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 ...