Climate

I didn’t realise that Matilda was #Australia’s answer to Greta but I do now. All these new laws to stifle protest that the state governments have introduced show the power of the fine hand of the fossil fuel lobby.

The average surface air temperature for the month was around 1.75 C hotter than the September average in the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period.

More than a hundred dolphins have been found dead in the Brazilian Amazon amid an historic drought and record-high water temperatures that in places have exceeded 102 degrees Fahrenheit.

We find with virtual certainty (probability P > 99%) that Gulf Stream volume transport through the Florida Straits declined by 1.2 ± 1.0 Sv in the past 40 years (95% credible interval). This significant trend has emerged from the data set only over the past ten years, the first unequivocal evidence for a recent multidecadal decline in this climate-relevant component of ocean circulation.

The pathway to 1.5°C has narrowed in the past two years, but clean energy technologies are keeping it open

Large swaths of the Sun Belt were hit by their hottest meteorological summer — June through August — on record.

Delay, deflect, downplay, and other ways fossil fuel companies block climate action.

The complete phasing-out of fossil fuels is not realistic, China's top climate official said, adding that these climate-warming fuels must continue to play a vital role in maintaining global energy security.

The directive is intended to embed the cost of climate change into all federal agencies. But it is not legally binding and could come with legal and logistical challenges.

Six of nine planetary boundaries — within which the world is livable for most species, including our own — are already deep in the red zone.

The White House is cobbling together a program under existing powers to bring young people into low-carbon energy and climate resilience jobs.

Climate scientists and activists have since fled the platform now known as X since the Elon Musk takeover last year.

• https://piped.video/watch?v=EBN9JeX3iDs
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBN9JeX3iDs

Video Description:

Direct Air Capture (DAC) has been getting more and more attention over the last few years. Could we avert climate change by pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere? Could we not just stop, but actually reverse the damage done? Unfortunately, most don't fully appreciate just quite how much CO2 we've emitted and the outrageous scale of the problem facing us. Today, we apply the fundamental principles of thermodynamics to question whether this is even feasible.

Written & presented by Prof. David Kipping. Edited by Jorge Casas. Fact checking by Alexandra Masegian.

Channel Description:

Space, astronomy, exoplanets, astroengineering and the search for extraterrestrial life & intelligence.

The Cool Worlds Lab, based at the Department of Astronomy, Columbia University, is a team of astronomers seeking to discover and understand alien worlds, particularly those where temperatures are cool enough for life, led by Professor David Kipping.

CHAPTERS (and key bits)

• 0:00 Climate Change: Some CC is needed just to maintain a level.
• 2:44 Removal Requirements: We released 37 Gt of CO~2~ in 2022.
• 3:38 Possible Solutions: Trees are good for 4 years, then no space.
• 5:03 Introducing DAC: IPCC estimates 20 Gt/yr @ 2050 required.
• 5:43 Climate Anxiety: This video is sponsored by betterhelp.
• 7:12 DAC Principles: Currently 19 DAC plants remove 10'000 tCO~2~/yr, or 0.000003% of global emissions.
• 8:14 Scalability: Why this video focuses on physics, not economics
• 9:29 Thermodynamics: Why DAC is a fight against entropy, introducing Gibbs. Lower limit: 120 kWh/tCO~2~
• 12:08 Progressive DAC: Starting in 2025, remove how much and how fast?
• 13:32 RCPs: Why 2.6 is discarded, why 4.5 is chosen (with an outlook on 8.5)
• 15:09 Simulations: For 450 ppm, we need to scrub 20 GtCO~2~ in 2050. For 350, almost 80 Gt.
• 17:03 Energy Requirements: 450 ppm requires 5% of global electricity. 350: 15%.
• 19:34 Efficiency: Above numbers assumed 100% efficiency. Current estimate 5%, measured 8%.
• 21:21 Conclusions: It's tough to do, but just possible. Easiest way: Stop emitting.
• 24:35 Outro and credits

BoM warns it’s likely ‘this summer will be hotter than average and certainly hotter than the last three years’

Missing winter sea-ice signals changes in Antarctica that could be "absolute disaster for the world", scientists say.

Controversial technologies intended to offset the effects of atmospheric carbon should banned until properly assessed, a group of politicians and scientists have warned, even as they urged developed nations to lead in cutting CO2 emissions.

A new report explores options for managing the period after global warming exceeds 1.5℃. This is called ‘climate overshoot’, because we’re pushing past the safe zone into dangerous climate change.

Scientists analyzed nine so-called planetary boundaries and found humans are currently transgressing six

Small rise in global temperatures would affect hundreds of millions of people and could cause a sharp rise in deaths

Environmental and community groups have filed lawsuit as the water body shrinks from overuse, hastening its demise

Forests once deemed resilient are suffering surprising die-offs. To predict the fate of the world’s woods in the face of climate change, researchers need to understand how trees die.

A faltering offsets program points to new problems with the corporate world’s favorite “climate solution.”

The rising weather-related risks from climate change, from coastal hurricanes to western wildfires, are increasing pinching insurance companies, which are raising rates and pulling back from parts …

New or improved flood protection can give a false sense of security – the so-called ‘levee effect’. But climate change is unpredictable, meaning ‘residual risk’ always exists and must be planned for.