Month: July 2019

Arctic Ice Is Crashing, and That’s Bad News For Everyone

This Vice article discusses how bad it is that Arctic ice is melting. This fits in exactly with our expectations of long-term climate change.’

Over the next few days, Greenland is expected to roast as the weather system that fueled Europe’s second record-smashing heatwave of the summer marches north and west. Scientists are warning of what could be a near-record melt-out across the northern ice sheet’s surface, one that may also impact sea ice surrounding the island.

It’s just the latest manifestation of the high fever gripping the Arctic in a year where sea ice is running near record-low levels and Greenland has already sweated through one major melt event in June. And whether or not 2019 goes down as an all-time record year for Arctic ice losses on land or at sea—both of which experts say are possible—years of extreme ice demise like this one are consistent with a pattern of rapid transformation taking place up north due to human-caused climate change.

Septic system failures expected to increase in coastal Virginia

This article discusses septic system failures, which are expected to increase in coastal Virginia. Storms, rising sea level raise risks to human health and water quality.

As sea level rise accelerates along the Chesapeake coast, an old threat to Virginia’s water quality may be rearing its head. Failing septic systems have been a perennial problem in the commonwealth — one that led a soil scientist working on the Middle Peninsula to once christen Virginia the “septic repair capital of the East Coast.”

And when septic systems fail, pollution follows. Leaks can send sewage into groundwater and surface water, creating risks for human health and pollution in the Bay and its rivers.

‘Unprecedented’ Arctic wildfires are raging, showcasing how region is warming much faster than rest of world

This article discusses Arctic wildfires, showcasing how region is warming much faster than rest of world. The Arctic is on fire.

Wildfires in the world’s northernmost lands, typically triggered by lightning, are nothing new. But this time it’s different, scientists say.

Relentless higher-than-normal temperatures in the Arctic have made 2019’s fires much worse than usual — more numerous and more intense. Hundreds of fires are raging across Siberia, northern Alaska, northern Scandinavia and Greenland, the BBC reports.

The Arctic is warming much faster than the rest of the world, making wildfires there increasingly common. These fires, often fueled by previously frozen peatlands, produce a lot of air pollution. “[S]o far this year Arctic fires have released some 121 megatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, more than what Belgium emits annually,” Wired reported recently. “That beats the previous Arctic record of 110 megatonnes of CO2, set in 2004 — and we’re only in June.”

NY sees heat wave, heavy rain, and flash flooding in a climate change preview

This Esquire article discusses On July 21, the temperature in New York hit 100 degrees. Historically, the city of New York has seen two days a year where the heat index—temperature plus humidity, or what it feels like outside—reaches 100 degrees or higher. But recent research suggests that extreme heat events will be more and more common in the coming years. By midcentury, if we take no action to mitigate the effects of climate change, it will be 18 days. (Chicago will go from three to 26. Dallas will go from 30 to 92. Even Green Bay will go from one to 10.) This past Sunday, it was hot enough in New York to drive electricity demand to the point that the city experienced partial blackouts in Brooklyn. ConEdison also reported equipment failures. That followed a blackout in Manhattan’s Midtown and Upper West Side earlier in the month.

Study: Global Warming Is Pushing Pacific Salmon to the Brink, Federal Scientists Warn

This Inside Climate News article discusses a warning from Federal scientists about how global warming is pushing pacific salmon to the brink. The fish, critical to local economies and the food chain, were already under pressure from human infrastructure like dams. Climate change is turning up the heat.

Pacific salmon that spawn in Western streams and rivers have been struggling for decades to survive water diversions, dams and logging. Now, global warming is pushing four important populations in California, Oregon and Idaho toward extinction, federal scientists warn in a new study.

The new research shows that several of the region’s salmon populations are now bumping into temperature limits, with those that spawn far inland after lengthy summer stream migrations and those that spend a lot of time in coastal habitats like river estuaries among the most at risk.

Think the heatwave was bad? Climate already hitting key tipping points

This Inside Climate News article discusses how the world’s climate is already hitting key tipping points.

With study-after-study showing climate impacts from extreme weather to polar melt and sea level rise outstripping initial forecasts, negotiators have a fast-closing window to try to turn the aspirations agreed in Paris into meaningful outcomes.

“There’s so much on the line in the next 18 months or so,” said Sue Reid, vice-president of climate and energy at Ceres, a U.S. non-profit group that works to steer companies and investors onto a more sustainable path.

“This is a crucial period of time both for public officials and the private sector to really reverse the curve on emissions,” Reid told Reuters.

The new social movement on climate change

This Axios article discusses the new social movement on climate change. Over the last nine months, calls to address climate change have become a powerful new social movement.

Driving the news: Climate change has traditionally not spawned intense, organized and continued protest. That’s been gradually changing, and since November with the rise of the Green New Deal, youth activism and civil resistance protests, the movement has hardened into a force to reckon with whether you love or hate it.

The big picture: This social movement is one puzzle piece of our society coming to grips with climate change. Investors and companies are also taking more action.

Study: Oceans Are Melting Glaciers from Below Much Faster than Predicted

This Inside Climate News article discusses a study showing that oceans Are Melting Glaciers from Below Much Faster than Predicted. Tidewater glaciers are being ‘eaten away on both ends’ as global warming worsens, suggesting faster sea level rise and ice melt that can alter ocean ecosystems.

Beneath the ocean’s surface, glaciers may be melting 10 to 100 times faster than previously believed, new research shows.

Until now, scientists had a limited understanding of what happens under the water at the point where land-based glaciers meet the sea. Using a combination of radar, sonar and time-lapse photography, a team of researchers has now provided the first detailed measurements of the underwater changes over time. Their findings suggest that the theories currently used to gauge glacier change are underestimating glaciers’ ice loss.

Fungal diseases, flesh-eating bacteria, and vaccinations, courtesy of climate change

This Grist article discusses a new fungus caused by climate change. Scientists say global warming may have given rise to its first new fungal disease — a multidrug-resistant species called Candida auris. The deadly menace, which was first identified in 2009, isn’t your typical fungus. It’s been likened to a ‘superbug’ not because it wears a cape, but because it has proved resistant to the main three classes of drug treatment. It typically infects already sick or immunosuppressed people and can spread quickly, particularly in healthcare settings. Studies have shown that C. auris is incredibly hard to root out of the hospital rooms, nursing homes, and patients it colonizes. The fungus can survive on surfaces for weeks and is associated with a human mortality rate of between 30 and 60 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Center for Disease Control has labeled C. auris a “serious global health threat.

This Science News article discusses the same fungal disease. While fungal diseases have devastated many animal and plant species, humans and other mammals have mostly been spared. That’s probably because mammals have body temperatures too warm for most fungi to replicate as well as powerful immune systems. But climate change may be challenging those defenses, bringing new fungal threats to human health, a microbiologist warns.

This article discusses why flesh-eating bacteria are on the rise? (Hint: Climate Change).

This Bloomberg article discusses how climate change will give an estimated $200B boom to the vaccination industry.

Studies: The US Southwest faces monsoons and drought because of climate change

This Vice article discusses why megadroughts Are Likely Coming to the US Southwest Within Decades, Scientists Say. Climate change is ‘almost assured’ to cause decades-long droughts in the American Southwest not seen since medieval times, scientists warn in a new study. In medieval times, the US Southwest was routinely struck by decades-long droughts. Those megadroughts stopped around 1600, but climate change could bring them back.

In a study published on Wednesday in Science Advances, researchers from Columbia’s Earth Institute used climate models to study what caused the megadroughts. Using historical climate data, they determined that two things were to blame: changing ocean temperatures and excess energy trapped inside the Earth’s atmosphere (called radiative forcing).

This Yale Environment 360 article discusses how monsoon rains Have become more intense in the U.S. Southwest. Monsoon rains in the U.S. Southwest have increased in intensity by as much as 11 percent since the 1970s, meaning more rain is falling in less time, according to research by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The number of these rainstorms has also increased 15 percent in the last half-century.