Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

Press Summary (First Published 2024/06/07)

• Floods similar to the June 2024 Southern Germany floods are up 2 mm/day (up to 10%) wetter in the present than they have been in the past.

• This was a somewhat uncommon event.

• We mostly ascribe the heavy precipitation associated with the Southern Germany floods to human driven climate change and natural climate variability likely played a modest role.

One of the major drivers of the exceptional heat building within Earth's atmosphere has reached levels beyond anything humans have ever experienced, officials announced on Thursday. Carbon dioxide, the gas that accounts for the majority of global warming caused by human activities, is accumulating "faster than ever," scientists from NOAA, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the University of California San Diego found.

"Over the past year, we've experienced the hottest year on record, the hottest ocean temperatures on record, and a seemingly endless string of heat waves, droughts, floods, wildfires and storms," NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said in a press release. "Now we are finding that atmospheric CO2 levels are increasing faster than ever."

The researchers measured carbon dioxide, or CO2, levels at the Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory. They found that atmospheric levels of the gas hit a seasonal peak of just under 427 parts per million in May — an increase of 2.9 ppm since May 2023 and the fifth-largest annual growth in 50 years of data recording.

It also made official that the past two years saw the largest jump in the May peak — when CO2 levels are at their highest in the Northern Hemisphere. John Miller, a NOAA carbon cycle scientist, said that the jump likely stems from the continuous rampant burning of fossil fuels as well as El Niño conditions making the planet's ability to absorb CO2 more difficult.

This graph shows the full record of monthly mean carbon dioxide measured at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii. The carbon dioxide data on Mauna Loa constitute the longest record of direct measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere. NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory

The surge of carbon dioxide levels at the measuring station surpassed even the global average set last year, which was a record high of 419.3 ppm — 50% higher than it was before the Industrial Revolution. However, NOAA noted that their observations were taken at the observatory specifically, and do not "capture the changes of CO2 across the globe," although global measurements have proven consistent without those at Mauna Loa.

CO2 measurements "sending ominous signs"

In its news release, NOAA said the measurements are "sending ominous signs."

"Not only is CO2 now at the highest level in millions of years, it is also rising faster than ever," Ralph Keeling, director of Scripps' CO2 program, said in the release. "Each year achieves a higher maximum due to fossil-fuel burning, which releases pollution in the form of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Fossil fuel pollution just keeps building up, much like trash in a landfill."

Carbon dioxide "acts like a blanket in the atmosphere," NOAA explained — much like other greenhouse gases that amplify the sun's heat toward Earth's surface. And while carbon dioxide is essential in keeping global temperatures above freezing, having such high concentrations shoots temperatures beyond levels of comfort and safety.

That warming is fueling extreme weather events, and the consequences are aleady being felt, with deadly floods, heat waves and droughts devastating communities worldwide and agriculture seeing difficult shifts.

The news from NOAA comes a day after the European Union's climate change service, Copernicus, announced that Earth has now hit 12 straight months of record-high temperatures, a trend with "no sign in sight of a change."

"We are living in unprecedented times. ... This string of hottest months will be remembered as comparatively cold," Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus, said.

Summary

Climate change carries important effects on human wellbeing and performance, and increasingly research is documenting the negative impacts of out-of-comfort temperatures on workplace performance. In this study, we investigate the plausibly causal effect of extreme temperatures, i.e., out-of-comfort, on language complexity among politicians, leveraging a fixed effects strategy. We analyze language complexity in over seven million parliamentary speeches across eight countries, connecting them with precise daily meteorological information. We find hot days reduce politicians’ language complexity, but not cold days. Focusing on one country, we explore marginal effects by age and gender, suggesting high temperatures significantly impact older politicians at lower thresholds. The findings propose that political rhetoric is not only driven by political circumstances and strategic concerns but also by physiological responses to external environmental factors. Overall, the study holds important implications on how climate change could affect human cognitive performance and the quality of political discourse.

A geoengineering technique designed to reduce high temperatures in California could inadvertently intensify heatwaves in Europe, according to a study that models the unintended consequences of regional tinkering with a changing climate.

The paper shows that targeted interventions to lower temperature in one area for one season might bring temporary benefits to some populations, but this has to be set against potentially negative side-effects in other parts of the world and shifting degrees of effectiveness over time.

Abstract

Marine cloud brightening (MCB) is a geoengineering proposal to cool atmospheric temperatures and reduce climate change impacts. As large-scale approaches to stabilize global mean temperatures pose governance challenges, regional interventions may be more attractive near term. Here we investigate the efficacy of regional MCB in the North Pacific to mitigate extreme heat in the Western United States. Under present-day conditions, we find MCB in the remote mid-latitudes or proximate subtropics reduces the relative risk of dangerous summer heat exposure by 55% and 16%, respectively. However, the same interventions under mid-century warming minimally reduce or even increase heat stress in the Western United States and across the world. This loss of efficacy may arise from a state-dependent response of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation to both anthropogenic warming and regional MCB. Our result demonstrates a risk in assuming that interventions effective under certain conditions will remain effective as the climate continues to change.

Small increase in temperature of intruding water could lead to very big increase in loss of ice, scientists say

A newly identified tipping point for the loss of ice sheets in Antarctica and elsewhere could mean future sea level rise is significantly higher than current projections.

A new study has examined how warming seawater intrudes between coastal ice sheets and the ground they rest on. The warm water melts cavities in the ice, allowing more water to flow in, expanding the cavities further in a feedback loop. This water then lubricates the collapse of ice into the ocean, pushing up sea levels.