Category:

“Despite being invisible to the naked eye, black carbon particles affect the ability of the snow to reflect incoming sunlight, a phenomenon known as “albedo”. Similar to how a dark-coloured car will heat up more quickly in direct sunlight when compared with a light-coloured one, glaciers covered by black carbon particles will absorb more heat, and thus melt faster,” stated Matthew Harris. “With communities reliant on glaciers for water, work examining complex forces like black carbon is needed more now than ever before.”

“What is striking about the last interglacial record is how high and quickly sea level rose above present levels. Temperatures during the last interglacial were similar to those projected for the near future, which means melting polar ice sheets will likely affect future sea levels far more dramatically than anticipated to date,” stated Fiona Hibbert. “This means that if climate change continues unabated, Earth’s past dramatic sea level rise could be a small taste of what’s to come.”

Large fires have happened before. But this latest extraordinary situation raises many questions. It is as if many of the major fires in the past are now being rerun concurrently. What is unprecedented is the size and number of fires rather than the seasonal timing. Typically wet parts of the landscape have literally evaporated, allowing fire to spread unimpeded. It is no coincidence current fires correspond directly with hotspots of record low rainfall and above-average temperatures.

“The word ‘upended’ does not do justice to the revolution in climate science wrought by the discovery of sudden climate change. The realization that the global climate can swing between warm and cold periods in a matter of decades or even less came as a profound shock to scientists who thought those shifts took hundreds if not thousands of years,” wrote Eugene Linden. “Even if scientists end up having lowballed their latest assessments….climate change is already here. And it is going to get worse. A lot worse.”

The Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich investigates nature-based solutions to climate change. In their latest study the researchers showed for the first time where in the world new trees could grow and how much carbon they would store. Dr. Jean-Francois Bastin, also suggests that there is further potential to regrow trees in croplands and urban areas, highlighting the scope for agroforestry and city trees to play a significant role in tackling climate change.

“Empathy evolved as one of humans’ vital survival skills. It is only through our foray into the modern world that we have lost touch with our evolutionary empathy. Deeply empathic people tend to be environmentally responsible, but our caring instincts are short-sighted and dissolve across space and time, making it harder for us to deal with things that haven’t happened yet. Touching the past can connect us to the future, especially when we look back fondly,” wrote Jamil Zaki.

“If we’re going to see more heavy rainfall events and we’re going to see them especially in areas that are not designed for those floods, that means that we need to think about how to adapt our infrastructure and rethink the way we’ve designed some of our bridges and drainage systems,” said Christa Peters-Lidard, Deputy Director for Hydrology, Biospheres, and Geophysics at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Maryland. But while some areas are projected to get wetter, others will become much drier. Warming temperatures and changing precipitation patterns can lead to droughts.

“Globally, more sustainable land management through ‘natural climate solutions’ can deliver up to 37 percent of the mitigation needed to meet the Paris Agreement’s 2-degree target. Looking beyond their boundaries to achieve climate commitments can therefore simultaneously help cities achieve greater water security and forge more positive connections with their neighbors in rural communities,” wrote Jan Cassin. “Cities and their utilities should embrace natural asset management. “

“Assuming this comes off (and it seems likely) we would expect a very large melt event over the ice sheet,” Mottram said. “This was a very similar situation to 2012 where melt reached all the way up to Summit station. The Arctic sea ice is already at record low for the time of year so clearly we may be looking at a situation where both Arctic sea ice and Greenland ice sheet have record losses even over and above 2012 — though we won’t know for sure until after the event.”

Each of the media outlets involved in the initiative have committed to a week of concentrated coverage beginning on September 16, 2019 in the lead up to Climate Action Summit hosted by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in New York. The summit is an attempt to spur world leaders to develop new plans to reduce carbon emissions by 45 per cent over the next decade and reach a target of zero net emissions by 2050. All that’s required is for each outlet to make a good-faith effort to increase the amount and the visibility of its climate coverage.