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Category: Climate Change

France had never seen a ‘fire cloud’ until this month’s record-smashing blazes

France had never seen a ‘fire cloud’ until this month’s record-smashing blazes

Wired reports: Firefighters in France are confronting a phenomenon never seen in the region before: fire clouds. It’s a sign of the intensity of the blazes burning—and how climate change is upping the odds that they appear. A wave of fires has swept over France and Spain, sending hundreds of thousands fleeing. Firefighters on the frontlines are facing what a spokesperson for the French firefighter association told AFP called an “operational impossibility”—in other words, a “natural force beyond our control.”…

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In Texas, the first U.S. city that’s on track to run out of water

In Texas, the first U.S. city that’s on track to run out of water

Science Alert reports: It seems inconceivable, even if you’re aware of the perilous situation that the world’s water supplies are in, but a developed coastal city in Texas that more than 300,000 people call home is now in serious danger of running out of water. The city is Corpus Christi, and difficulties with water scarcity are now coming to a head after years of concerns over shortages. There are multiple issues combining here, perhaps most importantly the arrival of major…

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Wildfires across North America won’t be extinguished with tarrifs

Wildfires across North America won’t be extinguished with tarrifs

The Guardian reports: After days of acrid smoke from northern wildfires choking major US cities and inspiring Donald Trump to threaten Canada with tariffs, officials now say the reverse is also happening as parts of Canada issue air quality warnings caused by American fires to the south. Officials in the Canadian province of British Columbia warned in an alert on Saturday evening that smoke from US fires, spurred on by thousands of lightning strikes in the north-east, was creating smoky…

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‘Climate free fall’: Why the biggest risk to our economies is yet to be recognized

‘Climate free fall’: Why the biggest risk to our economies is yet to be recognized

Anders Levermann writes: I have studied climate tipping points for more than 20 years, and I’m increasingly concerned that scientists have overlooked the most dangerous aspect of these for societies. The potential collapse of major parts of the Earth system — from ice sheets to ocean circulations — will profoundly alter the warming planet and tip it irreversibly into a different state. But the greatest risks might not lie at that endpoint. How we get there — how the tipping…

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‘We are screwed’: People near data centers dread heat wave pollution

‘We are screwed’: People near data centers dread heat wave pollution

Politico reports: Data Center Alley is facing a climate test. Searing temperatures this week could push energy demand to record levels on the mid-Atlantic’s electric grid, which fuels the country’s data center boom in Virginia. To relieve some of the pressure, the Department of Energy granted permission Tuesday to the region’s grid operator, PJM Interconnection, to potentially force data centers to use backup diesel generators. The move highlights the growing challenge of meeting rising electricity demand from data centers as…

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Beyond denial: How oil industry executives shaped a landmark climate study

Beyond denial: How oil industry executives shaped a landmark climate study

By Katie Worth This story was originally published by ProPublica It is rare that a single scientific paper shapes how people think about a challenge as daunting as climate change. But one, known as “Wedges,” published 22 years ago by researchers at Princeton University, told an irresistible story.  It made solving climate change seem possible, even simple. It claimed that the world didn’t have to wait for innovation because it had the tools to start work immediately. The trick was to…

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I cold-called President Trump. Here’s what he told me about an oil tycoon and major donor

I cold-called President Trump. Here’s what he told me about an oil tycoon and major donor

By Alex Cuadros This story was originally published by ProPublica My family’s morning routine is usually pretty ordinary. We wake up early, drink some coffee and get our 1-year-old ready for daycare. But one Wednesday morning last month, I found myself uttering to my wife a sentence that sounded frankly surreal to both of us: “Just to let you know, I’m about to call Trump.” Then, hoping to avoid any urgent diaper events, I ducked into the next room and…

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Trump administration backs off plan to end critical ocean monitoring

Trump administration backs off plan to end critical ocean monitoring

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration is abandoning its plan to dismantle a $368 million ocean monitoring system critical to understanding climate change and marine ecosystems, bowing to a bipartisan backlash on Capitol Hill. The National Science Foundation had said in May that it would begin removing hundreds of underwater instruments this month that collect data on coastal flooding, marine heat waves and other climate and weather events. But the agency announced on Thursday that it will pause…

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Conventional wisdom says climate change is a losing issue. Evidence suggests it actually helps Democrats

Conventional wisdom says climate change is a losing issue. Evidence suggests it actually helps Democrats

Kate Yoder writes: As the midterm elections approach, something strange has happened: Democratic politicians who once talked about climate change as the defining crisis of our time now barely mention it at all. The phrase has begun disappearing from their speeches, social media posts, and podcast appearances. The main exception is Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat who has given some version of his “Time to Wake Up” speech on the dangers of climate change more than 300 times…

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Trump is taking aim at forest and wildfire research just as the West is poised to burn

Trump is taking aim at forest and wildfire research just as the West is poised to burn

NPR reports: Few public universities get more federal research funding than the University of Washington. So as President Trump has already cancelled or suspended about a quarter of all funding for the National Science Foundation and National Institutes for Health, the atmosphere on this leafy Seattle campus is tense. White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought appears before the House Budget Committee at the U.S. Capitol on April 15. The budget office recently proposed a rule change…

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The Gulf Stream suddenly moved north during an ancient cold snap – and it’s a warning for our future

The Gulf Stream suddenly moved north during an ancient cold snap – and it’s a warning for our future

The Gulf Stream shifts warm water across the Atlantic to Europe. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio, CC BY-SA By Alice Carter-Champion, Royal Holloway, University of London; Fangjingcheng Zhu, University of Southampton, and Jack Wharton, UCL Around 13,000 years ago, as the world was emerging from the grip of the last ice age, much of the North Atlantic region plunged back into near-glacial conditions. Sea ice expanded across the North Atlantic, reaching as far south as the Shetland Islands….

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Trump is destroying ‘the world’s most advanced continuously operating ocean observing systems’

Trump is destroying ‘the world’s most advanced continuously operating ocean observing systems’

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration is dismantling a $368 million deep-ocean observation system that was put in place a decade ago to monitor coastal environments, marine ecosystems and powerful currents that affect the global climate. The National Science Foundation said it would send ships in June to begin removing more than 900 deep-sea instruments anchored off Oregon, Washington State, Alaska, North Carolina, and an area between Greenland and Iceland known as the Irminger Sea. Scientists have used…

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Federal judge blocks breakup of National Center for Atmospheric Research

Federal judge blocks breakup of National Center for Atmospheric Research

The Colorado Sun reports: A federal judge in Denver on Monday blocked federal officials from breaking up Boulder’s National Center for Atmospheric Research by handing over a renowned supercomputing center to the University of Wyoming, in a 38-page injunction raking the Trump administration for enacting political revenge on Colorado. Senior U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson issued an injunction because the National Science Foundation divesting the supercomputing center was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance…

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The household battery revolution that could change energy bills … and the world

The household battery revolution that could change energy bills … and the world

The Guardian reports: The timing was rich with symbolism. As intense heatwaves pummelled Europe and Asia, and oil markets around the world leapt and sputtered, the two big chimneys of one of Australia’s largest power stations were being demolished. Meanwhile, the Australian energy minister was holding a media conference to hail a fall of up to 10% in the benchmark electricity price in parts of the country. Quietly, and with surprisingly little fanfare from the rest of the world, Australia…

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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is pushing back against ‘climate hushing’

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is pushing back against ‘climate hushing’

Elizabeth Kolbert interviews Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse: For the last 15 years, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, has been Congress’s most outspoken member on climate change. In 2012, he had a sign made up that showed the Earth as seen from space. “Time to Wake Up,” it said. The sign became a prop for a series of speeches the senator delivered on the urgency of the climate crisis. Not long ago, Whitehouse gave his 307th “Time to Wake Up”…

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Arctic ocean passes ‘irreversible’ chemical tipping point

Arctic ocean passes ‘irreversible’ chemical tipping point

Oceanographic reports: A new study spanning two decades reveals that the loss of sea ice has triggered an irreversible chemical shift in the Arctic Ocean. By exposing shallow coastal waters to intense sunlight, the melting ice has accelerated a process that destroys nitrate, the foundational fertiliser required for marine life to survive. The study, published in Communications Earth & Environment, suggests the Arctic passed a critical ecological tipping point in 2009. The resulting nutrient famine is already affecting the whole…

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