Climate Science

15/08/21
Author: 
Stefan Labbé
A highway billboard erected next to BC Ferries' Tsawwassen terminal prompts passersby to question the use of natural gas in ferries and elsewhere in the province.Mark Booth/Delta Optimist

A group of doctors erected a massive billboard near the entrance to the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal this week. It shows a woman sucking on an inhaler in the lee of an LNG facility.

A group of doctors and nurses have launched an aggressive billboard campaign targeting BC Ferries for burning liquefied natural gas — or LNG — a largely methane mixture they say is threatening human health and the world’s climate system.

15/08/21
Author: 
Steve D'Arcy
Delegates at an IPCC working group meeting in 2013

Aug 10 2021

The root economic causes of the climate crisis appear nowhere in the report, but must be at the centre of movements’ efforts

The backdrop for the latest climate report from the United Nations has been a series of terrifying reminders of the unfolding crisis.

14/08/21
Author: 
Phil Hearse
UK floods

August 12, 2021 

From Oregon in the United States, to Antalya and Bodrum in Turkey, to some of the coldest areas of Siberia, in the last month wildfires have been devastating thousands of acres amidst temperatures above 40°C. The flip side of this has been simultaneously catastrophic floods in Germany and China. As this article was being prepared, wildfires threatened to ignited huge coal stocks at the Milas power station in Turkey.

09/08/21
Author: 
Alex Fox
Researchers extracting an ice core from the Guliya Ice Cap in the Tibetan Plateau in 2015. (Lonnie Thompson / Ohio State University)

July 26, 2021

Researchers say the ancient pathogens are unlikely to cause humans any harm, but 28 out of the 33 viruses found are new to science

Ice core samples from a Tibetan glacier have yielded a collection of viruses and other microbes that are nearly 15,000 years old, reports Isaac Schultz for Gizmodo.

05/08/21
Author: 
Sarah Kaplan

Aug. 5, 2021

‘The consequences of a collapse would likely be far-reaching’

Human-caused warming has led to an “almost complete loss of stability” in the system that drives Atlantic Ocean currents, a new study has found — raising the worrying prospect that this critical aquatic “conveyor belt” could be close to collapse.

05/08/21
Author: 
Steven Mufson
Permafrost, seen at the top of the cliff, melts into the Kolyma River outside of Zyryanka, Russia, in July 2019. A new study has found that methane is being released not only from thawing wetlands but also from thawing limestone. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)

Aug. 2, 2021

Scientists have long been worried about what many call “the methane bomb” — the potentially catastrophic release of methane from thawing wetlands in Siberia’s permafrost.

But now a study by three geologists says that a heat wave in 2020 has revealed a surge in methane emissions “potentially in much higher amounts” from a different source: thawing rock formations in the Arctic permafrost.

04/08/21
Author: 
Denise Chow
Earth's horizon seen from the International Space Station as it orbits above the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Chile, on Nov. 21.NASA

Aug. 1, 2021

For decades, Earth’s energy system has been out of whack.

Stability in Earth's climate hinges on a delicate balance between the amount of energy the planet absorbs from the sun and the amount of energy Earth emits back into space. But that equilibrium has been thrown off in recent years — and the imbalance is growing, according to a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications.

29/07/21
Author: 
Katharine Gammon
Vast areas of the Amazon rainforest are being burned and cleared for grazing cattle — a double blow to global warming, as cattle produce methane and cleared forests release carbon into the atmosphere. Photograph: Florian Kopp/imageBROKER/REX/Shutterstock

July 28, 2021

Carbon emissions, ocean acidification, Amazon clearing all hurtling toward new records

A new study tracking the planet’s vital signs has found that many of the key indicators of the global climate crisis are getting worse and either approaching, or exceeding, key tipping points as the earth heats up.

Overall, the study found some 16 out of 31 tracked planetary vital signs, including greenhouse gas concentrations, ocean heat content and ice mass, set worrying new records.

 

16/07/21
Author: 
Jessica Corbett
The study found fires produced about 1.5bn tonnes of CO2 a year, with forest growth removing 0.5bn tonnes. The 1bn tonnes left in the atmosphere is equivalent to the annual emissions of Japan. Photograph: Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images

July 14, 2021

The findings, said one expert, "show that the uncertain future is happening now."

Following years of warnings and mounting fears among scientists, "terrifying" research revealed Wednesday that climate change and deforestation have turned parts of the Amazon basin, a crucial "sink," into a source of planet-heating carbon dioxide.

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