aida has asthma. When she was little, she complained about the  smell and cloud of fumes  on her twice-daily trip. “When she would come home from school or be on the bus, she got headaches and sick to her stomach. ...Research shows diesel exhaust exposure can cause students to  miss school  and affect learning. ...Diesel  exhaust  from school buses potentially affects one-third of U.S. students... according to federal data. It’s a known  carcinogen  plus it contains harmful nitrogen oxides, volatile gases and particles that  exacerbate lung issues . It also contributes to global warming. ...A few years after her daughter started having problems, S...

https://eos.org/articles/el-nino-may-have-kicked-off-thwaites-glacier-retreat By Grace van Deelen , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier is currently losing significant mass, contributing to around 4% of all global sea level rise. Now, new research suggests that the start of Thwaites’s current retreat aligns with that of the nearby Pine Island Glacier, which is also losing mass rapidly. The findings, published in the  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America , indicate that the mass loss was more likely spurred by regional conditions, such as an  El Niño  event, .... Scientists have observed accelerating ice loss from Thwaites since the 1970s, mostly via satellite data. ...Thwaites likely began to retreat around the 1940s, coinciding with the beginning of a retreat phase at neighboring Pine Island Glacier that had been  determined by previous research . ...a prolonged El Niño that occurred from 1939 to 1942...

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/22/opinion/vegas-sphere-energy-efficiency.html By Ed Conway , The New York Times guest essay.  Excerpt: In the 1990s, when multicolor LED lights were invented by Japanese scientists after decades of research, the hope was that they would help to avert climate catastrophe by greatly reducing the amount of electricity we use. It seemed perfectly intuitive. After all, LED lights use 90 percent less energy and last around 18 times longer than incandescent bulbs. Yet the amount of electricity we consume for light globally is roughly the  same  today as it was in 2010. That’s partly because of population and economic growth in the developing world. But another big reason is ...Instead of merely replacing our existing bulbs with LED alternatives, we have come up with ever more extravagant uses for these ever-cheaper lights, .... As technology has advanced, we’ve only grown more wasteful. ...There’s an economic term for this: the Jevons Paradox, n...

https://www.science.org/content/article/dramatic-shift-ice-age-rhythm-pinned-carbon-dioxide By PAUL VOOSEN , Science.  Excerpt: Roughly 1.5 million years ago, Earth went through a radical climatic shift. The planet had already been slipping in and out of ice ages every 40,000 years, provoked by wobbles in its orbit. But then, something flipped. The ice ages began to grow stronger and longer, with durations of 100,000 years, and overall, the planet grew cooler. And nothing about Earth’s orbit could explain it. The cause of this Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT), as it’s known, has been a major mystery for decades. A new compilation of global temperatures covering the past 4.5 million years, published this week in Science,  points a finger at a familiar molecule : carbon dioxide. It suggests that a strengthening of an ocean pump in the waters around Antarctica sucked carbon dioxide out of the air and sent it plunging to the abyss, cooling the planet and intensifying the ice ...

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/eastern-us-reforestation-climate-change By YaleEnvironment360.  Excerpt: Over the 20th century, the U.S. as a whole warmed by 1.2 degrees F (0.7 degrees C), but across much the East, temperatures dropped by 0.5 degrees F (0.3 degrees C). A new study posits that the restoration of lost forest countered warming, keeping the region cool. “This widespread history of reforestation, a huge shift in land cover, hasn’t been widely studied for how it could’ve contributed to the anomalous lack of warming in the eastern U.S., which climate scientists call a ‘warming hole,’”  said lead author Mallory Barnes , of Indiana University. “That’s why we initially set out to do this work.”.... 

https://www.wired.com/story/los-angeles-just-proved-how-spongy-a-city-can-be/ By MATT SIMON , Wired.  Excerpt: ...A long band of moisture in the sky, known as an atmospheric river, dumped  9 inches of rain on the city  over three days—over half of what the city typically gets in a year. It’s the kind of extreme rainfall that’ll get ever more extreme as the planet warms. The city’s water managers, though, were ready and waiting. Like other urban areas around the world, in recent years LA has been transforming into a “ sponge city ,” replacing impermeable surfaces, like concrete, with permeable ones, like dirt and plants. It has also built out “spreading grounds,” where water accumulates and soaks into the earth. With traditional dams and all that newfangled spongy infrastructure, between February 4 and 7 the metropolis captured 8.6 billion gallons of stormwater, enough to provide water to 106,000 households for a year. ...Long reliant on snowmelt and river water piped in f...

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/17022024/in-wyoming-sheep-may-safely-graze-under-solar-panels-in-one-of-the-states-first-agrivoltaic-projects/ By Jake Bolster , Inside Climate News.  Excerpt: The elevated photovoltaic panels can actually improve grazing conditions, a novelty that could help make solar projects more land-efficient and accepted in the ranching-heavy state. Converse County is one of the most welcoming areas in Wyoming when it comes to clean energy. For roughly every 20 residents, there is one wind turbine, the highest ratio in the state. At a recent County Commissioners meeting, it took another step in diversifying its energy infrastructure, signaling its intent to issue its first solar farm permit to BrightNight. The global energy company has proposed to build more than 1 million solar panels, a battery storage facility and a few miles of above-ground transmission lines on a 4,738 acres of private land run by the Tillard ranching family near Glenrock. The Dutchman...

https://www.science.org/content/article/amazon-river-may-altered-forever-climate-change By DANIEL GROSSMAN , Science.  Excerpt: Extreme flooding and droughts may be the new norm for the Amazon, challenging its people and ecosystems. MANAUS, BRAZIL ...In the previous 4 months, only a few millimeters of rain have fallen in this city of 2 million at the confluence of the Negro and Amazon rivers. Normally it gets close to a half a meter during the same period. ...Making matters worse, the drought coincided with a series of weekslong heat waves. In September and October, withering conditions persisted across the Amazon, and temperatures here peaked at 39°C, 6°C above normal. ... Schöngart and other researchers  expect such changes to intensify as global climate warms. The current drought provided a grim preview, killing river dolphins and fish, and threatening livelihoods for communities along the river....

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/14/climate/amazon-rain-forest-tipping-point.html By Manuela Andreoni , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Up to half of the Amazon rainforest could transform into grasslands or weakened ecosystems in the coming decades, a new study found, as climate change, deforestation and  severe droughts  like the one the region is currently experiencing damage huge areas beyond their ability to recover. Those stresses in the most vulnerable parts of the rainforest could eventually drive the entire forest ecosystem, home to a tenth of the planet’s land species, into acute water stress and past a tipping point that would trigger a forest-wide collapse, researchers said. While earlier studies have assessed the individual effects of climate change and deforestation on the rainforest, this peer-reviewed study,  published on Wednesday in the journal Nature , is the first major research to focus on the cumulative effects of a range of threats..... 

https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/14/1088198/satellite-google-ai-map-methane-leaks/ By James O'Donnell , MIT Technology Review.  Excerpt: A methane-measuring satellite will launch in March that aims to use Google’s AI to quantify, map, and reduce leaks. The mission is part of a collaboration with the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund, and the result, they say, will be the most detailed portrait yet of methane emissions. It should help to identify where the worst spots are and who is responsible. With methane responsible for roughly a third of the warming caused by greenhouse gases, regulators in the United States and elsewhere are pushing for stronger rules to curb the leaks that spring from oil and gas plants. MethaneSAT will measure the plumes of methane that billow invisibly from oil and gas operations around the globe, and Google and EDF will then map those leaks for use by researchers, regulators, and the public.... 

https://eos.org/research-spotlights/the-escalating-impact-of-global-warming-on-atmospheric-rivers By Saima May Sidik , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Climate change is set to intensify atmospheric rivers and exacerbate extreme rainfall worldwide. ... Zhang et al.  used a suite of climate models called  Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6)  to examine how the prevalence of atmospheric rivers has already changed and will continue to change in a warming world from 1980 to 2099. Rising surface temperatures will continue to increase moisture content in the air, leading to a rise in atmospheric rivers overall, ...these events will increase by 84% between December and February and 113% between June and August under continued heavy fossil fuel use.... 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/11/climate/climate-change-wildlife-solar.html By Catrin Einhorn , The New York Times.  Excerpt: For pronghorn, those antelope-like creatures of the American West, this grassland north of Flagstaff is prime habitat. ...But for a nation racing to adopt renewable energy, the land is prime for something else: solar panels. ...Animals need humans to solve climate change. ...The good news for wildlife is that there are ways for solar developers to make installations less harmful and even beneficial for many species, like fences that let some animals pass, wildlife corridors, native plants that nurture pollinators, and more. ...“We’re faced with two truths: We have a climate change crisis, but we also have a biodiversity crisis,” said Meaghan Gade, a program manager at the Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies.... 

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/10022024/how-one-of-the-nations-fastest-growing-counties-plans-to-find-water-in-the-desert/ By David Condos, KUER (NPR Utah).  Excerpt: Like many places across the West, two things are on a collision course in Utah’s southwest corner: growth and water. Washington County’s population has  quadrupled  since 1990. St. George, its largest city, has been the  fastest-growing  metro area in the nation in recent years. ...The region has essentially  tapped out  the Colorado River tributary it depends on now, the Virgin River. ...The district’s 20-year plan comes down to two big ideas: reusing and conserving the water it already has.... 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/09/atlantic-ocean-circulation-nearing-devastating-tipping-point-study-finds By Jonathan Watts , The Guardian.  Excerpt: ...researchers developed an early warning indicator for the breakdown of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc), a vast system of ocean currents that is a key component in global climate regulation. They found Amoc is already on track towards an abrupt shift, which has not happened for more than 10,000 years and would have dire implications for large parts of the world. Amoc, which encompasses part of the Gulf Stream and other powerful currents, is a marine conveyer belt that carries heat, carbon and nutrients from the tropics towards the Arctic Circle,  where it cools and sinks into the deep ocean . This churning helps to distribute energy around the Earth and modulates the impact of human-caused global heating. But the system is  being eroded by the faster-than-expected melt-off of Greenl...

https://www.science.org/content/article/jury-rules-climate-scientist-michael-mann-long-running-defamation-case By PAUL VOOSEN , Science.  Excerpt: A jury found today that Michael Mann, a prominent climate scientist, was defamed by the writers of two blog posts 12 years ago that compared his work on global warming to child molestation. ...At the heart of Mann’s lawsuit are two 25-year-old  scientific   papers  that he led. The studies combined historical records with tree rings and other temperature proxies going back 1000 years to show that temperatures stayed largely flat until the past century, when they rose sharply. A key chart from the papers, dubbed the “hockey stick” because of its shape, was used in a 2001 U.N. climate report. ...One of those attacks was written in 2012 by Simberg, then a blogger at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, following the arrest of Penn State’s Jerry Sandusky, a serial child molester who coached football at the school. Simberg lik...

https://www.science.org/content/article/after-mass-coral-die-off-florida-scientists-rethink-plan-to-save-ailing-reefs By WARREN CORNWALL , Science.  Excerpt: Four years ago, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) unveiled a $100 million coral moonshot. Over 2 decades, nearly half a million hand-reared coral colonies would be planted on seven ailing reefs in southern Florida, in a bid to revive them. ...Today, the project looks as ailing as the coral it was meant to save. A record-breaking underwater heat wave that swept the Caribbean and southern Florida in 2023 killed most of the transplanted colonies....

https://eos.org/articles/poorer-countries-face-heavier-consequences-of-climate-change By atherine Kornei , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Forest biomes are on the move because of climate change, and nations from Albania to Zimbabwe will experience shifts in economic production and ecosystem-provided benefits as vegetation cover relocates—or disappears entirely. ...An ongoing  poleward shift in vegetation , likely to persist into the future, has implications for natural resources such as timber, said  Bernie Bastien-Olvera , a climate scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. “As forests migrate towards higher latitudes, many countries are losing forest cover.” ...“Tropical forests will replace temperate forests, temperate forests will replace boreal forests, and boreal forests will grow where there is right now only permafrost.” ...Bastien-Olvera and his collaborators furthermore showed that poorer countries were harder hit:...

https://www.science.org/content/article/massive-solar-farms-could-provoke-rainclouds-desert By PAUL VOOSEN , Science.  Excerpt: The heat from large expanses of dark solar panels can cause updrafts that, in the right conditions, lead to rainstorms, providing water for tens of thousands of people. “Some solar farms are getting up to the right size right now,” says Oliver Branch, a climate scientist at the University of Hohenheim who led the work,  published last week  in the journal Earth System Dynamics. “Maybe it’s not science fiction that we can produce this effect.”.... 

https://eos.org/articles/oceans-may-have-already-seen-1-7c-of-warming By Kimberly M. S. Cartier , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Sponges from the Caribbean retain a record of ocean temperatures stretching back hundreds of years. These newly revealed paleoclimate records suggest that sea surface temperatures (SSTs) began rising in response to industrial era fossil fuel burning around 1860. That’s 80 years earlier than SST measurements became common and predates the global warming start date used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). On the basis of these new sponge records, scientists think that temperatures are currently 1.7°C warmer than preindustrial levels. The study’s researchers argue that the world has already surpassed the goal of the 2015  Paris Agreement  to limit atmospheric warming to less than 1.5°C above preindustrial temperatures and that we could reach 2°C of warming before 2030. ...These results were  published  in  Nature Climate Cha...

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/05/climate/california-floods-chile-wildfires-global-warming.html By Somini Sengupta , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Two far-flung corners of the world, known for their temperate climates, are being buffeted by deadly disasters. Wildfires have killed more than 120 people as they swept the forested hillsides of Chile, and record-breaking rains have swelled rivers and triggered mudslides in Southern California. Behind these risks are two powerful forces: Climate change, which can intensify both rain and drought, and the natural weather phenomenon known as El Niño, which can also supersize extreme weather. In California, ...rains began over the weekend and several counties were under a state of emergency. By Monday, officials warned that the Los Angeles area could be deluged by the equivalent of a year’s rainfall in a single day. In the southern hemisphere, Chile has been reeling from drought for the better part of a decade. That set the stage for a hell...

https://www.science.org/content/article/electrifying-new-ironmaking-method-could-slash-carbon-emissions By ROBERT F. SERVICE , Science.  Excerpt: Making iron, the main ingredient of steel, takes a toll on Earth’s delicate atmosphere, producing 8% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Now, a team of chemists has come up with a way to make the business much more eco-friendly. By  using electricity to convert iron ore and salt water into metallic iron and other industrially useful chemicals , researchers report today in Joule that their approach is cost effective, works well with electricity provided by wind and solar farms, and could even be carbon negative, consuming more carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) than it produces. ...The world mines 2.5 billion tons of iron every year, and reducing it to iron emits as much CO 2  as the tailpipes of all passenger vehicles combined. So, scientists are looking for economically viable ways to produce metallic iron that don’t generate...

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/02/climate/sun-shade-climate-geoengineering.html By Cara Buckley , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The idea is to create a huge sunshade and send it to a far away point between the Earth and the sun to block a small but crucial amount of solar radiation, enough to counter global warming. Scientists have calculated that if just shy of 2 percent of the sun’s radiation is blocked, that would be enough to cool the planet by 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 Fahrenheit, and keep Earth within manageable climate boundaries. ...To block the necessary amount of solar radiation, the shade would have to be about a million square miles, roughly the size of Argentina, Dr. Rozen said. A shade that big would weigh at least 2.5 million tons — too heavy to launch into space, he said. So, the project would have to involve a series of smaller shades. They would not completely block the sun’s light but rather cast slightly diffused shade onto Earth, he said. ...The sunshade ide...

https://www.science.org/content/article/remote-pacific-island-clues-el-ninos-future-preserved-ancient-reefs By PAUL VOOSEN , Science.  Excerpt: ...The El Niño event, now at its peak, is driving weather extremes not just in Vanuatu, but all over the planet. Drought has struck Australia, as well as the Amazon, where intolerably hot waters have suffocated endangered pink dolphins. Rains have drenched Peru, spreading dengue, while warm waters intruding near its coast have disrupted the world’s largest anchovy fishery and forced the nation to cancel a lucrative fishing season. Those same warm waters accelerated Hurricane Otis, which devastated Acapulco and Mexico’s Pacific coast in October 2023. The effects have been truly global: By suppressing the Pacific’s ability to absorb heat from the atmosphere, El Niño helped make 2023 the  hottest year in history  by a huge margin. ... TWENTY THOUSAND YEARS AGO , at the peak of the last ice age, Earth was  6°C cooler than today ....