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Category: Climate Change

Why a sudden surge of broken heat records is scaring scientists

Why a sudden surge of broken heat records is scaring scientists

The Washington Post reports: A remarkable spate of historic heat is hitting the planet, raising alarm over looming extreme weather dangers — and an increasing likelihood that this year will be Earth’s warmest on record. New precedents have been set in recent weeks and months, surprising some scientists with their swift evolution: historically warm oceans, with North Atlantic temperatures already nearing their typical annual peak; unparalleled low sea ice levels around Antarctica, where global warming impacts had, until now, been…

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Meltwater is hydro-fracking Greenland’s ice sheet through millions of hairline cracks – destabilizing its internal structure

Meltwater is hydro-fracking Greenland’s ice sheet through millions of hairline cracks – destabilizing its internal structure

Richard Bates and Alun Hubbard kayak a meltwater stream on Greenland’s Petermann Glacier, towing an ice radar that reveals it’s riddled with fractures. Nick Cobbing. Alun Hubbard, University of Tromsø I’m striding along the steep bank of a raging white-water torrent, and even though the canyon is only about the width of a highway, the river’s flow is greater than that of London’s Thames. The deafening roar and rumble of the cascading water is incredible – a humbling reminder of…

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June extremes suggest parts of the climate system are reaching tipping points

June extremes suggest parts of the climate system are reaching tipping points

Inside Climate News reports: June 2023 may be remembered as the start of a big change in the climate system, with many key global indicators flashing red warning lights amid signs that some systems are tipping toward a new state from which they may not recover. Earth’s critical reflective polar ice caps are at their lowest extent on record in the satellite era, with the sea ice around Antarctica at a record-low extent by far, spurring worried scientists to share…

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Here’s why the wildfires burning in Canada aren’t being put out

Here’s why the wildfires burning in Canada aren’t being put out

CNN reports: Another wave of wildfire smoke has drifted into the US, dimming blue summer skies and igniting troubling concerns regarding the increasing frequency of fires, and what they have to do with climate change. More than 100 million people are under air quality alerts from Wisconsin to Vermont and down to North Carolina as smoke from Canadian wildfires continues to waft south, though conditions are expected to improve slowly into the holiday weekend. Air quality on both sides of the border has…

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White House cautiously opens the door to study geoengineering to slow global warming

White House cautiously opens the door to study geoengineering to slow global warming

Politico reports: The White House offered measured support for the idea of studying how to block sunlight from hitting Earth’s surface as a way to limit global warming, in a congressionally mandated report that could help bring efforts once confined to science fiction into the realm of legitimate debate. The controversial concept known as solar radiation modification is a potentially effective response to fighting climate change, but one that could have unknown side effects stemming from altering the chemical makeup…

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Lula faces powerful opposition as he seeks to protect the Amazon and recognize Indigenous rights

Lula faces powerful opposition as he seeks to protect the Amazon and recognize Indigenous rights

Farai Shawn Matiashe writes: Surrounded by thousands of supporters, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (known simply as “Lula”) was sworn into office on Jan. 1, 2023, at a colorful inauguration ceremony held at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. It was not Lula’s first time assuming the highest office of Latin America’s largest country. He was first sworn in two decades ago and served two terms as Brazil’s president from 2003 to 2010. The 67-year-old is a…

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Current heatwave across southern states made five times more likely by climate crisis

Current heatwave across southern states made five times more likely by climate crisis

The Guardian reports: The record heatwave roiling parts of Texas, Louisiana and Mexico was made at least five times more likely due to human-caused climate change, scientists have found, marking the latest in a series of recent extreme “heat dome” events that have scorched various parts of the world. A stubborn ridge of high pressure has settled over Mexico and a broad swath of the southern US over the past three weeks, pushing the heat index, a combination of temperature…

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Prigozhin couldn’t seal Putin’s fate but all of us in the West still can

Prigozhin couldn’t seal Putin’s fate but all of us in the West still can

Peter Pomerantsev writes: For decades, Putin’s crimes were enabled by business and political actors who claimed that greater economic interconnection would lead to a more peaceful Russia. Even after Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, German companies, especially, continued to expand their business with Russia. For decades, human rights concerns were thrown out – who needed them, when on both sides economic self-interest would ultimately dictate government policy? This thinking ignored the fact that the Russian regime interpreted…

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The Arctic and Atlantic oceans are merging. It could be disastrous

The Arctic and Atlantic oceans are merging. It could be disastrous

William von Herff writes: In the Fram Strait off Greenland’s west coast, Véronique Merten encountered the foot soldiers of an invasion. Merten was studying the region’s biodiversity using environmental DNA, a method that allows scientists to figure out which species are living nearby by sampling the tiny pieces of genetic material they shed, such as scales, skin, and feces. And here, in a stretch of the Arctic Ocean 400 kilometers north of where they’d ever been seen before: capelin. And…

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The Amazon river in the sky

The Amazon river in the sky

Daniel Henryk Rasolt writes: High in the Andes Mountains, the mighty Amazon River begins. It trickles from glaciers and oozes from mountain wetlands. It gains momentum and volume and feeds into clear streams and muddy rivers that pass through high cloud forests and lowland valleys. The torrents of the waters carry nutrients through the vast Amazon River basin, some 4,000 miles across the rest of the South American continent. At the same time, in the rainforest and delta estuaries, another,…

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How Daniel Ellsberg opened the door to one of the most consequential climate stories of our time

How Daniel Ellsberg opened the door to one of the most consequential climate stories of our time

David Sassoon writes: In October 2014, Daniel Ellsberg opened the door to one of the most consequential climate stories of our time. I know because Inside Climate News was able to publish it a year later. We were both attending the same invitation-only journalism conference at the Cronkite School at Arizona State University when we met. On my flight to Phoenix, I had seen his name on the list of attendees, and hours later I found myself at the opening…

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Severe drought stunts Great Plains wheat crops

Severe drought stunts Great Plains wheat crops

The Wall Street Journal reports: Were this a normal mid-June morning, farmer Gary Millershaski would be looking out at waist-high fields of golden wheat almost ready to be harvested. Instead, he’s standing on a patch of mud, plucking at thin stalks of wheat that poke less than a foot out of the ground. It is the result of a multiyear drought that has left farmers in the country’s breadbasket with likely their worst wheat crop in more than 60 years….

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‘The fires here are unstoppable’

‘The fires here are unstoppable’

The New York Times reports: An out-of-control fire was advancing rapidly toward a logging road on Tuesday afternoon, tearing through Canada’s immense — and highly flammable — boreal forest with a force and intensity bewildering to a team of French firefighters. Surrounded by thick smoke, a handful of them headed into the forest to search for water. A veteran knelt down and used his right finger to sketch a plan on the gravel road, pressing to attack the fire head-on….

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Inside the unexpectedly wild landmark Montana youth climate trial

Inside the unexpectedly wild landmark Montana youth climate trial

Karin Kirk writes: When I got an assignment to cover the landmark youth climate lawsuit that went to trial in Montana this week, I thought I was going to be able to pop in, grab some salient quotes, and write up a story. But the trial at a state district court in Helena has turned out to be unexpectedly wild. The testimony has been gripping. And the contrast between the polished lawyering of the plaintiffs’ side compared to the somewhat…

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First U.S. climate trial begins. It’s being led by kids

First U.S. climate trial begins. It’s being led by kids

E&E News reports: A landmark trial unfolding this week in a small Montana courtroom could have outsize influence on U.S. climate policy — even if the case has little immediate effect in the Treasure State. In the first U.S. youth-led climate case to go to trial, 16 young people are putting Montana’s energy policies on the stand, accusing state agencies and the governor of violating their right to a stable climate by embracing fossil fuels. The case could result in…

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As Africa loses forest, its small farmers are bringing back trees

As Africa loses forest, its small farmers are bringing back trees

Fred Pearce writes: For decades, there have been reports of the deforestation of Africa. And they are true — the continent’s forests are disappearing, lost mainly to expanding agriculture, logging, and charcoal-making. But the trees? Maybe not, according to new satellite data analyzed by artificial intelligence and a growing body of on-the-ground studies. This new research is finding ever more trees outside forests, many of them nurtured by farmers and sprouting on their previously treeless fields. Across the continent —…

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