warming

The number of people burdened by SLR is significantly higher when the risk of isolation is considered, rather than only the risk of inundation. Credit: Nature Climate Change (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41558-023-01642-3 A trio of environmental engineers, two with the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, the third with the University of Maryland, has developed a way to illustrate the impact of sea level rise isolation associated…

When the Paris Agreement was adopted by 196 countries in 2015, the goal was to limit global warming to 2 C above pre-industrial levels (1850–1900) by the end of the century. In 2018, that goal was shifted to limiting it to 1.5 C in order to avoid some of the worst global catastrophes.But that 1.5 C threshold is slipping away.Monday's IPCC synthesis report (referred to as AR6) notes that although we are more likely than not to reach 1.5 C in the "near term," it could drop back below that by the end of the century. "It has…

New research from Atlantic Canada indicates lobster may be able to cope with warming ocean temperatures.The results were presented this week at the 30th annual meeting of the Fishermen and Scientists Research Society, a Nova Scotia non-profit organization that helps co-ordinate collaborative research on Atlantic fisheries.The Centre for Marine Applied Research in Dartmouth, N.S., collected 240 lobsters from six different fishing areas around Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island in May and June 2022.Some were placed in…

Wetlands provide fresh water and habitat, and wetlands altogether contain about a third of the world's carbon. Credit: Jia Gensuo Wetlands occupy about 6% of the Earth's surface but store one-third of global soil organic carbon. Increasing evidence shows that climate warming is altering the function and service of wetland ecosystems. However, whether climate warming will stimulate wetlands to release more greenhouse gases…

Time is running short to limit global warming to 1.5°C (2.7 °F) above preindustrial levels, but there are feasible and effective solutions on the table, according to a new UN climate report.Despite decades of warnings from scientists, global greenhouse-gas emissions are still climbing, hitting a record high in 2022. If humanity wants to limit the worst effects of climate change, annual greenhouse-gas emissions will need to be cut by nearly half between now and 2030, according to the report. That will be complicated and…

Major droughts and pluvials - periods of excessive precipitation and water storage on land - have indeed been occurring more often, confirmed a new National Aeronautics and Space Administration(NASA)-led study.Droughts and floods will become more frequent and severe as our planet warms and climate changes, scientists have predicted, but detecting this on regional and continental scales has proven difficult, the study said. Two NASA, us, scientists examined 20 years of data from the NASA/German GRACE and GRACE-FO…

Before starting your day — deciding on an activity or how to dress for the elements — you might do the same thing Michael Dietze does."I pick up my phone and check the weather forecast at least once or twice a day to see what's likely to come," he said. Dietze dedicates his time working on the type of forecasting that's commonplace for the weather, but to help handle other environmental challenges, as a professor leading the Ecological Forecasting Laboratory at Boston University.Traditionally, environmental management…

CLIMATEWIRE | Antarctic sea ice shrank to an all-time record in February — the smallest it’s been since satellites started keeping tabs more than 40 years ago. It was the second year in a row that the remote southern continent saw its ice hit a record low, and the fourth time since 2017. The string of record-breakers could be a fingerprint of climate change. But scientists can't say for sure. Warming is already affecting Antarctica in other ways, including accelerating ice loss from melting glaciers. But…

Swirling blooms of turquoise phytoplankton along coasts may be happening more often and getting bigger, according to new research published in Nature, raising concerns about the impacts of climate change on the world's oceans. Using data captured by NASA's Aqua satellite, scientists have tracked coastal phytoplankton blooms over 17 years, between 2003 and 2020.Phytoplankton are microscopic algae, and a "bloom" is a sudden explosion of them, sometimes covering hundreds of square kilometres of ocean.The study found that…

High downward surface solar radiation conducive to ozone pollution more frequent under global warming. Credit: Science China Press Elevated near-surface ozone pollutes many parts of the world, exerting consequential impacts on human health in ozone-prone regions, including southeastern China, the southeastern United States, and Europe. Key meteorological conditions, such as downward surface shortwave radiation, intensify ozone…