Attention to the Unseen

Dawn Stover writes: Those wispy stripes left behind by airplanes have a surprisingly forceful, albeit short-lived, effect on the climate. After accounting for factors such as aircraft improvements that are expected to reduce soot emissions, climate researchers at the German Aerospace Center recently estimated that the heat-trapping effects of cirrus cloudiness caused by contrails will “increase significantly over time” because of the large projected increases in air traffic—which is growing so fast that efforts to make airplanes less polluting won’t…

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The Guardian reports: Taking a long-haul flight generates more carbon emissions than the average person in dozens of countries around the world produces in a whole year, a new Guardian analysis has found. The figures highlight the disproportionate carbon footprint of those who can afford to fly, with even a short-haul return flight from London to Edinburgh contributing more CO2 than the mean annual emissions of a person in Uganda or Somalia. 2019 is forecast to be another record-breaking year…

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Meera Subramanian writes: India’s water crisis offers a striking reminder of how climate change is rapidly morphing into a climate emergency. Piped water has run dry in Chennai, the capital of the southern state of Tamil Nadu, and 21 other Indian cities are also facing the specter of “Day Zero,” when municipal water sources are unable to meet demand. Chennai, a city of eight million on the Bay of Bengal, depends on the fall monsoon to provide half of the…

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The Guardian reports: Climate crisis disasters are happening at the rate of one a week, though most draw little international attention and work is urgently needed to prepare developing countries for the profound impacts, the UN has warned. Catastrophes such as cyclones Idai and Kenneth in Mozambique and the drought afflicting India make headlines around the world. But large numbers of “lower impact events” that are causing death, displacement and suffering are occurring much faster than predicted, said Mami Mizutori,…

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The Guardian reports: Greta Thunberg and other climate activists have said it is a badge of honour that the head of the world’s most powerful oil cartel believes their campaign may be the “greatest threat” to the fossil fuel industry. The criticism of striking students by the trillion-dollar Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) highlights the growing reputational concerns of oil companies as public protests intensify along with extreme weather. Mohammed Barkindo, the secretary general of Opec, said there…

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The New York Times reports: In more than 100 years of Anchorage history, weather stations have never recorded a single 90-degree reading. If current forecasts hold, it could happen multiple times in the coming days. With the combined forces of climate change that has disrupted temperature trends around the state, a remarkable dearth of ice in the Bering Sea and weather patterns generating a general heat wave, Alaska is facing a Fourth of July unlike any before. Anchorage has canceled…

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The Independent reports: Last month was the hottest June ever recorded, the EU’s satellite agency has announced. Data provided by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts on behalf of the EU, showed that the global-average temperature for June 2019 was the highest on record for the month. The data showed European-average ​temperatures for June 2019 were more than 2C above normal and temperatures were 6-10C above normal over most of France,…

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The Guardian reports: The vast expanse of sea ice around Antarctica has suffered a “precipitous” fall since 2014, satellite data shows, and fell at a faster rate than seen in the Arctic. The plunge in the average annual extent means Antarctica lost as much sea ice in four years as the Arctic lost in 34 years. The cause of the sharp Antarctic losses is as yet unknown and only time will tell whether the ice recovers or continues to decline….

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NBC News reports: An oppressive heat wave baked Western Europe this week, setting record high temperatures in France, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic. In India, a severe drought has choked water supplies in the city of Chennai, exposing its 9 million residents to a major shortage. And after the United States’ wettest 12-month stretch on record, towns across the Midwest and the Great Plains are reeling from devastating floods. The reasons behind these extreme weather events are complex, but…

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Prof Dave Reay writes: I’ve worked on climate change for nearly 25 years. My first degree was in marine biology and I went on to study warming in the Southern (Antarctic) Ocean, simulating future climates. Now my specialism is land use, agriculture and climate change – not just in terms of emissions from the food that’s produced, but also the impact of climate change on our food system, and the uptake of carbon from the atmosphere by soils, trees and…

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