Email updates – 2021 (Aug-Dec)
<><><><>
2021-12-30. Militaries are among the world’s biggest emitters. This general wants them to go green. By Michael Birnbaum, The Washington Post. Excerpt: [Richard] Nugee was a three-star general at the peak of his career, after a long string of deployments in the world’s conflict zones, including Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. …in the final fight of his military life, he decided to take on one of the wiliest adversaries: climate change. Militaries are both enormous emitters and facing fearsome new conflicts sparked by global warming. Nugee resolved to fight a lonely battle to address both problems. …Fighting a war burns prodigious quantities of fossil fuels. The Pentagon, by some counts, is the world’s largest institutional consumer of oil. …He assembled a step-by-step plan to slash military emissions and prepare the armed forces for a hotter planet. Wars may be fought over access to water. Millions could be forced to migrate because of extreme weather. Emboldened rivals such as China and Russia are already starting to plow their warships across the melting Arctic. The strategy was published earlier this year. “This is not doing it for moral reasons. This is not doing it because it’s about emissions. It’s about our own capability, it’s about our ability to be the most successful and the most credible force that we can,” Nugee said in Glasgow, where he was one of few with a military background amid the galaxy of people trying to fight for a cooler planet.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/interactive/2021/climate-change-military-emissions-security/] For GSS Climate Change chapter 10.
<><><><>
2021-12-25. NASA’s Webb telescope takes flight—a Christmas gift to astronomers everywhere. Daniel Clery, Science Magazine. Excerpt: Infrared scope will target alien worlds and the universe’s first galaxies—if it survives a month of nerve-racking maneuvers …The $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope, an instrument expected to revolutionize astronomy by gathering light from the atmospheres of alien worlds and the universe’s first galaxies, launched at 7:20 a.m. EST on a sultry Christmas morning from Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana. Some 30 minutes after launch, the telescope detached from the top of its Ariane 5 rocket and deployed its solar array, which is needed to charge its batteries and support communication with Earth. Webb is now en route to its observing station, a gravitational balance point known as L2 at 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. Before it gets there, mission controllers will have a tense month, as they unfurl parts of the telescope too large to fit inside the rocket fairing, including its tennis court–size sunshield and 6.5-meter-wide mirror. Until those are successfully deployed and Webb’s four instruments are chilled and tested, astronomers will not rest easy. …Webb’s ambitious science goals required numerous technological firsts in its design, such as a folding mirror made of 18 hexagonal gold-plated segments, and instruments chilled to just 7° above absolute zero (–266°C). That complexity led to schedule slips totaling 10 years and a cost that ballooned from $2 billion to about five times as much.… [https://www.science.org/content/article/nasa-s-webb-telescope-takes-flight-christmas-gift-astronomers-everywhere] For GSS A Changing Cosmos chapter 2. See also WHERE IS WEBB?
https://webb.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/whereIsWebb.html
and ESA deployment animation
https://www.esa.int/esatv/Videos/2021/09/James_Webb_Space_Telescope/Webb_telescope_deployment_animation_A
<><><><>
2021-08-09. What Five Graphs from the U.N. Climate Report Reveal About Our Path to Halting Climate Change. By Jenessa Duncombe, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s first assessment report since 2013 describes two illustrative scenarios that keep warming below 2°C—and several others that go wildly offtrack.…The world has warmed 1.1°C compared to preindustrial levels…. Keeping warming below 2°C, and perhaps 1.5°C, is still possible; it’ll take immediate and sustained emissions cuts. …Net zero carbon dioxide (CO2) [emissions] is a requirement for any long-term climate solution. …The two scenarios in the report that limit warming below 2°C use carbon removal from the atmosphere during the latter part of the century…. [https://eos.org/articles/what-five-graphs-from-the-u-n-climate-report-reveal-about-our-path-to-halting-climate-change] For GSS Climate Change chapter 4.
~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~
<><><><>
2021-12-27. Greta Thunberg on the State of the Climate Movement. Interview by KK Ottesen, The Washington Post. Excerpt: …You called COP26 a “failure” and a “PR event.” Well, in the final document, they succeeded in even watering down the blah, blah, blah. … What do you mean when you say, “watering down the blah, blah, blah”? As we all know, or as we might know, the so-called “f-word” was included for the first time in this document: fossil fuel. Which makes you wonder what they have been doing these decades without even mentioning fossil fuels for a problem which, to a very, very large extent, is caused by fossil fuels. And instead of “phasing out” [coal, the document’s language became] “phasing down.” So, yeah, that is one very clear example.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/12/27/greta-thunberg-state-climate-movement-roots-her-power-an-activist/] For GSS Climate Change chapter 10.
<><><><>
2021-12-22. Mexico’s wheat fields help feed the world. They’re also releasing a dangerous greenhouse gas. By Joshua Partlow and Chris Mooney, The Washington Post. Excerpt: …scientists who have studied this valley for decades know that …when water mixes with nitrogen fertilizer, and when no crop is in the ground to absorb it — huge surges of nitrous oxide gas are released into the atmosphere.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2021/mexico-fertilizer-nitrous-oxide-emissions/] For GSS Climate Change chapter 3.
<><><><>
2021-12-21. Sea spray is belching toxic chemicals back on land. By Elizabeth Gribkoff, Science Magazine. Excerpt: Scientists and policymakers are puzzling over how to get rid of a group of toxic chemicals found in streams and drinking water. One hope was that the persistent compounds, known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), would flow out to sea and stay put. But the ocean, it turns out, is spitting them back out: A new study finds sea spray from waves is tossing PFAS into the atmosphere. …PFAS are found in everything from nonstick cookware to firefighting foam. …But the strong chemical bonds that make PFAS so useful also make them extremely hard to break down, earning them the moniker “forever chemicals.” Lab studies have shown PFAS can damage the livers and immune systems of animals, and lead to birth defects and death. In humans, they’ve been linked to cancer and lower birth weights. …Researchers have known the mist created by breaking waves can transport pollutants from the ocean into the atmosphere, says Matthew Salter, a marine biogeochemist at Stockholm University. The white, foamy bubbles don’t just contain air—they also contain microscopic droplets of chemicals that float to the surface of the water. …Salter and colleagues collected air samples every few days from 2018 to 2020 at two monitoring sites…. …Back in the lab, they analyzed the levels of PFAS and sodium ions, a key part of sea spray aerosol, in their samples. The amount of PFAS in the samples was closely linked to sodium levels—a sign that they both got into the air via sea spray—the team reports this month in Environmental Science & Technology. The correlation was strongest at the more remote island site, which was closer to rough, frothy seas.… [https://www.science.org/content/article/sea-spray-belching-toxic-chemicals-back-land] For GSS Ecosystem Change chapter 7.
<><><><>
2021-12-18. Is nuclear energy green? France and Germany lead opposing camps. By Rick Noack, The Washington Post. Excerpt: The French government wants to build reactors. The German government wants to shut them down. …“For the first time in decades,” Macron said in the televised speech, France “will relaunch the construction of nuclear reactors.” Fessenheim had just begun to come to terms with the closure of its nuclear plant last year, in what the government had said was a “first step” in a “rebalancing” of energy sources. But while Macron remains committed to increasing investments in wind and solar energy, and to putting an end to the burning of coal, his remarks in November confirmed that France isn’t giving up on nuclear technology, its primary source of energy. …The new German economy and climate minister, Green party member Robert Habeck, was among the politicians who signed a statement celebrating the closure of the Fessenheim plant. The German government has argued that nuclear plants are too risky, and too slow and costly to build, to be a solution to the climate crisis. Germany’s outlook is influenced by nuclear accidents, such as the 2011 Fukushima meltdown in Japan. And Berlin points to reports like one this past week, of cracks in the pipes at a French nuclear reactor, as evidence that plant safety remains a problem. …Germany emits about twice as much carbon dioxide per capita as France does. When it phases out its last nuclear power plants next year, it will be forced to rely on coal and other polluting energy sources to fill much of the gap for years — which helps explain why the country continues to raze villages to make way for coal mines. …Environmental activists in Germany acknowledge that continued reliance on coal is a problem even in the medium term. But they are optimistic about how quickly the country can ramp up alternative energy.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/12/18/nuclear-energy-climate-france-germany/] For GSS Energy Use chapter 4.
<><><><>
2021-12-17. After decades, some of America’s most toxic sites will finally get cleaned up. By Dino Grandoni, The Washington Post. Excerpt: New funding and the revival of a long-lapsed tax on chemical makers in the bipartisan infrastructure law mean cities like Newark will get money to restore toxic Superfund sites. …The Superfund list includes more than 1,300 abandoned mines, radioactive landfills, shuttered military labs, closed factories and other contaminated areas across nearly all 50 states. They are the poisoned remnants of America’s emergence as a 20th-century industrial juggernaut. The 49 sites receiving money from the infrastructure law include a neighborhood in Florida with soil contaminated from treating wooden telephone poles, a former copper mine in Maine laced with leftover metals, and an old steel manufacturer in southern New Jersey where parts of the Golden Gate Bridge were fabricated.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/12/17/superfund-cleanup-biden-infrastructure-bill/] For GSS Ecosystem Change chapter 7.
<><><><>
2021-12-17. In Amsterdam, a community of floating homes shows the world how to live alongside nature. By Shira Rubin, The Washington Post. Excerpt: …the technology already exists to make floating urban development a solution for the world’s densely populated waterfront cities that are grappling with rising sea levels and the accelerating impacts of climate change. …In the waterlogged Netherlands — a country that’s a third below sea level and two-thirds flood-prone — floating homes are the latest in a centuries-long experiment in contending with water.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/interactive/2021/amsterdam-floating-houses-schoonschip/] For GSS Climate Change chapter 10.
<><><><>
2021-12-16. Projection: $110 Billion in Repairs for Russian Pipelines on Permafrost. By Jenessa Duncombe, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: One of the world’s biggest producers of oil and gas may face billions in upgrades as permafrost thaw destabilizes pipelines in the Arctic, according to new research. Russia produces 80% of its natural gas in the Arctic, where rising temperatures are thawing ground that has been frozen for tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of years. “ …Most Russian pipelines are underground, making them particularly vulnerable to shifting soil. …The ground beneath gas pipelines may subside up to half a meter in places over the next 20 years, according to the group’s permafrost projections. A soil slump of even 10 centimeters can be enough to inflict damage on pipelines. …The costs add up: If emissions stay the same, cumulative costs will reach US$110 billion (8.1 trillion rubles) by 2040. Repairs to natural gas pipelines during that time could rival the revenue of natural gas gained in 1 year. “.… [https://eos.org/articles/projection-110-billion-in-repairs-for-russian-pipelines-on-permafrost] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-11-12. What Does It Take to Build a Disaster-Proof House? By Candace Jackson, The New York Times. Excerpt: When a massive wildfire swept through Paradise, Calif., three years ago this week, it killed 85 people and destroyed more than 13,000 homes. …The Petersens are now rebuilding on the same site — but not the way Ms. Petersen’s grandparents built. They’re putting up a Q Cabin, a 1,400-square-foot structure made from a half-circle of noncombustible steel. …As much as a third of the housing stock in the United States — some 35 million houses — is at high risk from natural disasters related to climate change, according to information from CoreLogic, the real estate data analytics company. …Others are looking further into the past than World War II for solutions — a lot further. Michele Barbato, a professor of structural engineering in the department of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California at Davis, is studying compressed earth block construction, a 10,000-year-old technique for making bricks from tightly compacted dirt and mud, mixed with cement, limestone or a chemical stabilizer to make it water-resistant.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/realestate/disaster-proof-housing.html] For GSS Climate Change chapter 10.
<><><><>
2021-07-02. What Technology Could Reduce Heat Deaths? Trees. By Catrin Einhorn, The New York Times. Excerpt: At a time when climate change is making heat waves more frequent and more severe, trees are stationary superheroes: They can lower urban temperatures 10 lifesaving degrees, scientists say. …Research shows that heat already kills more people in the United States than hurricanes, tornadoes and other weather-events, perhaps contributing to 12,000 deaths per year. Extreme heat this week in the Pacific Northwest and Canada has killed hundreds. Trees …also reduce electricity demand for air conditioning, not only sparing money and emissions, but helping avoid potentially catastrophic power failures during heat waves.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/02/climate/trees-cities-heat-waves.html] For GSS Climate Change chapter 10.
~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~
<><><><>
2021-12-14. Bright Lights, Big Cities Attract Migratory Birds. By Brian Phan, EosAGU. Excerpt: Like moths to a lamp, billions of birds flock to brightly lighted urban areas—far from the natural resources they need on their journeys—as they migrate across North America during spring and fall. Light pollution is attracting migratory birds. “It almost acts as a beacon to them, and they gravitate toward it,” said Amy Collins, a postdoctoral research fellow in fish, wildlife, and conservation biology at Colorado State University. As these avian species fly over urban sprawl, they waste precious energy navigating urban environments and are most affected during dusk and dawn, when most migratory birds usually take flight.… [https://eos.org/articles/bright-lights-big-cities-attract-migratory-birds] For GSS Ecosystem Change chapter 7.
<><><><>
2021-12-13. Indigenous Communities Outline Their Climate Data Priorities. By Jane Palmer, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Climate change is hitting the American Southwest hard, bringing warmer temperatures, longer droughts, and dwindling water supplies. For Native American tribes in the region, these changes are threatening their ability to live on the land in the way that they have done for hundreds, or even thousands, of years. In response to these challenges, many of the tribes have developed their own climate change adaptation initiatives, and to see how Western science could help in these efforts, the U.S. Department of Agriculture funded the Native Waters on Arid Lands project in 2015. The goal of the project was to partner researchers with tribal communities in the Great Basin and American Southwest to collaboratively understand how climate change was affecting the region and to come up with possible paths to adaptation.… [https://eos.org/articles/indigenous-communities-outline-their-climate-data-priorities] For GSS Climate Change chapter 9.
<><><><>
2021-12-13. Looking for a Way to Soup Up Your Car? Go Electric. By Christine Negroni, The New York Times. Excerpt: Among the more than 1,000 vehicles at the Specialty Equipment Market Association’s display of automotive innovations in Las Vegas last month, a fuss was being made over a classic Ford 100 pickup truck that, at 43, was older than many of the show’s attendees. The buzz was not because of a stylish aesthetic or historical significance, but rather the contrast between the truck’s retro looks and its very modern electric motor. Anyone can buy the motor, known as the Eluminator e-Crate, for $3,900, but the pickup is a one-off. It was custom built to show enthusiasts they too can turn geriatric gas-guzzlers into efficient machines. Customers can buy it “to put in whatever car they want to build,” said Mark Rushbrook, global director of Ford performance motorsports. “Classic Mustangs or a Galaxy or F series truck — they can buy the motor and install it.” …In 2019, General Motors tucked a 450-horsepower motor and other components from its Bolt E.V. inside a 1962 C-10 pickup; in 2020, General Motors put the e-crate it is developing into a 1977 K-5 Blazer. …In London, where drivers of older gasoline-powered cars pay extra to drive in certain parts of the city, London Electric Cars …keeps busy modifying cars that are 20 years or older with electric motors it buys from salvage yards. “Last year we finished an old school Mini. We put in a Nissan Leaf and the performance was unbelievable, so much above and beyond the petroleum engines,” said Barry Stephenson, a technician at the company. While a conversion isn’t cheap …some customers are willing to make the investment, motivated by a desire to not contribute to the pollution and waste generated by the production of a new car.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/13/business/car-electric-engine-retrofitting.html] For GSS Energy Use chapter 9.
<><><><>
2021-12-13. A Hotter Earth Means Stronger Tornadoes. By Saima Sidik, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: On 20 May 2013, at 2:56 p.m., a tornado touched down in central Oklahoma. Over the next 40 minutes, it ripped through the towns of Newcastle, Moore, and south Oklahoma City. The storm destroyed dozens of houses and cars, two farms, two elementary schools, a strip mall, and several other buildings as it killed 24 people and injured hundreds. Climate change is known to affect many types of extreme weather, such as hurricanes, droughts, and floods. But until recently, few studies have addressed whether it will affect tornado outbreaks like the one that decimated central Oklahoma. Matthew Woods, a recent graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, aimed to fill that gap with his recent research in atmospheric sciences and meteorology. “Climate change certainly raises the ceiling for future tornadoes, in terms of strength,” Woods said. Using a modeling framework called pseudo–global warming methodology, he predicted that the frequency of warm-season tornadoes will decrease slightly in the United States, but those that do occur may be stronger. Meanwhile, the cool season is likely to see both more frequent and more intense tornadoes. Woods will share his results at AGU’s Fall Meeting 2021 during a poster session on 13 December.… [https://eos.org/articles/a-hotter-earth-means-stronger-tornadoes] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-12-07. Seeking Space for Solar Farms, Cities Find Room at Their Airports. By Amy Zipkin, The New York Times. Excerpt: Airports around the nation are installing solar arrays on unused land, roofs and parking garages, helping them achieve self-sufficiency while also providing power to their communities. When city commissioners in Tallahassee, Fla., passed a resolution in early 2019 to rely exclusively on renewable energy by 2050, one cornerstone was already in place: a 120-acre, 20-megawatt solar farm at Tallahassee International Airport.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/07/business/airports-solar-farms.html] For GSS Energy Use chapter 10.
~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~
<><><><>
2021-12-15. NASA probe that ‘touched the sun’ for first time could help people better understand the solar system. By Timothy Bella, The Washington Post. Excerpt: A NASA spacecraft became the first to “touch the sun,” scientists announced Tuesday — a long-awaited milestone and a potential giant leap in understanding the sun’s influence on the solar system. The Parker Solar Probe successfully flew through the sun’s corona, or upper atmosphere, in April to sample particles and its magnetic fields, according to research published in the journal Physical Review Letters. The findings were also announced Tuesday at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in New Orleans. …The spacecraft, launched three years ago in an effort to study the sun and its dangers, will help scientists uncover significant and unknown information about Earth’s closest star, including how the flow of the sun’s particles can influence the planet. …The spacecraft’s brush with the sun is the culmination of a mission more than 60 years in the making. …After the nation’s top scientists in 1958 compiled a list of missions that they thought NASA, then a brand-new space agency, should pursue, dreams such as the Hubble Space Telescope, the twin Voyager spacecraft and the Apollo programall eventually became realities. But the goal of reaching the sun remained elusive.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/12/15/nasa-touches-sun-spacecraft-parker] See also NASA blog entry for 11/24/2021: Parker Solar Probe Completes a Record-Setting Swing by the Sun. For GSS A Changing Cosmos chapter 3.
<><><><>
2021-12-14. Climate change has destabilized the Earth’s poles, putting the rest of the planet in peril. By Sarah Kaplan, The Washington Post. Excerpt: The ice shelf was cracking up. Surveys showed warm ocean water eroding its underbelly. Satellite imagery revealed long, parallel fissures in the frozen expanse, like scratches from some clawed monster. …While other parts of the infamous Thwaites Glacier crumbled, this wedge of floating ice acted as a brace, slowing the melt. It was supposed to be boring, durable, safe. Now climate change has turned the ice shelf into a threat — to Pettit’s field work, and to the world. Planet-warming pollution from burning fossil fuels and other human activities has already raised global temperatures more than 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit). But the effects are particularly profound at the poles, where rising temperatures have seriously undermined regions once locked in ice. In research presented this week at the world’s biggest earth science conference, Pettit showed that the Thwaites ice shelf could collapse within the next three to five years, unleashing a river of ice that could dramatically raise sea levels. Aerial surveys document how warmer conditions have allowed beavers to invade the Arctic tundra, flooding the landscape with their dams. Large commercial ships are increasingly infiltrating formerly frozen areas, disturbing wildlife and generating disastrous amounts of trash. In many Alaska Native communities, climate impacts compounded the hardships of the coronavirus pandemic, leading to food shortages among people who have lived off this land for thousands of years.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/12/14/climate-change-arctic-antarctic-poles/] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-12-13. December tornadoes are part of ‘new normal’ caused by climate change, FEMA chief says. By Jessica Lipscomb, The Washington Post. Excerpt: …The deadly tornadoes that caused devastation in Kentucky and five other states came just a few months after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake rocked Haiti and Category 4 Hurricane Ida tore through the Eastern United States and Atlantic Canada. In an interview Sunday morning on CNN’s “State of the Union,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said the agency is preparing for severe weather events of similar magnitude. “This is going to be our new normal, and the effects that we’re seeing from climate change are the crisis of our generation,” she said. “We’ll continue to work on helping to reduce the impacts, but we’re also prepared to respond to any community that gets impacted by one of these severe events.”.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/12/13/fema-tornadoes-new-normal-climate-change/] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-12-10. Native Americans’ farming practices
may help feed a warming world. By Samuel Gilbert, The Washington Post. Excerpt: TUCSON — Indigenous peoples have known for millennia to plant under the shade of the mesquite and paloverde trees that mark the Sonoran Desert here, shielding their crops from the intense sun and reducing the amount of water needed. The modern-day version of this can be seen in the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson, where a canopy of elevated solar panels helps to protect rows of squash, tomatoes and onions. Even on a November afternoon, with the temperature climbing into the 80s, the air under the panels stays comfortably cool. Such adaptation is central to the research underway at Biosphere 2, a unique center affiliated with the University of Arizona that’s part of a movement aimed at reimagining and remaking agriculture in a warming world. In the Southwest, projects are looking to plants and farming practices that Native Americans have long used as potential solutions to growing worries over future food supplies. At the same time, they are seeking to build energy resilience.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/interactive/2021/native-americans-farming-practices-may-help-feed-warming-world/] For GSS Ecosystem Change chapter 1.
<><><><>
2021-12-09. Tropical forests can recover from deforestation remarkably fast and on their own, new study finds. By Tik Root, The Washington Post. Excerpt: The study observed that soil fertility on previously deforested land can return in less than a decade. But that doesn’t give people a ‘license to kill,’ an author of the study said. …Deforestation is a global and accelerating threat. But new research shows that tropical forests can recover naturally and remarkably quickly on abandoned lands. The study, published Thursday in the journal Science, found that under low-intensity use, soil on previously deforested land can recover its fertility in less than a decade. Characteristics such as the layering of plants and trees in a forest, as well as species diversity, came back in about 25 to 60 years.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2021/12/09/climate-change-forest-recovery-deforestation/] For GSS A New World View chapter 5.
<><><><>
2021-12-07. Melting glaciers may produce thousands of kilometers of new salmon habitat. By Robert F. Service, Science Magazine. Excerpt: Climate change is wreaking havoc on Pacific Ocean salmon populations: overheating spawning streams, triggering storms that scour stream beds and droughts that dry them up, and upending food webs in the Pacific. But a warming world could bring one silver lining, at least for a while. A new computer model shows retreating glaciers in British Columbia and Alaska could open up thousands of kilometers of new river habitat by 2100. …Today in Nature Communications, they report that Pacific salmon river habitat will likely expand by 6150 kilometers, nearly the length of the Mississippi River. This habitat consists primarily of streams with an incline of less than 10%, which makes it possible for fish to traverse; 2000 kilometers of the new river habitat is expected to be suitable for spawning and rearing young. In the Gulf of Alaska alone, melting glaciers are expected to increase salmon habitat by as much as 27%. The outlook isn’t all good. The region is home to rich deposits of gold and copper. Mining companies are racing to stake claims in territory that was previously buried under ice. …Good times for the fish that do colonize new rivers likely won’t last. That’s because the ice feeding the rivers will eventually melt away entirely, says Tara Marsden, who runs sustainability projects for the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs, a Canadian Indigenous nation negotiating conservation treaties with the Canadian government.… [https://www.science.org/content/article/melting-glaciers-may-produce-thousands-kilometers-new-salmon-habitat] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-12-03. A Global Map of Human Sewage in Coastal Ecosystems. By Katherine Kornei, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: …Nutrient-rich agricultural runoff is a well-known scourge of coastal marine ecosystems. But another major source of nutrient contamination—human wastewater—has received relatively scant attention in the literature. Now, researchers have constructed a high-resolution geospatial model to map and quantify the pathogens and nitrogen from human sewage that enter roughly 135,000 watersheds draining into coastal ecosystems around the world. …When a marine environment becomes too enriched in nitrogen or other nutrients—a state known as eutrophication—a slew of problems can erupt. For instance, algae can consume the nutrients and then rapidly multiply (“bloom”), effectively choking out other life forms and creating coastal dead zones. …said Cascade Tuholske, a geographer at Columbia University in New York City…“What we’re most concerned with are tipping points, whereby eutrophication can cascade into complete ecosystem collapse.” …And as diets worldwide shift to include more nitrogen-rich animal protein, our waste products are destined to excrete more and more of this nutrient, said Tuholske, who coled the new research while working at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “We excrete most of the nitrogen that we ingest.” …In regions in which open defection occurs, untreated human sewage directly enters watersheds.… [https://eos.org/articles/a-global-map-of-human-sewage-in-coastal-ecosystems] For GSS Ecosystem Change chapter 7.
<><><><>
2021-12-02. Geoscientists Can Help Reduce the Threat of Nuclear Weapons. By Alan Robock and Stewart C. Prager, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: While we all recognize that global warming threatens humanity, the effects of nuclear war pose an even graver threat to the global population. …Currently, there are more than 9,000 nuclear warheads in the active military stockpiles of nine nations, with more than 90% of those in Russia and the United States. Nearly 2,000 warheads are on alert status, ready to launch within minutes of an order. …The nuclear arms control regime has been weakened in recent years with the termination of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between Russia and the United States, … and the withdrawal of the United States from the Iran nuclear deal. …a nuclear conflict would cause rapid changes in Earth’s climate. Smoke from firestorms ignited by attacks on cities and industrial areas would rise into the stratosphere and persist for years [e.g., Yu et al., 2019]. …it would lead to stratospheric ozone depletion that would enhance the amount of ultraviolet radiation reaching Earth’s surface [Bardeen et al., 2021]. …The original suggestions of “nuclear winter” following a nuclear war by Turco et al.[1983] and Aleksandrov and Stenchikov [1983], …have been supported strongly by recent work using modern high-resolution general circulation models to simulate and predict its effects [Robock et al., 2007a; Coupe et al., 2019]. …the multiyear lifetime of smoke in the stratosphere means the effects on climate would last a decade, with the largest impacts continuing for more than 5 years. Such a conflict would decrease crop production to an extent that it could seriously threaten world food security and even trigger global famine [Jägermeyr et al., 2020; L. Xia et al., Global famine after nuclear war, submitted to Nature Food, 2021]. …to reduce the likelihood of using nuclear weapons, …we can adopt a no-first-use policy, …eliminate the launch-on-warning option, …and we can eliminate presidential sole authority to launch nuclear weapons. …We believe that the ultimate solution to the problem of nuclear weapons is to ban them globally. In 2017, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons led the effort to have the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons signed at the United Nations.… [https://eos.org/opinions/geoscientists-can-help-reduce-the-threat-of-nuclear-weapons] For GSS Climate Change chapter 10.
<><><><>
2021-12-01. The Far-Reaching Consequences of Wildfire Smoke Plumes. By Kate Wheeling, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Smoke from wildfires burning in the western United States carries harmful pollutants across the country. …O’Dell et al. looked at smoke exposure across seasons and regions in the United States between 2006 and 2018. The team combined observation-based estimates of smoke-related PM2.5 and gas phase hazardous air pollutants, or HAPs, with data on asthma hospital admissions and emergency department visits to determine the impacts of both acute and chronic smoke exposure. The authors found that smoke caused between 1,300 and 5,900 asthma-related emergency department visits per year, and these were more likely to occur in the spring and summer. Chronic exposure to PM2.5 from smoke was linked to as many as 6,300 deaths per year, the study found. Although most large wildfires originated in the western United States, nearly 75% of the emergency department visits and hospital admissions due to smoke occurred in nonwestern states.… [https://eos.org/research-spotlights/the-far-reaching-consequences-of-wildfire-smoke-plumes] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~
<><><><>
2021-12-08. Biden wants to make federal government carbon neutral by 2050. By Anna Phillips, The Washington Post. Excerpt: The Biden administration announced Wednesday it aims to buy its way to a cleaner, cooler planet, spending billions to create a federal fleet of electric vehicles, upgrade federal buildings and change how the government buys electricity. The executive order President Biden signed leveragesWashington’s buying power to cut the government’s carbon emissions 65 percent by the end of the decade. It lays out goals that would put the federal government on a path to net-zero emissions by 2050 and would add at least 10 gigawatts worth of clean electricity to the grid.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/12/08/biden-government-purchasing-climate-change/] See also New York Times article. For GSS Climate Change chapter 9.
<><><><>
2021-12-02. Metal Planet Orbits Its Star Every 7.7 Hours. By Adam Mann, The NewYork Times. Excerpt: Astronomers call it a “super-Mercury” and think it holds clues to how planets form close in to their stars. …Because it sits so close to its parent, one side of GJ 367 b likely always faces the blazing star. Its dayside temperatures should soar toward 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to melt rock and metal, making it a potential lava world… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/02/science/iron-exoplanet-super-mercury.html] For GSS A Changing Cosmos chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-12-02. Germany’s trees are dying. A fierce debate has broken out over how to respond. By Gabriel Popkin, Science Magazine. Excerpt: …During January 2018, …a powerful storm felled many of the trees. Then, over the next 3 years, a record drought hit Germany and much of Central Europe, stressing the spruces that still stood. The back-to-back disasters enabled bark-boring beetles that had been munching on dead trees to jump to drought-weakened ones. Beetle populations exploded. In just 3 weeks, towering spruces that had seemed healthy were dead. …All sides agree the recent die-off highlights the climate change threat. “It’s kind of an early warning, … a signal of what may still come,” says forest researcher Gert-Jan Nabuurs of Wageningen University & Research. …Most also agree that existing monocultures, so important to European forestry’s past, cannot ensure its future. “It’s a clear signal to the wood industry that you have to change the utilization from Norway spruce to other species,” Bolte says. The consensus breaks down, however, when it comes to solutions. For some, the dieback offers a rare chance to dramatically shift forest policy toward a more hands-off approach. Allowing devastated forests to naturally regrow, the thinking goes, could revitalize ecosystems and start to reverse centuries of biodiversity decline. …To reduce the risks, some experts argue forest owners need to strategically plant new, more resilient tree varieties. Hints about strong candidates could come from a 250-hectare arboretum founded in the late 1800s in Wuppertal, a hilly town in western Germany. Here, collectors planted some 200 tree species from all over the world. More than 100 of those species are still growing, offering a rare opportunity to assess how the mature trees are handling climate change.… [https://www.science.org/content/article/germany-s-trees-are-dying-fierce-debate-has-broken-out-over-how-respond] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-11-29. Venice’s barrier against rising seas could jeopardize city’s ecosystem. By Erik Stokstad, Science Magazine. Excerpt: To combat a growing flood risk, Venice, Italy, has spent billions of euros to build three barriers that can temporarily close off the lagoon surrounding the city from the Mediterranean Sea. Now, scientists are reporting that by blocking the stormwater that causes floods, the barriers also prevent salt marshes in the lagoon from receiving vital sediment, which ultimately may hinder their ability to stay above the rising sea level.… [https://www.science.org/content/article/venice-s-barrier-against-rising-seas-could-jeopardize-city-s-ecosystem] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-11-29. How one society rebounded from ‘the worst year to be alive’. By Michael Price, Science Magazine. Excerpt: It was the worst time to be alive, according to some scientists. From 536 C.E. to 541 C.E., a series of volcanic eruptions in North and Central America sent tons of ash into the atmosphere, blocking sunlight, chilling the globe, and destroying crops worldwide. Societies everywhere struggled to survive. But for the Ancestral Pueblo people living in what today is the U.S. Southwest, this climate catastrophe planted the seeds for a more cohesive, technologically sophisticated society, a new study suggests. …Although there’s no way to perfectly reconstruct how the Ancestral Pueblo people’s social systems broke down and reformed, Sinensky thinks it may have happened something like this: As crops continued to fail, the small, disparate groups eventually had to band together to survive. They shared technology and growing techniques and built villages. Then, as rain and warmth returned, this cohesion persisted. Chaco Canyon emerged as a major cultural center for a resilient, restructured society. The findings speak to the ability of humans to reorganize in response to even extreme climate changes, Sinensky adds. “Ancestral Pueblo people restructured … and thrived with this reorganized economic and political structure,” he says. “We should take some solace in knowing that it’s possible to reorganize, to change, even deeply rooted aspects of societies.”… [https://www.science.org/content/article/how-one-society-rebounded-worst-year-be-alive] For GSS Life and Climate chapter 12.
<><><><>
2021-11-29. New Sensor Aids Rare Earth Extraction from Acid Mine Drainage. By Jenessa Duncombe, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Rare earth elements appear in more than 200 consumer products. The race is on to source these elements from abundant and environmentally damaging mining waste. …Rare earth elements are essential components in wind turbines and electric vehicles….Currently, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is funding more than 30 projects to source rare earth elements from coal mining and its waste. Coal ash, refuse rock, young lignite coal, sludge, and acid mine drainage are treasure troves of rare earth elements, but the technology needed to extract the valuable materials has yet to hit the commercial market. … [https://eos.org/articles/new-sensor-aids-rare-earth-extraction-from-acid-mine-drainage] For GSS Ecosystem Change chapter 7.
<><><><>
2021-11-22. Ocean Terrain and the Engineering Challenges for Offshore Wind Farms. By Katherine Kornei, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Deep coastal seabeds, glacial erratics, and other geophysical hurdles stand in the way of offshore wind farm proliferation. Researchers, engineers, and organizations are adapting and inventing ways to harness the breeze. …Europe has long embraced offshore wind farms—the first one was built off the coast of Denmark in 1991. More than 5,400 grid-connected turbines in European waters generate around 25 gigawatts, which is more than 70% of the offshore wind power produced globally today. Offshore wind farms are now gaining traction in the United States, which is currently home to just seven offshore wind turbines and produces 42 megawatts—less than 0.1% of the world’s offshore wind energy. Several commercial-scale facilities are in development in U.S. waters. …wind farms offshore presents a viable solution. Producing power near major population centers suddenly becomes feasible, and doing so minimizes transmission-related losses… Offshore wind farms also reap the benefits of the stronger, more predictable winds commonly found at sea. …And where these wind farms are going, they don’t need roads—that’s good because modern wind turbines can be hundreds of meters in diameter. “Offshore wind turbine components are transported by ships and barges,” …Moving offshore can also sidestep a myriad of state, local, and other jurisdictional regulations and permitting requirements, said François. “You’re working with one landlord, which is the federal government.”…. [https://eos.org/features/ocean-terrain-and-the-engineering-challenges-for-offshore-wind-farms] For GSS Energy Use chapter 10.
~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~
<><><><>
2021-11-28. A changing climate is buckling concrete and flooding roads. States are moving slowly to guard the nation’s infrastructure. By Ian Duncan, The Washington Post. Excerpt: Responding to increasingly common extreme weather is a vast undertaking that many state transportation departments are only beginning to tackle…. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2021/11/28/roads-climate-change-flooding-infrastructure] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-11-26. Iran Forcefully Clamps Down on Protests Against Growing Water Shortages. By Farnaz Fassihi, The New York Times. Excerpt: …Weather experts say 97 percent of the country is dealing with water scarcity issues….Experts on Iran’s water scarcity issues say climate change and reduced rainfall have exacerbated the drought caused by mismanagement.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/26/world/middleeast/iran-protests-water-shortages.html] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-11-26. Every City Should Encourage This Kind of Solar Development. By Richard Conniff, Mother Jones magazine. Excerpt: It uses pre-cleared land, makes electricity where needed, and keeps parking lots cool. …By 2050, in one plausible scenario from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), supplying solar power for all our electrical needs could require ground-based solar on 0.5 percent of the total land area of the United States. To put that number in perspective, NREL senior research Robert Margolis says it’s “less land than we already dedicate to growing corn ethanol for biofuels.” …The appeal of parking lots and rooftops… is that they are abundant, close to customers, largely untapped for solar power generation, and on land that’s already been stripped of much of its biological value.… [https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2021/11/rooftop-solar-parking-lot-canopy-smart-energy-policy/] For GSS Energy Use chapter 10.
<><><><>
2021-11-25. Saving History With Sandbags: Climate Change Threatens the Smithsonian. By Christopher Flavelle, The New York Times. Excerpt: Beneath the National Museum of American History, floodwaters are intruding into collection rooms, a consequence of a warming planet. A fix remains years away. …Smithsonian …buildings are extremely vulnerable to flooding, and some could eventually be underwater.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/25/climate/smithsonian-museum-flooding.html] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-11-24. Biden administration approves first offshore wind farm to supply power to New York. By Dino Grandoni, The Washington Post. Excerpt: The approval of 12 turbines east of Long Island moves the Biden administration closer to its clean energy goals. But it still faces strong head winds before achieving them.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/11/24/biden-offshore-wind-new-york/] For GSS Energy Use chapter 10.
<><><><>
2021-11-24. Photos show vast coral spawning event in Great Barrier Reef, giving divers hope for climate change recovery. By Ellen Francis, The Washington Post. Excerpt: Divers and scientists recorded the birth of billions of coral babies in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef on Tuesday night in a colorful show of life that they hope is a signal that the world’s biggest coral reef ecosystem can recover from climate change.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/11/24/australia-great-barrier-reef-coral-spawning/] For GSS Losing Biodiversity chapter 7.
<><><><>
2021-11-19. Mammoths Lost Their Steppe Habitat to Climate Change. By Elise Cutts, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Ancient plant and animal DNA buried in Arctic sediments preserve a 50,000-year history of Arctic ecosystems, suggesting that climate change contributed to mammoth extinction.… [https://eos.org/articles/mammoths-lost-their-steppe-habitat-to-climate-change] For GSS Life and Climate chapter 10.
~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~
<><><><>
2021-11-23. Microbes provide sustainable hydrocarbons for petrochemical industry. By Robert Sanders, UC Berkeley News. Excerpt: If the petrochemical industry is ever to wean itself off oil and gas, it has to find sustainably-sourced chemicals that slip effortlessly into existing processes for making products such as fuels, lubricants and plastics. Making those chemicals biologically is the obvious option, but microbial products are different from fossil fuel hydrocarbons in two key ways: They contain too much oxygen, and they have too many other atoms hanging off the carbons. …they often have to be de-oxygenated — in chemical parlance, reduced — and stripped of extraneous chemical groups, all of which takes energy. A team of chemists from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Minnesota has now engineered microbes to make hydrocarbon chains that can be deoxygenated more easily and using less energy — basically just the sugar glucose that the bacteria eat, plus a little heat. The process allows microbial production of a broad range of chemicals currently made from oil and gas — in particular, products like lubricants made from medium-chain hydrocarbons, which contain between eight and 10 carbon atoms in the chain. …The bacteria were engineered to make hydrocarbon chains of medium length, which has not been achieved before, though others have developed microbial processes for making shorter and longer chains, up to about 20 carbons. But the process can be readily adapted to make chains of other lengths, Chang said, including short-chain hydrocarbons used as precursors to the most popular plastics, such as polyethylene.… [https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/11/23/microbes-provide-sustainable-hydrocarbons-for-petrochemical-industry] For GSS Energy Use chapter 3.
<><><><>
2021-11-23. Big Batteries on Wheels Can Deliver Zero-Emissions Rail While Securing the Grid. By Kiran Julin, Berkeley Lab News. Abstract: Nearly all US locomotives are propelled by diesel-electric drives, which emit 35 million tonnes of CO2 and produce air pollution causing about 1,000 premature deaths annually, accounting for approximately US$6.5 billion in annual health damage costs. Improved battery technology plus access to cheap renewable electricity open the possibility of battery-electric rail. Here [paper in Nature] we show that a 241-km range can be achieved using a single standard boxcar equipped with a 14-MWh battery and inverter, while consuming half the energy consumed by diesel trains. …Accounting for reduced criteria air pollutants and CO2 emissions, switching to battery-electric propulsion would save the US freight rail sector US$94 billion over 20 years. [And from Berkeley Lab article:] …With the rise of extreme weather events and power outages, battery-electric trains have the potential to be deployed nationwide to avoid blackouts. These modular, battery tender cars can be transported to where they are needed and charged in locations where the electricity prices are low, thus offering significant advantages over grid-scale storage. Moreover, the battery tender cars could work as modular shipping containers, capable of exchange between freight rail and maritime shipping vessels, with positive benefits to decarbonizing both sectors and expanding the resilience reach. “Conversion of the U.S. freight rail sector to battery-electric would generate about 220 gigawatt-hours of mobile storage,” said Phadke. “Furthermore, these battery tender cars could be deployed during extreme events, such as during the recent catastrophic wildfires in California or the 2021 winter storm in Texas that left millions without access to electricity. This mobile energy storage capability would also create a potential new revenue stream for freight rail operators.” …. [https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2021/11/23/big-batteries-on-wheels-can-deliver-zero-emissions-rail-while-securing-the-grid/] For GSS Energy Use chapter 9.
<><><><>
2021-11-20. A Power Struggle Over Cobalt Rattles the Clean Energy Revolution. By Dionne Searcey, Michael Forsythe and Eric Lipton, Photographs by Ashley Gilbertson, The New York Times. Excerpt: The quest for Congo’s cobalt, which is vital for electric vehicles and the worldwide push against climate change, is caught in an international cycle of exploitation, greed and gamesmanship. …with more than two-thirds of the world’s cobalt production coming from Congo, the country is once again taking center stage as major automakers commit to battling climate change by transitioning from gasoline-burning vehicles to battery-powered ones.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/20/world/china-congo-cobalt.html] For GSS Energy Use chapter 10.
<><><><>
2021-11-18. Getting the Big Picture of Biodiversity. By Elizabeth Pennisi, Science Magazine. Excerpt: …remote sensing methods are not only revolutionizing how scientists …study ecosystems, they’re also poised to become powerful new tools in the fight to protect them. …scientists have gathered to revise the most important international treaty aimed at conservation, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). With the loss of plant and animal species accelerating, some researchers say conservation efforts should turn to remote sensing to monitor biodiversity in near–real time across wide swaths of the globe—and help policymakers prioritize the most critical areas. …As the light displaces electrons inside chlorophyll, the intensity of red and infrared (IR) light emitted from the leaves varies, depending on how healthy the plant is. …fluorescence could be detected from an airplane flying over crops, opening the way to surveying fields’ productivity remotely. …airplanes, drones, and towers all provide spectroscopic data on vegetation. So does NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey’s series of Landsat satellites, the first of which were launched in the 1970s. Initially, the agencies expected the satellites’ cameras to primarily capture images in visible light, but an experimental spectral sensor on board proved the value of recording more of the electromagnetic spectrum, such as near-IR light, and by 2013 the satellites were monitoring 11 portions of the spectrum. With these “multispectral” data, researchers can monitor how “green” or productive a vegetated landscape is. Spectroscopically detected dips in chlorophyll can also signal a forest that is suffering because of drought or insect invasion—or has been cleared for development.… [https://www.science.org/content/article/satellites-offer-new-ways-study-ecosystems-maybe-even-save-them] For GSS Digital Earth Watch chapter 6?.
<><><><>
2021-11-18. NASA’s first planetary defense mission will nudge an asteroid. By Adam Mann, Science Magazine. Excerpt: Intentional crash of robotic probe will test way to avert asteroid impacts on Earth. In the name of planetary defense, NASA is set to launch a robotic probe next week that in late 2022 will hurtle into a sizable space rock in the hopes of nudging its orbit. Although the celestial target of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) poses no danger to our planet, the mission will assess the feasibility of deflecting potentially hazardous objects away from Earth.… [DART successfully launched last night (Tuesday, Nov. 23, at 10:21 p.m. PST)] [https://www.science.org/content/article/nasa-s-first-planetary-defense-mission-will-nudge-asteroid] See also New York Times article. For GSS A Changing Cosmos chapter 1.
<><><><>
2021-11-18. High-flying wildfire smoke may threaten ozone layer. By Paul Voosen, Science Magazine. Excerpt: Record Arctic ozone loss linked to Siberian wildfires… [https://www.science.org/content/article/high-flying-wildfire-smoke-may-threaten-ozone-layer] For GSS Ozone chapter 9.
<><><><>
2021-11-18. Europe’s declining butterflies find new refuge: old quarries and coal mines. By Warren Cornwall, Science Magazine. Excerpt: Abandoned limestone quarries provide a better habitat than some meadows… [https://www.science.org/content/article/europe-s-declining-butterflies-find-new-refuge-old-quarries-and-coal-mines] For GSS Losing Biodiversity chapter 1.
<><><><>
2021-11-16. Cyanobacteria Blooms Exceed WHO Thresholds in Midwest Lakes. By Rebecca Dzombak, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: A study of 369 lakes across the U.S. Midwest finds that many of them, especially those close to agriculture, have high concentrations of harmful algal bloom-causing cyanobacteria.… [https://eos.org/research-spotlights/cyanobacteria-blooms-exceed-who-thresholds-in-midwest-lakes] For GSS Ecosystem Change chapter 7.
<><><><>
2021-11-12. Traditional Knowledge Is Essential to Sustainability in the Amazon. By Meghie Rodrigues, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: At COP26, the Science Panel for the Amazon is emphasizing the need for Indigenous and Local Knowledge to inform scientific and policy recommendations.…“Local peoples know a lot about ecosystem dynamics and are attentive to details that we as [outside] researchers might overlook at times,” said Carolina Doria, a biologist at the Federal University of Rondônia in Brazil and a member of the Science Panel for the Amazon. “Because of that, any attempt to impose top-down approaches to conservation can be counterproductive. The best [methodology] is to listen to the communities and find common ground for plausible actions from different perspectives,” she added.… [https://eos.org/articles/traditional-knowledge-is-essential-to-sustainability-in-the-amazon] For GSS A New World View chapter 5.
<><><><>
2021-11-12. The Benefits of Better Ocean Weather Forecasting. By Charlotte DeMott, Ángel G. Muñoz, Christopher D. Roberts, Claire M. Spillman and F. Vitart, AGU, Eos. Excerpt: Like atmospheric variability, variability in ocean conditions, such as sea surface temperature and salinity and sea ice cover and thickness, can have major effects on human activities and ecosystems both at sea and on land. For example, this variability, also called “ocean weather,” can influence the occurrence of fair-weather coastal flooding, which disrupts transportation and degrades coastal infrastructure around the world. Meanwhile, sea ice movement in an increasingly ice-free Arctic Ocean poses risks to high-latitude shipping. Elsewhere, changes in ocean upwelling can enhance coastal commercial fishing activity, whereas marine heat waves can disrupt fisheries and coral communities. As with atmospheric weather forecasts, knowing about ocean weather in advance can help minimize disruptions to everyday public and commercial activity, keep coastal and maritime workers safe, and aid marine conservation efforts. Unlike atmospheric weather, however, which evolves on daily timescales, ocean weather typically evolves on weekly to monthly timescales…. Slowly varying ocean conditions can regulate atmospheric weather, so including ocean feedbacks in atmospheric forecasting models can extend these models’ predictive skill by several days.… [https://eos.org/features/the-benefits-of-better-ocean-weather-forecasting] For GSS Energy Flow chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-11-11. Saving the Maya Rainforest. By Brendan Borrell, for The Nature Conservancy. Excerpt: …It is July and The Nature Conservancy and its partners recently closed a $76.5 million deal to protect 236,000 acres of rainforest here known as the Belize Maya Forest. Together with the neighboring Rio Bravo Conservation and Management Area, which TNC helped establish in 1989, the forest will anchor an 11-million-acre network of protected land that spans an area roughly the size of Vermont and New Hampshire combined—amounting to almost a third of the entire Selva Maya. With the most recent deal, Belizeans have boosted their total protected land area to nearly 40%. Tropical forests serve as valuable carbon reserves, potentially representing up to a quarter of the climate mitigation needed globally by 2030 under the Paris Agreement. At a local level, this forest contains three major watersheds supplying the country with about a third of its drinking water and a quarter of its water for irrigation.… [https://www.nature.org/en-us/magazine/magazine-articles/saving-the-maya-rainforest/] For GSS Ecosystem Change chapter 7.
<><><><>
2021-11-10. Windjamming on the Warming Gulf of Maine. By Mary Caperton Morton, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: In the face of rising sea levels, Maine’s rugged seaboard will likely fare better than most, but climate change is hitting harder offshore: The Gulf of Maine is warming faster than the rest of the Atlantic Ocean, affecting the entire food web, from plankton to cod to right whales, along with the fishing industry. In the geologic future, the rocky coast of Maine may look more or less the same, but the gulf may become home to a very different array of fish.… [https://eos.org/features/windjamming-on-the-warming-gulf-of-maine] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~
<><><><>
2021-11-11. Misc items from…. Science Magazine news. Excerpts: Less deforestation flattens still-alarming carbon emissions curve. A new report finds that carbon emissions from deforestation and other land use changes have decreased over the past decade, partly compensating for increases from burning fossil fuels. Based on updated estimates from satellite data, the report from the Global Carbon Project finds that emissions from sources such as fires, logging, and forest clearing, offset by some reforestation and regrowth of forests and abandoned farm lands, have been decreasing by about 4% a year over the past decade. But current emissions remain too high to appreciably curb warming…. Asia eyes switch to renewables. The Asian Development Bank last week announced a program to substantially cut carbon emissions from Southeast Asia by helping retire coal-fired power plants and replacing the generating capacity with renewable energy…. U.S. infrastructure bill bolsters climate response. The $1.2 billion infrastructure bill that President Joe Biden was expected to sign into law this week contains numerous provisions to bolster climate adaptation and accelerate efforts to curb global warming. The law provides $47 billion to prepare the country for worsening fires, floods, and storms. It funds electric car charging stations and mass transit and contains $9.5 billion to develop “clean” hydrogen fuel, produced from low-carbon sources, for industrial use. An additional $3.5 billion will fund four centers to study ways of removing carbon directly from the atmosphere.… [https://www.science.org/content/article/news-glance-carbon-emission-offsets-covid-19-vaccines-kids-and-scientists-plagiarism] For GSS Climate Change chapter 10.
<><><><>
2021-11-11. It Follows Earth Around the Sun. Just Don’t Call It a Moon. By Robin George Andrews, The New York Times. Excerpt: …a little rock would decide to tag along with Earth and the moon on their yearly circumnavigation of the sun. Said rock, 165 feet long, was discovered in 2016 by Hawaii’s Pan-STARRS 1 asteroid-hunting telescope. This eccentric entity’s Hawaiian name, (469219) Kamoʻoalewa, means “wobbling celestial object.” As it repeatedly loops around Earth, this shy body never gets closer than 9 million miles, which is 38 times farther out than the moon. It gets as distant as 25 million miles away before swinging back around for a closer encounter. Calculations of its orbital waltz indicate that it began trailing our planet in a relatively stable manner about a century ago, and it will continue to pirouette around Earth for several centuries to come. …in a paper published Thursday in Communications Earth & Environment, a team of scientists reported … that it appears to be made of the same sort of frozen magmatic matter found on the lunar surface.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/11/science/moon-kamooalewa-asteroid.html?referringSource=articleShare] For GSS A Changing Cosmos chapter 7.
<><><><>
2021-11-10. How ‘Cool Roofs’ Can Help Fight Climate Change. By Christina Poletto. Excerpt: Painted rooftops reflect the heat instead of absorbing it, reducing the need for air-conditioning and cutting greenhouse gases.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/10/realestate/cool-roofs-climate-change-nyc.html] For GSS Energy Use chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-11-05. A Simple Recipe for Making the First Continental Crust. By Anastassia Y. Borisova and Anne Nédélec, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Laboratory experiments serendipitously revealed a rock-forming process that might explain how the first continental crust formed on Earth—and possibly on Mars.… [https://eos.org/science-updates/a-simple-recipe-for-making-the-first-continental-crust] For GSS Energy Flow chapter 3.
<><><><>
2021-10-08. Adapting to Receding Glaciers in the Tropical Andes. By Tania V. Rojas, Duncan Quincey, Pedro Rau, Daniel Horna-Muñoz and Jorge D. Abad, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Integrated approaches are needed to understand and respond to changes in tropical mountain ecosystems and communities brought about by receding glaciers and changes in land use. …the effects of climate change on mountain environments prone to degradation disproportionately fall on populations relying on tropical glaciers in the Global South, where many people have limited economic resources, especially those who get most of their income from agriculture and raising livestock. …holistically understanding ongoing changes to tropical mountain glaciers and their surrounding environments, and current and future impacts on the people that depend on those environments, requires interdisciplinary approaches to developing feasible, effective, and acceptable adaptation and mitigation measures…. …future research and resource and risk management efforts for glacierized regions should integrate input from scientists and policy specialists as well as socioeconomic and cultural considerations of affected communities.… [https://eos.org/features/adapting-to-receding-glaciers-in-the-tropical-andes] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~
<><><><>
2021-11-10. Serious about climate change? Get serious about peat. By William Booth, The Washington Post. Excerpt: GARSTANG, England — Moor, bog, fen, mire, flush, swamp, slough. Peatlands have gotten a bum rap. They’re inhospitable, useless. Too wet to plow, too dry to fish, the old farmers say. Scorned as anaerobic wastelands, dissed in the popular imagination, imagined as the eerie Dead Marshes in “The Lord of the Rings” or the forbidding Grimpen Mire in “The Hound of the Baskervilles.” …All slander, said Christian Dunn, wetlands scientist at Bangor University in Wales. “Peat is the superhero of the natural world,” he said. These waterlogged, acidic, low-nutrient ecosystems are the most carbon-dense lands on Earth. You want to safely store carbon for a thousand years? Nothing beats peat. It’s nature’s vault.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/11/10/cop26-peat-carbon/] For GSS Climate Change chapter 10.
<><><><>
2021-11-10. Got Climate Doom? By Genevieve Guenther and David Wallace-Wells, The New York Times. Excerpt: Thousands of youth activists at the Glasgow climate talks this week demonstrated for action from world leaders whose words convey the seriousness of the emergency but whose actions against major carbon contributors are lacking. But, as host Jane Coaston says, “as fun as doomerism is, doomerism doesn’t do anything.” So what is an individual to do? Recycle? Compost? Give up meat or flying or plastic straws? Protest in the streets? To parse which personal actions matter and which don’t, Jane is joined by the climate activist and author Genevieve Guenther, who argues that for the wealthier citizens of the world, there are real steps that can be taken right away to help fight the current and impending climate catastrophes. Guenther lists them according to one’s ability, time and resources.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/10/opinion/climate-change-personal-actions.html] For GSS Climate Change chapter 10.
<><><><>
2021-11-10. The world created about 8 million tons of pandemic plastic waste, and much of it is now in the ocean. By Amy Cheng, The Washington Post. Excerpt: Some 8 million metric tons of pandemic-related plastic waste has been created by 193 countries, about 26,000 tons of which is now in the world’s oceans, where it threatens to disrupt marine life and further pollute beaches, a recent study found.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/11/10/plastic-waste-coronavirus-ocean-contamination/] For GSS Losing Biodiversity chapter 7.
<><><><>
2021-11-10. Nuclear Is Hot, for the Moment. By Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic. Excerpt: The United States, Russia, and France now describe the once-neglected technology as a key part of their decarbonization plans.… [https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/11/nuclear-power-hot-moment/620665/] For GSS Energy Use chapter 4.
<><><><>
2021-11-09. Renewable energy in the U.S. nearly quadrupled in the past decade, report finds. By Tik Root, The Washington Post. Excerpt: The proportion of electricity the United States gets from solar and wind nearly quadrupled between 2011 and 2020. While geothermal generation remained relatively flat, the three technologies combined for an annual increase of nearly 15 percent over that stretch.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2021/11/09/renewable-energy-solar-wind-biden/] For GSS Energy Use chapter 10.
<><><><>
2021-11-09. Harnessing the energy of the ocean to power homes, planes and whisky distilleries. By William Booth, The Washington Post. Excerpt: …The tides turn. You can set your watch to them. The trick is how to generate cost-effective, renewable electricity from that limitless, ceaseless motion. They’re working on the problem here on Scotland’s Orkney Islands. When you first look at the ideas for ocean-energy devices, the whole thing does look a little … sci-fi. Underwater corkscrews. Oscillating hydrofoils. Tidal kites? In Scotland, they want to plug this ocean energy into shoreside electrolyzers, which separate water (good old H20) into oxygen and green hydrogen, and use the gas bubbles to power … whisky distilleries. And maybe someday to heat homes and schools — and power passenger ferries and planes that hop between islands.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/interactive/2021/cop26-scotland-wave-energy-renewables/] For GSS Energy Use chapter 10.
<><><><>
2021-11-06. Star System With Right-Angled Planets Surprises Astronomers. By Jonathan O’Callaghan, The New York Times. Excerpt: Two planets orbit the poles while another revolves around the star’s equator, suggesting a mysterious, undetected force.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/06/science/perpendicular-planets-star-system.html] See also A Mysterious, Undetected Force Is Influencing the Orbit of Two Alien Worlds and the paper — The Rossiter–McLaughlin effect revolutions: an ultra-short period planet and a warm mini-Neptune on perpendicular orbits. For GSS A Changing Cosmos chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-11-05. As Grinnell heals, ‘soap opera’ in the skies continues at UC Berkeley. By Gretchen Kell, UC Berkeley News. Excerpt: What will become of Grinnell and Annie, UC Berkeley’s longtime peregrine falcon couple, when Grinnell — injured on Oct. 29 by rival falcons — is released from Lindsay Wildlife Rehabilitation Hospital? Will Annie, who remains at their nest atop the Campanile, recognize and welcome Grinnell back? Or will a new male, one of the falcons that likely attacked Grinnell and now is lurking about the tower, become her new mate? Will Grinnell ever return home? And if he does, will he battle the interloper? Will Annie team up with Grinnell for the fight?.… [https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/11/05/as-grinnell-heals-soap-opera-in-the-skies-continues-above-uc-berkeley/] See also LA Times article. For GSS Losing Biodiversity chapter 6.
<><><><>
2021-11-05. Toronto is home to the world’s largest lake-powered cooling system. Here’s how it works. Story by Tik Root, The Washington Post. Excerpt: Deep lake water cooling (DLWC) is used to cool over 100 buildings in the city. It saves enough electricity to power a town of 25,000 — and it’s so popular the city is pursuing an expansion.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/interactive/2021/toronto-deep-latke-water-cooling-raptors/] For GSS Energy Use chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-11-05. A Nuclear-Powered Shower? Russia Tests a Climate Innovation. By Andrew E. Kramer, The New York Times. Excerpt: A remote Siberian town now has its own miniature nuclear plant as a Russian state company tests a new model for residential heating. Some see it as a tool to minimize climate change.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/05/world/europe/russia-nuclear-power-climate-change.html] For GSS Energy Use chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-11-04. A Greener Path. By Dennis Normile, Science Magazine. Excerpt: China is making its Belt and Road Initiative more environmentally friendly. The massive infrastructure program could still cause ecological devastation. …The 40 wind turbines dotting the rolling grassland 9 kilometers south of Zhanatas, an impoverished industrial town in southern Kazakhstan, are monuments to change. …the $160 million Zhanatas Wind Farm has a capacity of 100 megawatts (MW), making it one of the most powerful wind farms in central Asia. It’s a milestone in Kazakhstan’s quest to boost reliance on renewables and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. The country has 300 years’ worth of coal, but isn’t building a single new plant to burn it. The project stands out for another reason as well: It is one of the biggest renewable energy projects built in the region under China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a colossal infrastructure plan that has alarmed environmental advocates. Launched in 2013, BRI links China to markets and sources of raw materials around the world while stimulating economic growth in developing countries. It is providing much-needed power plants, roads, ports, and railways in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. But the “infrastructure tsunami” also threatens to “open a Pandora’s box of environmental crises, including large-scale deforestation, habitat fragmentation, wildlife poaching, water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions,” ecologist William Laurance of James Cook University, Cairns, wrote in The Conversation in 2017.… [https://www.science.org/content/article/china-s-global-infrastructure-program-goes-green-could-still-devastate-ecosystems] For GSS Climate Change chapter 9.
<><><><>
2021-11-03. ‘It is the methane moment.’ How a once ignored greenhouse gas moved to center stage. By Warren Cornwall, Science Magazine. Excerpt: …The potent heat-trapping molecule was once a footnote in discussions about climate change, largely because it breaks down much faster and is less abundant in the atmosphere than the more notorious greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2). Now, however, researchers and policymakers are paying more attention to reducing methane. Yesterday, more than 90 nations signed the Global Methane Pledge, promising to pursue a 30% cut in emissions by 2030. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) yesterday announced plans to, for the first time, heavily regulate methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. Some companies, meanwhile, have begun voluntary efforts to reduce methane emissions. In large part, such efforts are a response to recent research showing methane emissions—including leaks from producing natural gas, which is up to 90% methane—are far bigger and more common than previously thought.… [Note: methane eventually oxidizes into carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O), both of which are also greenhouse gases!] [https://www.science.org/content/article/it-methane-moment-how-once-ignored-greenhouse-gas-moved-center-stage] For GSS Climate Change chapter 3.
<><><><>
2021-11-03. Climate summit produces new pledges that could keep global warming below 2°C target. By Kathleen O’Grady, Science Magazine. Excerpt: …There’s a risk that the new projections will be used by politicians to tout a success that doesn’t yet exist, Rogelj says. For example, many nations, such as Australia, are still expanding their use of fossil fuels while touting ambitious climate goals. “There is very low confidence, with the evidence that we have, that those pledges will be implemented,” Rogelj says. Meinshausen adds that realizing many of the pledges from developing countries will require financial help from wealthy nations…. [https://www.science.org/content/article/climate-summit-produces-new-pledges-could-keep-global-warming-below-2c-target] For GSS Climate Change chapter 9.
<><><><>
2021-11-03. This U.S. city just voted to decarbonize every single building. By Tik Root, The Washington Post. Excerpt: Following a common council vote, Ithaca, N.Y., is set to be the first city in the country to electrify its buildings with the help of BlocPower… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2021/11/03/ithaca-new-york-decarbonize-electrify/] For GSS Energy Use chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-11-02. ‘A rather beautiful concept’: Plan aims to replace Asia’s coal plants with renewable energy. Dennis Normile, Science Magazine. Excerpt: …developing countries in Asia have been on a coal plant building spree. On Wednesday, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) will unveil an initiative intended to reverse that trend. A new fund, to be launched at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, U.K., will help retire coal plants in the region and replace them with solar and wind power installations. …ADB is initially targeting Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. All three countries have increased reliance on coal-fired power in recent years and have additional plants in the pipeline. Indonesia, for example, commissioned 2.4 gigawatts of new coal-fired power in 2019 and 1.3 GW in 2020, and has another 22 GW of capacity in planning, according to an April report by the Global Energy Monitor. Replacing those coal plants with renewables sooner rather than later would not only be good for the environment, but economical as well, says Christoph Nedopil, a development economist at Fudan University. But one obstacle, he says, will be finding the capital to buy out coal plant operators and invest in solar and wind power capacity.… [https://www.science.org/content/article/rather-beautiful-concept-plan-aims-replace-asia-s-coal-plants-renewable-energy] For GSS Energy Use chapter 4.
~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~
<><><><>
2021-11-02. A novel way to reduce emissions? China tries confiscating coal from households. By Eva Dou, The Washington Post. Excerpt: On a crisp Saturday morning last month, men in the black jackets favored by local Chinese officials were going door to door. They were checking to make sure villagers in Tangshan’s Fengrun district — one of China’s smoggiest spots — had quit burning coal for heat. …“We must ensure that ‘not one fire burns, not one wisp of smoke wafts, not one black speck remains,’ ” the Fengrun Economy and Environmental Bureau declared, according to an account of the operation it published. After knocking on 596 doors, the officials had turned up nearly a ton of unprocessed coal and nine tons of briquettes, and warned residents of the steelmaking hub that burning coal was no longer allowed. The household checks reflect tensions in China’s northeastern rust belt as the country comes under new global pressure to reduce its carbon emissions. China is by far the largest greenhouse gas emitter, contributing 27 percent of the world’s output. The country is in the spotlight at the COP26 talks in Glasgow, Scotland, where leaders are discussing how to forestall severe effects of climate change.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/china-climate-coal-emissions-cop26/2021/11/03/f32c1c9e-3642-11ec-9662-399cfa75efee_story.html] For GSS Energy Use chapter 3 and Climate Change chapter 9.
<><><><>
2021-10-28. China Hurries to Burn More Coal, Putting Climate Goals at Risk. By Keith Bradsher, The New York Times. Excerpt: Faced with electricity shortages, the country is racing to expand mining despite risks to the environment, miner safety and the economy.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/28/business/energy-environment/china-coal-climate.html] For GSS Energy Use chapter 4.
<><><><>
2021-10-29. An Electricity Crisis Complicates the Climate Crisis in Europe. By Melissa Eddy and Somini Sengupta, The New York Times. Excerpt: BERLIN — The soaring price of electricity represents a Rorschach test for Europe’s politicians. Depending on their leanings, it is either a reason to wean the continent from fossil fuels more swiftly — or more slowly. The timing is crucial. European Union leaders have cast themselves as the vanguard of a global green transition at the international climate talks that kick off this weekend in Glasgow. …Europe accounts for a very large share of global emissions produced since the start of the industrial age, and its ability to pivot away from fossil fuels is key to averting ruinous rates of global warming. At the heart of the surge in electricity prices is Europe’s reliance on natural gas to turn on the lights, heat homes, and power industry. Even though most countries in the bloc are moving away from coal faster than other parts of the world, like Asia, they have continued to lean on gas while building out their renewable energy infrastructure.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/29/climate/europe-energy-crisis-cop.html] For GSS Climate Change chapter 9.
<><><><>
2021-10-29. Greece Is Getting Rewired for the Future. By Liz Alderman, The New York Times. Excerpt: …The push for a transition to clean energy would seem a herculean task for Greece, a country of around 10 million that recently emerged from a devastating decade-long debt crisis and still leans heavily on fossil fuels for power. …Greece is getting a powerful financial boost to underwrite these efforts: 30 billion euros (nearly $35 billion) — equivalent to a fifth of Greece’s economy — from a European Union recovery funddesigned to power a rebound from the coronavirus pandemic. …The idea is to build Greece’s incomplete infrastructure to cycle more solar and wind power through the national grid. Greece aims to produce 60 percent of its power from renewable energy sources by 2030 and be climate neutral by 2050.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/29/business/greece-green-energy-climate-eu.html] For GSS Climate Change chapter 9 and Energy Use chapter 5.
<><><><>
2021-10-28. On eve of climate summit, researchers sharpen emissions tracking. By Warren Cornwall, Science Magazine. Excerpt: …the world needs to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030, but current national pledges only trim emissions by 7.5%, the United Nations Environment Programme warned this week. In a bid to achieve the Paris goal, some nations at the meeting, formally known as the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26), are expected to commit to deeper emissions cuts, especially from the burning of fossil fuels. While nations step up their pledges, some scientists and policymakers are focused on making sure they stick to them. They are nurturing rapidly emerging technologies—including satellites, sensors, and software—that promise a quick and accurate assessment of greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane.… [https://www.science.org/content/article/eve-climate-summit-researchers-sharpen-emissions-tracking] For GSS Climate Change chapter 9.
<><><><>
2021-10-28. Old Power Gear Is Slowing Use of Clean Energy and Electric Cars. By Ivan Penn, The New York Times. Excerpt: …President Biden is pushing lawmakers and regulators to wean the United States from fossil fuels and counter the effects of climate change. But his ambitious goals could be upended by aging transformers and dated electrical lines that have made it hard for homeowners, local governments and businesses to use solar panels, batteries, electric cars, heat pumps and other devices that can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Much of the equipment on the electric grid was built decades ago and needs to be upgraded. It was designed for a world in which electricity flowed in one direction — from the grid to people. Now, homes and businesses are increasingly supplying energy to the grid from their rooftop solar panels. These problems have become more urgent because the fastest way to cut greenhouse gas emissions is to move machinery, cars and heating equipment that currently run on oil and natural gas to electricity generated by solar, wind, nuclear and other zero-emission energy sources. Yet the grid is far from having enough capacity to power all the things that can help address the effects of climate change, energy experts said.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/28/business/energy-environment/electric-grid-overload-solar-ev.html] For GSS Energy Use chapter 5.
<><><><>
2021-10-25. Measuring Sea Level Rise Along the Coast. By David Shultz, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: …Earth’s ocean is clearly rising. Between the loss of land and sea ice and warmer waters expanding, rising sea level is a global issue. But the equation governing exactly where the land meets the ocean also depends on the land itself. For instance, various forces such as the motion of tectonic plates can cause vertical land motion (VLM) that either exacerbates or mitigates the threat of sea level rise. VLM is caused by a host of different factors. Tectonic forces can drive continents up or down as plates subduct beneath one another. But motion can also result from changes in the water content in an aquifer or stored in the land’s surface water. In a new study supported by NASA’s Sea Level Change program, Hammond et al. use GPS station data from thousands of sites across the planet to create a global map of VLM along the coasts, which the authors say, can be compared to tide gauge data to forecast future sea level rise. One particularly important cause of VLM is glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA), which describes how Earth’s crust rebounds after ice melts away. Similar to how a memory foam mattress doesn’t rebound immediately when you roll over, the crust takes time to rebound when large amounts of ice melt. In fact, Earth’s crust is still rising in many places in the Northern Hemisphere as it recovers from the last ice age.… [https://eos.org/research-spotlights/measuring-sea-level-rise-along-the-coast] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-10-25. Air Pollution Killed a Million People in Africa in 2019. By Andrew Mambondiyani, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Air pollution was responsible for 1.1 million deaths across Africa in 2019, with more than half of those fatalities associated with household (indoor) pollutants, according to a study recently published in The Lancet Planetary Health. …More than 350 million African children live in households that use solid fuels, mostly wood and coal, for cooking and heating. Sanganyado, who is also president of the Zimbabwe Young Academy of Sciences, said emissions from these solid fuels were the main causes of indoor air pollution. …a shift away from wood and coal and toward solar and wind could help reduce the hazard. …“While use of electrical stoves has helped to reduce indoor air pollution, the gains are now being reversed due to the current electricity shortage in most sub-Saharan African countries,” Sanganyado said. …a strong, rapid push for solar and wind power by governments and development partners across Africa. Developing renewables is likely to reduce air pollution, stimulate sustainable and safe growth, and improve the livelihoods of more than half a billion residents of sub-Saharan Africa who live without any electricity at all.… [https://eos.org/articles/air-pollution-killed-a-million-people-in-africa-in-2019] For GSS Energy Use chapter 10.
<><><><>
2021-10-22. Dinosaurs thrived until the moment asteroid hit, excavators of controversial site claim. By Michael Price, Science Magazine. Excerpt: …Two years ago, a paleontologist claimed to have found evidence at a fossil-rich North Dakotan site called Tanis that dinosaurs were alive until moments after the impact, when floodwaters surged over them. But many paleontologists were skeptical, especially because the dinosaur data were first discussed in a magazine story rather than a peer-reviewed journal. Last week, at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA) in Portland, Oregon, paleontologist Robert DePalma and colleagues added detail to their claims. They presented evidence of fossils from Tanis—including stunningly well-preserved bones, skin, and footprints from what’s probably a Triceratops—that suggest dinosaurs were indeed witnesses to the asteroid that ushered them out of existence.… [https://www.science.org/content/article/dinosaurs-thrived-until-moment-asteroid-hit-excavators-controversial-site-claim] For GSS Life and Climate chapter 9 and A Changing Cosmos chapter 1.
~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~
<><><><>
2021-10-22. How Russia Is Cashing In on Climate Change. By Andrew E. Kramer, The New York Times. Excerpt: …While governments across the globe may be racing to head off the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change, the economics of global warming are playing out differently in Russia. Arable land is expanding, with farmers planting corn in parts of Siberia where it never grew before. Winter heating bills are declining, and Russian fishermen have found a modest pollock catch in thawed areas of the Arctic Ocean near Alaska. Nowhere do the prospects seem brighter than in Russia’s Far North, where rapidly rising temperatures have opened up a panoply of new possibilities, like mining and energy projects. Perhaps the most profound of these is the prospect, as early as next year, of year-round Arctic shipping with specially designed “ice class” container vessels, offering an alternative to the Suez Canal. …The trip from Busan, in South Korea, to Amsterdam, for example, is 13 days shorter over the Northern Sea Route — a significant savings in time and fuel.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/22/world/europe/russia-arctic-climate-change-putin.html] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-10-19. In Sonoma County, ‘Regenerative Agriculture’ Is the Next Big Thing. By Amy Tara Koch, The New York Times. Excerpt: This holistic approach to land management is called regenerative agriculture. It eschews conventional farming techniques and taps into composting, pollinator habitat restoration and other measures to encourage nutrient-dense soil. These practices also curb skyrocketing carbon emissions by coaxing carbon from the atmosphere and into plant roots, a process known as carbon sequestration. Nitrogen, supplied by cover crops, helps the process. …Indeed, mitigating climate change is the end goal. And while many wineries around the world are also implementing decarbonization measures, vineyards in Sonoma County are some of the earliest pioneers in the practice.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/19/travel/sonoma-county-regenerative-agriculture.html] For GSS Climate Change chapter 10.
<><><><>
2021-10-18. A Taste for Pangolin Meat and the Fall of an African Wildlife Cartel. By Rachel Nuwer, The New York Times. Excerpt: Hundreds of poachers are arrested each year for killing elephants, rhinos, pangolins and other animals in Africa. Yet the problem persists, because there is always a ready supply of desperate men to take the place of those put behind bars. Higher-level criminals, on the other hand — those who really drive the international illegal wildlife trade — almost always evade justice. Malawi, the southern African nation bounded by Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia, once fell prey to this lax law enforcement and became “one of the biggest wildlife trafficking hubs in Southern Africa,” said Dudu Douglas-Hamilton, head of counter wildlife trafficking at the Elephant Crisis Fund, a nonprofit group that supports conservation projects across Africa. But significant efforts on the ground to combat the country’s difficulties with poaching and trafficking have started to pay off, and the example Malawi is now setting may show other African nations how they can do the same. On Sept. 28, a judge in Lilongwe, the country’s capital, sentenced Yunhua Lin to as much as 14 years in prison for a variety of charges he was previously found guilty of: rhino horn possession and dealing, and money laundering. Investigators say Mr. Lin, a 48-year-old Chinese citizen, played a central role in turning Malawi into a wildlife crime hot spot. After he serves his concurrent sentences, he will be deported to China..… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/18/science/malawi-poaching-wildlife.html] For GSS Losing Biodiversity chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-10-21. Civil war drove these elephants to lose their tusks—through evolution. By Erik Stokstad, Science Magazine. Excerpt: As ivory poachers wiped out herds, tuskless elephants became more common. …When humans hunt, they can cause their quarry to evolve by targeting individuals with particular traits, like big fish or sheep with hefty horns. But it’s rare to figure out the genetics behind this human-caused evolution, experts say. Shane Campbell-Staton, an evolutionary biologist now at Princeton University, was curious about the elephants of Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique, where tuskless elephants—which are all female—are unusually common.… [https://www.science.org/content/article/civil-war-drove-these-elephants-lose-their-tusks-through-evolution] For GSS Losing Biodiversity chapter 3.
<><><><>
2021-10-19. Amazon, Ikea and other big companies commit to zero-emission shipping by 2040. By Hamza Shaban, The Washington Post. Excerpt: In an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in global trade, a coalition of companies that includes Amazon and Ikea has pledged to use only ocean shippers that use zero-carbon fuel by 2040. The cargo ships that ferry as much as 90 percent of the world’s products also produce nearly 3 percent of man-made carbon dioxide emissions each year — an estimated nearly 1.1 billion tons that rivals the annual output of Germany, the world’s sixth-largest emitter. Organized by the nonprofit Aspen Institute, the initiative counts Amazon, Unilever, Michelin and Patagonia among its signatories.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/10/19/zero-carbon-fuel-shipping-amazon-ikea/] For GSS Energy Use chapter 9.
<><><><>
2021-10-11. Seventy-two Hours Under the Heat Dome. By James Ross Gardner, The New Yorker. Excerpt: A chronicle of a slow-motion climate disaster that became one of Oregon’s deadliest calamities. …Typhoon Champi caused no serious damage and no loss of human life. But a number of atmospheric scientists believe that it may be what gave the jet stream a snap. After the storm diminished, its force continued on, crimping the jet stream into a sharply curved band, or what meteorologists refer to as an omega block, because it resembles the Greek letter. This led to what’s called, colloquially, a heat dome, a high-pressure system in which hot air is trapped over a single geographic area. It stalled over British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon, sealing in the heat. …In the course of the heat wave, the cooling shelters hosted fourteen hundred people overnight. At its peak, the convention center housed three hundred and eighty-five in a single night, not to mention dozens of dogs and cats, and a few rabbits—a temperature-controlled ark riding out the wave in a city blistering under the deadly reckoning of climate change. …By the time temperatures cooled, at least ninety-six people would be confirmed by the state medical examiner to have died of heat-related causes, making this one of the deadliest natural disasters in Oregon’s history…. [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/10/18/seventy-two-hours-under-the-heat-dome] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2020-07-08. How America’s hottest city will survive climate change. By Sarah Kaplan, photos by Cassidy Araiza, The Washington Post. Excerpt: …The goal is for Phoenix to become the country’s first heat-ready city — equipped to survive a rapidly warming world. Each year, more Americans die from extreme heat than are killed by storms, floods and wildfires combined. In few places is the problem more pronounced than in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix and its suburbs. In 2019, the region saw 103 days of triple-digit temperaturesand 197 fatalities from heat-related causes. It was the highest number of heat-associated deaths on record for the county, and the fourth year in a row of record-setting heat deaths there. Those numbers are only expected to increase as the climate changes. …Urban conservation program manager Maggie Messerschmidt had envisioned a project called “Nature’s Cooling Systems,” which would harness the power of natural processes like evapotranspiration to cool the neighborhoods most in need. …In 2019, residents of each neighborhood developed a 20-page “heat action plan” for their community. Edison-Eastlake’s plan calls for repaving the sidewalks with materials that stay cool by reflecting the sun, installing shade structures at bus stops and creating tree-covered “talking spaces” in a planned park.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/climate-solutions/phoenix-climate-change-heat/] For GSS Climate Change chapter 10.
~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~
<><><><>
2021-10-19. On a Pacific Island, Russia Tests Its Battle Plan for Climate Change. By Anton Troianovski, Photographs by Sergey Ponomarev, The New York Times. Excerpt: President Vladimir V. Putin long dismissed the threat posed by global warming. But fires, disasters and foreign pressure have prompted him to change course. SAKHALIN ISLAND, Russia — Sixteen wind turbines are slated to go up amid the winding coast and wooded hills of this Russian island in the Pacific, creating a wind park bigger than any that currently exists in the vast reaches of the country’s Far East. The clean energy generated by the new wind park will go toward mining more coal.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/19/world/europe/russia-climate-change.html] For GSS Climate Change chapter 9.
<><><><>
2021-10-19. Russia allows methane leaks at planet’s peril. By Steven Mufson, Isabelle Khurshudyan, Chris Mooney, Brady Dennis, John Muyskens and Naema Ahmed, The Washington Post. Excerpt: On the morning of Friday, June 4, an underground gas pipeline running through the ancient state of Tatarstan sprang a leak. And not a small one. In a different era, the massive leak might have gone unnoticed. But hovering 520 miles above the Earth, a European Space Agency satellite was keeping watch. The four-year-old Copernicus Sentinel-5P, which orbits the planet 14 times a day, looks for traces of methane and other gases. …Crews from the natural gas giant Gazprom hurried to repair a defect in the steel pipeline and stem the rush of methane — an invisible but powerful greenhouse gas — which was escaping into the atmosphere at a breakneck rate of approximately 395 metric tons an hour. …Methane, the second-most abundant greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide, accounts for roughly a quarter of global warming since the industrial revolution, according to NASA. It is the chief component of natural gas. Today, the second-biggest natural gas producer is Russia, fed by the prolific Yamal region, followed by Iran and its Persian Gulf gas fields. Next come China, Canada and Qatar, with its flotilla of liquefied natural gas tankers. The United States, bolstered by horizontal fracking in the Permian Basin across west Texas and eastern New Mexico, remains the world’s largest natural gas producer.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2021/russia-greenhouse-gas-emissions/] For GSS Climate Change chapter chapter 3 and Energy Use chapter 3.
<><><><>
2021-10-13. China’s Power Problems Expose a Strategic Weakness. By Keith Bradsher, The New York Times. Excerpt: China announced on Wednesday a national rush to mine and burn more coal, as the country’s electricity shortage threatens to damage its image as a reliable manufacturing base.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/business/china-electricity-shortage.html] See also The Washington Post Article, Mass floods hit China’s coal hub, threatening power supplies. For GSS Energy Use chapter 3.
<><><><>
2021-10-14. The Most Important Global Meeting You’ve Probably Never Heard Of Is Now. By Catrin Einhorn, The New York Times. Excerpt: As 20,000 government leaders, journalists, activists and celebrities from around the world prepare to descend on Glasgow for a crucial climate summit starting late this month, another high-level international environmental meeting got started this week. The problem it seeks to tackle: A rapid collapse of species and systems that collectively sustain life on earth. …Climate change is only one driver of biodiversity loss. For now, the major culprit on land is humans destroying habitat through activities like farming, mining and logging. At sea, it’s overfishing. Other causes include pollution and introduced species that drive out native ones. “When you have two concurrent existential crises, you don’t get to pick only one to focus on — you must address both no matter how challenging,” said Brian O’Donnell, director of the Campaign for Nature, an advocacy group. “This is the equivalent of having a flat tire and a dead battery in your car at the same time. You’re still stuck if you only fix one.”… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/14/climate/un-biodiversity-conference-climate-change.html] For GSS Losing Biodiversity chapter 1.
<><><><>
2021-10-14. Meteorite Crashes Through Ceiling and Lands on Woman’s Bed. By John Yoon and Vjosa Isai, The New York Times. Excerpt: Ruth Hamilton was fast asleep in her home in British Columbia when she awoke to the sound of her dog barking, followed by “an explosion.” She jumped up and turned on the light, only to see a hole in the ceiling. Her clock said 11:35 p.m. …“Oh, my gosh,” she recalled telling the operator, “there’s a rock in my bed.” A meteorite, she later learned. The 2.8-pound rock the size of a large man’s fist had barely missed Ms. Hamilton’s head, leaving “drywall debris all over my face,” she said. Her close encounter on the night of Oct. 3 left her rattled, but it captivated the internet and handed scientists an unusual chance to study a space rock that had crashed to Earth.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/14/world/canada/meteorite-bed.html] For GSS A Changing Cosmos chapter 7.
<><><><>
2021-10-13. Astronomers Found a Planet That Survived Its Star’s Death. By Becky Ferreira, The New York Times. Excerpt: When our sun enters its death throes in about five billion years, it will incinerate our planet and then dramatically collapse into a dead ember known as a white dwarf. But the fate of more distant planets, such as Jupiter or Saturn, is less clear. On Wednesday in the journal Nature, astronomers reported observing a tantalizing preview of our solar system’s afterlife: a Jupiter-size planet orbiting a white dwarf some 6,500 light years from here. Known as MOA-2010-BLG-477Lb, the planet occupies a comparable orbit to Jupiter. The discovery not only offers a glimpse into our cosmic future, it raises the possibility that any life on “survivor” worlds may endure the deaths of their stars. …“The fate of our solar system is likely to be similar to MOA-2010-BLG-477Lb,” he added in an email. “The sun will become a white dwarf, the inner planets will be engulfed, and the wider-orbit planets like Jupiter and Saturn will survive.”… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/science/white-dwarf-planet.html] For GSS A Changing Cosmos chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-10-13. Air conditioning in a changing climate: a growing rich-poor divide. By Edward Lempinen, UC Berkeley News. Excerpt: As the earth’s climate warms, residents of affluent nations will find some relief with air conditioning, but people in lower-income countries may have to pay vastly more for electricity or do without cooling, says a new study co-authored at the University of California, Berkeley. The research, published today in Nature, provides a dramatic new view of how climate change will aggravate the global gap between rich and poor nations. It found that even as temperatures rise, electricity consumption in the U.S. might increase only slightly by the end of the century. But in some emerging countries, demand for energy could rise dramatically as residents seek access to air conditioning, while others will still be so poor that air conditioning will remain an inaccessible dream, the researchers found. …“While some form of air conditioning is present in 90% of homes in the United States,” Rode explained, “this is currently true for only 5% of homes in India. As climate change causes heat waves to become more intense and frequent in future decades, the data show that electricity to power cooling technology, like fans or air conditioners, remains out of reach for more than half of the global population.”… [https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/10/13/air-conditioning-in-a-changing-climate-a-growing-rich-poor-divide/] For GSS Energy Use chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-09-16. Purdue record for the whitest paint appears in latest edition of ‘Guinness World Records’. From Purdue University News. Excerpt: …the world’s whitest paint, … may dramatically reduce or even eliminate the need for air conditioning. The paint, developed at Purdue University, has earned a Guinness World RecordsTM title. …“When we started this project about seven years ago, we had saving energy and fighting climate change in mind,” said Xiulin Ruan, a professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue, in a podcast episode of “This Is Purdue.” Ruan invented the paint with his graduate students. …The formulation that Ruan’s lab created reflects 98.1% of solar radiation at the same time as emitting infrared heat. Because the paint absorbs less heat from the sun than it emits, a surface coated with this paint is cooled below the surrounding temperature without consuming power. Typical commercial white paint gets warmer rather than cooler. Paints on the market that are designed to reject heat reflect only 80%-90% of sunlight and can’t make surfaces cooler than their surroundings. Using this new paint formulation to cover a roof area of about 1,000 square feet could result in a cooling power of 10 kilowatts, Purdue researchers showed in a published paper. “That’s more powerful than the air conditioners used by most houses,” Ruan said.… [https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2021/Q3/purdue-record-for-the-whitest-paint-appears-in-latest-edition-of-guinness-world-records.html] For GSS Energy Use chapter 8.
~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~
<><><><>
2021-10-13. Plug-in cars are the future. The grid isn’t ready. By Will Englund, The Washington Post. Excerpt: By 2035, the chief automakers will have turned away from the internal combustion engine. It’ll be up to the grid to fuel all those new cars, trucks and buses.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/10/13/electric-vehicles-grid-upgrade/] For GSS Energy Use chapter 5.
<><><><>
2021-10-13. Biden Administration Plans Wind Farms Along Nearly the Entire U.S. Coastline. By Coral Davenport, The New York Times. Excerpt: …Speaking at a wind power industry conference in Boston, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said that her agency will begin to identify, demarcate and hope to eventually lease federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of Maine and off the coasts of the Mid-Atlantic States, North Carolina and South Carolina, California and Oregon, to wind power developers by 2025. …Taken together, the actions represent the most forceful push ever by federal government to promote offshore wind development.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/climate/biden-offshore-wind-farms.html] For GSS Climate Change chapter 9.
<><><><>
2021-10-11. More Than 30 Countries Join U.S. Pledge to Slash Methane Emissions. Source: By Lisa Friedman, The New York Times. Excerpt: Methane is the second-largest driver of global warming after carbon dioxide emissions. Scientists say the promised cuts could help avert the worst consequences of climate change. …Methane is the second-most prevalent greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide but much more potent in the short term in its ability to heat the planet. It is the main component of natural gas and is also released into the atmosphere from landfills, livestock and thawing permafrost. …The pledge, developed with the European Union, commits nations to cut emissions from methane 30 percent by 2030. …While the four heaviest emitters of methane — China, India, Russia and Brazil — have not joined the pledge, the administration announced that nine of the world’s top 20 methane polluters had signed on. In addition to the United States and the European Union, they are Canada, Indonesia, Pakistan, Mexico, Nigeria, Argentina and Iraq.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/11/climate/methane-global-climate.html] For GSS Climate Change chapters 3 and 9.
<><><><>
2021-10-12. A recipe for fighting climate
change and feeding the world. Source: By Sarah Kaplan, The Washington Post. Excerpt: Scientists hope this new kind of perennial grain offers a taste of what environmentally friendly farming could look like. …Most commercial crops are annual. They provide only one harvest and must be replanted every year. Growing these foods on an industrial scale usually takes huge amounts of water, fertilizer and energy, making agriculture a major source of carbon and other pollutants. Scientists say this style of farming has imperiled Earth’s soils, destroyed vital habitats and contributed to the dangerous warming of our world. But Kernza — a domesticated form of wheatgrass developed by scientists at the nonprofit Land Institute — is perennial. A single seed will grow into a plant that provides grain year after year after year. It forms deep roots that store carbon in the soil and prevent erosion. It can be planted alongside other crops to reduce the need for fertilizer and provide habitat for wildlife. In short, proponents say, it can mimic the way a natural ecosystem works — potentially transforming farming from a cause of environmental degradation into a solution to the planet’s biggest crises.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/interactive/2021/bread-baking-sustainable-grain-kernza/] For GSS Population Growth chapter 5.
<><><><>
2021-10-10. Berkeley’s yellow school buses are going green. Source: By Ally Markovich, Berkeleyside. Excerpt: A fleet of eight electric school buses is picking up Berkeley students for the first time this fall. …Across the country, school districts are beginning to trade diesel buses, which have been shown to exacerbate symptoms related to asthma and other respiratory illnesses, for electric buses, which reduce instances of these illnesses. A typical commute on a diesel bus accounts for one third of a student’s daily exposure to pollutants, even though the average student spends less than 10% of their day riding the bus, according to research conducted by California Air Resources Board.… [https://www.berkeleyside.org/2021/10/10/electric-school-buses-berkeley-unified] For GSS Energy Use chapter 9.
<><><><>
2017 and 2019. Videos on bike-friendly cities in the Netherlands. For GSS Energy Use chapter 9:
2019 – Utrecht: Planning for People & Bikes, Not for Cars
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Boi0XEm9-4E
2017 – Nijmegen: The City That Tamed Cars So People Can Walk & Bike Where They Please
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjLZv3Y0CWM
<><><><>
2021-10-07. 6 Aspects of American Life Threatened by Climate Change. Source: By Christopher Flavelle, The New York Times. Excerpt: Two dozen federal agencies flagged the biggest dangers posed by a warming planet. The list spreads across American society. …Less food. More traffic accidents. Extreme weather hitting nuclear waste sites. Migrants rushing toward the United States, fleeing even worse calamity in their own countries. Those scenarios, once the stuff of dystopian fiction, are now driving American policymaking. Under orders from President Biden, top officials at every government agency have spent months considering the top climate threats their agencies face, and how to cope with them. On Thursday, the White House offered a first look at the results, releasing the climate-adaptation plans of 23 agencies, including the departments of Energy, Defense, Agriculture, Homeland Security, Transportation and Commerce.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/07/climate/climate-threats-federal-government.html] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-09-30. How Do You Know If You’ve Experienced Global Warming? Source: By Kimberly M. S. Cartier, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: People in every corner of the United States are increasingly seeing climate change affect their daily lives: water shortages and lost crops from extended drought, record-breaking heat waves in cities, hazy air from wildfire smoke half a country away, and hurricane-related flooding in basement apartments, to name just a few. …A recent study in Global Environmental Change has found that regardless of political and sociodemographic factors, experiencing an anomalously high number of hot, dry days is most likely to make U.S. residents believe they’ve experienced global warming. “Climate change expresses itself very differently in different places—wildfires and drought in the West, hurricanes and flooding in the East, all of the above in Texas!” said Jennifer Marlon, a climate scientist at the Yale School of the Environment in New Haven, Conn., and lead author of the study. “This study points to the importance of helping people interpret local impacts from extreme weather and connecting those impacts to their root cause: fossil fuel burning and the carbon pollution it produces.” …Only after experiencing an unusually high number of hot, dry days were respondents more likely than the national average of 30% to answer that they had personally experienced global warming. Each year of the survey, the shift in perception was greatest in regions that were most affected by heat waves and long-term drought, including California, Texas, and cities across the country.… [https://eos.org/articles/how-do-you-know-if-youve-experienced-global-warming] For GSS Climate Change chapter 10.
<><><><>
2021-09-29. Degraded Coral Reefs May Be More Resistant to Climate Change. Source: By Clara Chaisson, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: New research on Kiribati’s beleaguered atolls paints a complex picture of reef recovery.… [https://eos.org/articles/degraded-coral-reefs-may-be-more-resistant-to-climate-change] For GSS Losing Biodiversity chapter 7.
~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~
<><><><>
2021-10-05. Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded for Study of Humanity’s Role in Changing Climate. Source: By Cade Metz, Marc Santora and Cora Engelbrecht, The New York Times. Excerpt: The work of Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi “demonstrate that our knowledge about the climate rests on a solid scientific foundation,” the committee said. …In 1967, Dr. Manabe developed a computer model that confirmed the critical connection between the primary greenhouse gas — carbon dioxide — and warming in the atmosphere.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/science/nobel-prize-physics-manabe-klaus-parisi.html] For GSS Climate Change chapter 1.
<><><><>
2021-10-04. California Oil Spill Closes Beaches and Renews Call for Drilling Ban. Source: By Jill Cowan, Clifford Krauss and Ivan Penn, The New York Times. Excerpt: A pipeline transporting oil from offshore platforms spilled at least 126,000 gallons of oil in Southern California, the state’s largest such leak since 2015.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/04/us/california-oil-spill-beach.html] For GSS Energy Use chapter 3.
<><><><>
2021-10-04. Climate Change Is Devastating Coral Reefs Worldwide, Major Report Says. Source: By Catrin Einhorn, The New York Times. Excerpt: The world lost 14 percent of its coral in just a decade, researchers found. …mainly because of climate change, according to a sweeping international report on the state of the world’s corals. The report, issued late Monday, underscores the catastrophic consequences of global warming while also offering some hope that some coral reefs can be saved if humans move quickly to rein in greenhouse gases.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/04/climate/coral-reefs-climate-change.html] For GSS Losing Biodiversity chapter 7.
<><><><>
2021-10-03. This electric car can go 520 miles on a charge but the CEO says that’s not important. Source: By Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNN Business. Excerpt: The Lucid Air Dream Edition was recently rated by the Environmental Protection Agency with an estimated driving range of 520 miles on a full charge. That’s the longest range of any purely battery-powered car yet rated by the EPA, including Tesla’s Model S Long Range. …It’s even farther than most gasoline cars can travel on a full tank. But Lucid’s chief executive Peter Rawlinson, who once worked at Tesla and helped engineer the original Model S, thinks that jaw-dropping number, 520 miles, isn’t actually terribly important. …most electric vehicle owners will charge overnight at home or at work and, when they take long trips, public chargers will be available at intervals of much less than 500 miles.… [https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/03/business/lucid-air-520-miles-efficiency/index.html] For GSS Energy Use chapter 9.
<><><><>
2021-10-01. What’s the Least Bad Way to Cool the Planet? Source: By David Keith, The New York Times. Excerpt: [We usually do not post opinion pieces, but this one raises an important point…] …Warming is proportional to the cumulative emissions over the industrial era. Eliminating emissions by about 2050 is a difficult but achievable goal. …Average temperatures will stop increasing when emissions stop, but cooling will take thousands of years as greenhouse gases slowly dissipate from the atmosphere. Because the world will be a lot hotter by the time emissions reach zero, heat waves and storms will be worse than they are today. And while the heat will stop getting worse, sea level will continue to rise for centuries as polar ice melts in a warmer world. This July was the hottest month ever recorded, but it is likely to be one of the coolest Julys for centuries after emissions reach zero. …To cool the planet in this century, humans must either remove carbon from the air or use solar geoengineering, a temporary measure that may reduce peak temperatures, extreme storms and other climatic changes. Humans might make the planet Earth more reflective by adding tiny sulfuric acid droplets to the stratosphere from aircraft, whitening low-level clouds over the ocean by spraying sea salt into the air or by other interventions.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/01/opinion/climate-change-geoengineering.html] For GSS Climate Change chapter 10.
<><><><>
2021-09-30. In Your Facebook Feed: Oil Industry Pushback Against Biden Climate Plans. Source: By Hiroko Tabuchi, The New York Times. Excerpt: The messages take aim at Democrats by name as part of a broad effort to undermine landmark climate legislation that now hangs in the balance in Congress.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/30/climate/api-exxon-biden-climate-bill.html] For GSS Climate Change chapter 10.
<><><><>
2021-09-24. How the Ski Industry Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Climate Activism. Source: By Jenessa Duncombe, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: A cultural shift is underway to transform outdoor buffs into stalwarts for climate action. Will it come soon enough to save their sport?…. [https://eos.org/features/how-the-ski-industry-stopped-worrying-and-learned-to-love-climate-activism] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-09-24. Winter’s Melting Point. Source: By Heather Goss, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Around the world, the seasonal snowpack is changing. Eos’s October issue looks at how we study winter weather, adapt to climate changes, and even fight for the snow we love.… [https://eos.org/agu-news/winters-melting-point] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-09-27. Ford Will Build 4 Factories in a Big Electric Vehicle Push. Source: By Neal E. Boudette, The New York Times. Excerpt: The automaker and a supplier will spend $11.4 billion on three battery factories and a truck plant, creating 11,000 jobs.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/business/energy-environment/ford-battery-electric-vehicles.html] For GSS Energy Use chapter 9.
<><><><>
2021-10-03. Trams, Cable Cars, Electric Ferries: How Cities Are Rethinking Transit. Source: By Somini Sengupta, The New York Times. Excerpt: Urban transportation is central to the effort to slow climate change. It can’t be done by just switching to electric cars. Several cities are starting to electrify mass transit. …a quiet transformation is underway. Berlin, Bogotá and several other cities are taking creative steps to cut gas and diesel from their public transit systems. …Berlin is reviving electric tram lines that were ripped out when the Berlin Wall went up. Bogotá is building cable cars that cut through the clouds to connect working-class communities perched on faraway hills. Bergen, a city by the fjords in western Norway, is moving its public ferries away from diesel and onto batteries — a remarkable shift in a petrostate that has for decades enriched itself from the sale of oil and gas and that now wants to be a leader in marine vessels for the electric age. Bergen’s buses, too, are now electric, supplied by Chinese bus makers that have seized on the market in cities as far afield as Los Angeles and Santiago, Chile. The change is audible. “You can hear voices again in the streets,” said Jon Askeland, the mayor of the county that includes Bergen.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/03/climate/cities-public-transit-electric-tram-ferry-bus-cable-car.html] For GSS Energy Use chapter 9.
<><><><>
2021-09-28. Electric Cars Have Hit an Inflection Point. Source: By Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic. Excerpt: One sign EVs are no longer the auto industry’s neglected stepchild? Norway could sell its last gas-powered car as soon as next year. …Last night, the automaker [Ford] and SK Innovation, a South Korean battery manufacturer, announced that they were spending $11.4 billion to build two new multi-factory centers in Tennessee and Kentucky that are scheduled to begin production in 2025. The facilities, which will hire a combined 11,000 employees, will manufacture lithium-ion vehicle batteries and assemble electric F-series pickup trucks. …this will be its first plant in Tennessee in six decades. …and its first new American vehicle-assembly plant in decades. …GM, Ford, Volkswagen, Toyota, BMW, and the parent company of Fiat-Chrysler have all pledged that by 2030, at least 40 percent of their new cars worldwide will run on a non-gasoline source. …More remarkably (and importantly), automakers are spending like they actually believe that goal: The auto industry as a whole will pump more than $500 billion into EV investment by 2030. … [https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2021/09/electric-cars-have-hit-inflection-point/620233/] For GSS Energy Use chapter 9.
<><><><>
2021-09-23. Better Together: Perovskites Boost Silicon Solar Cell Efficiency. Source: By Mary Caperton Morton, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Scientists engineer a way to layer materials to boost efficiency without interrupting manufacturing processes. …solar panels made with crystalline silicon convert between 18% and 22% of the Sun’s energy into usable electricity, with an upward theoretical limit of 33%. Despite this limitation, crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells account for 95% of the solar cell market. …In a new perspective, published in Applied Physics Letters, a team led by Laura Miranda Pérez, head of materials research at Oxford PV in the United Kingdom, and Chris Case, the chief technology officer at Oxford PV, presents a case for commercializing tandem solar cells by combining existing silicon cell technology with synthetic variants of the perovskite. …By adding perovskite, which more efficiently captures the blue region of the solar spectrum, to silicon, which targets the red region, Oxford PV has set a record solar cell efficiency of more than 29.5%. With further development, efficiencies could reach as high as 39%, said Miranda Pérez.… [https://eos.org/articles/better-together-perovskites-boost-silicon-solar-cell-efficiency] For GSS Energy Use chapter 10.
~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~
<><><><>
2021-09-27. Volcanic Eruptions Helped Dinosaurs Dominate Planet Earth. Source: By Sam Jones, The New York Times. Excerpt: Massive eruptions transformed the climate in the Triassic era, creating the conditions in which dinosaurs diversified into many more species. …For decades, scientists argued over whether volcanoes or an asteroid caused dinosaurs’ abrupt extinction some 65 million years ago. It wasn’t until 2010 that an international panel of experts formally declared that it was the space rock, and not giant eruptions, that was the primary cause of dino demise. And now a team of researchers is presenting the most compelling evidence yet that massive volcanic events likely helped the dinosaurs take over the planet, at least in another era. Their results were published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/science/dinosaurs-volcanoes-triassic.html] For GSS Life and Climate chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-09-29. Ivory-billed woodpecker officially declared extinct, along with 22 other species. Source: By Dino Grandoni, The Washington Post. Excerpt: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s move underscores what scientists say is an accelerating rate of extinction worldwide, given climate change and habitat loss… …The Fish and Wildlife Service proposal Wednesday to take 23 animals and plants off the endangered species list — because none can be found in the wild— exposes what scientists say is an accelerating rate of extinction worldwide. A million plants and animals are in danger of disappearing, many within decades. The newly extinct species are the casualties of climate change and habitat destruction, dying out sooner than any new protections can save them. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/09/29/endangered-species-ivory-billed-woodpecker/] For GSS Losing Biodiversity chapter 6. See also The New York Times article Protected Too Late: U.S. Officials Report More Than 20 Extinctions.
<><><><>
2021-09-28. This May Be the First Planet Found Orbiting 3 Stars at Once. Source: By Jonathan O’Callaghan, The New York Times. Excerpt: It’s called a circumtriple planet, and evidence that one exists suggests that planet formation is less unusual than once believed. …GW Ori is a star system 1,300 light years from Earth in the constellation of Orion. It is surrounded by a huge disk of dust and gas, a common feature of young star systems that are forming planets. But fascinatingly, it is a system with not one star, but three. …GW Ori’s disk is split in two, almost like Saturn’s rings if they had a massive gap in between. …Scientists have been trying to explain what is going on there. Some hypothesized that the gap in the disk could be the result of one or more planets forming in the system. …Now the GW Ori system has been modeled in greater detail, and researchers say a planet — a gassy world as massive as Jupiter — is the best explanation for the gap in the dust cloud. Although the planet itself cannot be seen, astronomers may be witnessing it carve out its orbit in its first million years of its existence.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/28/science/triple-sun-planet.html] For GSS A Changing Cosmos chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-09-24. Eating sustainably is one of the easiest ways to combat climate change, experts say. Source: By Julia Jacobo, ABC News. Excerpt: As temperatures around the world continue to warm at alarming rates, individuals are asking themselves what lifestyle changes they can make to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. …the easiest thing individuals can do in their daily lives to make an impact in the climate fight is simple switches to their diets — and they don’t even have to become a vegetarian or give up animal products altogether to do it, experts say. …The easiest way to make a meal more sustainable is to eat less meat and more organic, plant-based foods — the closer they were grown, the better, according to the experts. …Meat consumption is the largest culprit of greenhouse gas emissions in American diets …Planetary boundaries are being challenged by meat consumption, but meat, and beef in particular, represents the majority of the carbon footprint in the American diet, experts say.… [https://abcnews.go.com/US/eating-sustainably-easiest-ways-combat-climate-change-experts/story?id=80043481] For GSS Climate Change chapter 10.
<><><><>
2021-09-26. After Hurricane Ida, Oil Infrastructure Springs Dozens of Leaks. Source: By Blacki Migliozzi and Hiroko Tabuchi, The New York Times. Excerpt: When Hurricane Ida barreled into the Louisiana coast with near 150 mile-per-hour winds on Aug. 30, it left a trail of destruction. The storm also triggered the most oil spills detected from space after a weather event in the Gulf of Mexico since the federal government started using satellites to track spills and leaks a decade ago. …In the two weeks after Ida, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a total of 55 spill reports, including a spill near a fragile nature reserve. It underscores the frailty of the region’s offshore oil and gas infrastructure to intensifying stormsfueled by climate change.… [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/09/26/climate/ida-oil-spills.html] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-09-23. Greenhouse gases in grocery freezers are more powerful than carbon. EPA now aims to slash their use. Source: By Dino Grandoni, The Washington Post. Excerpt: Agency’s final rule will slash the use and production of hydrofluorocarbons — often found to be leaking from U.S. supermarket freezers — by 85 percent over the next 15 years… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/09/23/biden-climate-rule-hydrofluorocarbons] For GSS Climate Change chapters 9 and 3.
<><><><>
2021-09-24. The Cost of Insuring Expensive Waterfront Homes Is About to Skyrocket. Source: By Christopher Flavelle, The New York Times. Excerpt: New federal flood insurance rates that better reflect the real risks of climate change are coming. For some, premiums will rise sharply. …Florida’s version of the American dream, which holds that even people of relatively modest means can aspire to live near the water, depends on a few crucial components: sugar white beaches, soft ocean breezes and federal flood insurance that is heavily subsidized. But starting Oct. 1, communities in Florida and elsewhere around the country will see those subsidies begin to disappear in a nationwide experiment in trying to adapt to climate change: Forcing Americans to pay something closer to the real cost of their flood risk, which is rising as the planet warms.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/climate/federal-flood-insurance-cost.html] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-09-21. Collaboration in the Rockies Aims to Model Mountain Watersheds Worldwide. Source: By Saima Sidik, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: As Earth’s climate changes at an unprecedented rate, the Surface Atmosphere Integrated Field Laboratory is studying precipitation on an unprecedented scale. …Earth is entering a period that some scientists have called the “no-analog future” because climate change has left them unable to use past experience to predict future weather trends, like rain and water availability. But this month, a new monitoring project called the Surface Atmosphere Integrated Field Laboratory, or SAIL, started collecting data that scientists hope will fill holes in hydrology models and guide water policy in this uncertain future.… [https://eos.org/articles/collaboration-in-the-rockies-aims-to-model-mountain-watersheds-worldwide] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-09-17. To Understand Hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa, Consider Both Climate and Conflict. Source: By Rachel Fritts, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Warfare exacerbates the impacts of drought to produce food insecurity crises that last long after the drought has passed, new research documents. …World hunger has been increasing since 2014 after falling for decades, and Africa in particular has suffered from this trend. More than 20% of people in Africa are currently affected by hunger, and more than one third are undernourished, the United Nations estimates.“ New research suggests that in Africa at least, this increase in food insecurity is being driven by an uptick in violent conflict. An analysis of food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa between 2009 and 2019 found that the impacts of drought, although significant, remained relatively steady over the period, whereas violent conflict had an increasingly significant impact. Warfare exacerbates and prolongs the impacts of drought by displacing people, affecting local supply chains, and preventing outside aid, the team reported in a new study published in Nature Food.… [https://eos.org/articles/to-understand-hunger-in-sub-saharan-africa-consider-both-climate-and-conflict] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-09-16. Small Climate Changes Could Be Magnified by Natural Processes. Source: By Damond Benningfield, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: A new study uses modeling techniques to uncover how small incidents of warming may be turned into hyperthermal events lasting thousands of year. …A little bit of global warming may go a long way. A recent mathematical analysis of the climate of the Cenozoic—our current geologic era, starting at the demise of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago—says that natural processes may amplify small amounts of warming, turning them into “hyperthermal” events that can last for thousands of years or longer. This finding suggests that human-induced climate change could make our planet susceptible to more extreme warming events in the future…. [https://eos.org/articles/small-climate-changes-could-be-magnified-by-natural-processes] For GSS Life and Climate chapter 9.
~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~
<><><><>
2021-09-17. A new fleet of Moon landers will set sail next year, backed by private companies. Source: By Joel Goldberg, Science Magazine. Excerpt: Who knew outsourcing could extend to outer space? In some ways, that’s the aim of NASA’s $2.6 billion initiative meant to galvanize the private sector’s development of Moon landers and rovers. The Commercial Lunar Payload Services program has tasked a number of companies—including Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic—with delivering landers to the Moon’s surface twice a year. Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander, roughly the size of a tree house, is set to blast off this year from Cape Canaveral, Florida, as is Houston-based Intuitive Machines’s Nova-C. A second Astrobotic lander, Griffin, is expected to launch in 2023, ferrying the well-equipped, NASA-designed Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover. Its neutron counter, spectrometers, and specialized drill will seek out evidence of water and attempt to identify its origin. …another Texas-based company, Firefly Aerospace, will deliver tools to study the Moon’s interior heat and another to snap the first extraterrestrial photo of Earth’s magnetic field.… [https://www.science.org/content/article/new-fleet-moon-landers-will-set-sail-next-year-backed-private-companies] For GSS A Changing Cosmos chapter 7.
<><><><>
2021-09-16. A huge forest experiment aims to reduce wildfires. Can it unite loggers and environmentalists? Source: By Warren Cornwall, Science Magazine. Excerpt: …James Johnston could see two possible futures for the forests that blanket the Blue Mountains. …swaths of dead trees, their trunks weathered to a polished silver, rose from powdery dirt. “That’s old-growth ponderosa pine killed by the southern edge of the Canyon Creek Fire,” which struck in 2015, explained Johnston, who works at Oregon State University (OSU), Corvallis. …The living trees sat within a forest tract that had been carefully logged—“treated” in the parlance of researchers—as part of an ambitious experiment, launched in 2006, that aims to prevent the kinds of intense wildfires now destroying forests across western North America. The effort seeks to demonstrate ways of reversing more than 100 years of mismanagement that have transformed many forests into tinderboxes. It is also a study in how to overcome decades of disagreements among scientists, environmentalists, and forest workers on how to best protect both ecosystems and local economies. Here, environmentalists are welcoming chainsaws, and loggers are collaborating with scientists once reviled by the timber industry. …the research has become increasingly relevant as a warming climate increases the risks of wildfires so intense that they sterilize soils and kill massive old trees. Helping forests become more resilient is critical, Johnston says, because “we’re going to have a hard time growing trees under hotter, drier conditions.”… [https://www.science.org/content/article/huge-forest-experiment-aims-reduce-wildfires-can-it-unite-loggers-and-environmentalists] For GSS A New World View chapter 4.
<><><><>
2021-09-15. Forget oil or water. In Iceland, well diggers seek to tap a volcano’s magma. Source: By Paul Voosen, Science Magazine. Excerpt: KRAFLA VOLCANO IN ICELAND—After years of effort, volcanologists are ready to open a gateway to hell. From the rim of the Víti (“hell” in Icelandic) crater—a smaller crater within Krafla’s 10-kilometer caldera—Ottó Elíasson looks down on at a tranquil grassy field disturbed only by a spindly weather station. …The main attraction lies 2 kilometers below this spot on this volcanically hyperactive island, which is being split in two by the spreading Mid-Atlantic Ridge. In 2009, drillers trying to tap hot water for geothermal energy here accidentally pierced a hidden magma chamber. After an outpouring of steam and glass shards from quenched magma, the borehole created the hottest geothermal well ever measured—until the casing failed. Now, researchers are returning to penetrate the molten rock on purpose, using hardier equipment, to create the world’s only long-term magma observatory. …They could also shed light on how the continents formed and grew.… [https://www.science.org/content/article/forget-oil-or-water-iceland-well-diggers-seek-tap-volcano-s-magma] For GSS Energy Flow chapter 2.
~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~
<><><><>
2021-09-03. Longer Days Likely Boosted Earth’s Early Oxygen. Source: By Damond Benningfield, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Microbial mats in a Lake Huron sinkhole, combined with modeling work, suggest that the changing length of Earth’s day could have played a key role in oxygenating the atmosphere.… [https://eos.org/articles/longer-days-likely-boosted-earths-early-oxygen] For GSS Life and Climate chapter 5.
<><><><>
2021-09-01. Forecast: 8 Million Energy Jobs Created by Meeting Paris Agreement. Source: By Jenessa Duncombe, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Quickly switching to renewables will create 5 million more jobs by 2050 than sticking to fossil fuels will, according to projections. …solar photovoltaics and wind are now cheaper than fossil fuels per megawatt-hour …Crucially, the study found that nearly 8 million of the 26 million jobs (31%) in 2050 are “up for grabs,” said study author Johannes Emmerling, a scientist at the European Institute on Economics and the Environment. These jobs in renewable manufacturing aren’t tied to a particular location, unlike coal mining.… [https://eos.org/articles/forecast-8-million-energy-jobs-created-by-meeting-paris-agreement] For GSS Energy Use chapter 10.
<><><><>
2021-08-31. Anticipating Climate Impacts of Major Volcanic Eruptions. Source: By Simon A. Carn, Paul A. Newman, Valentina Aquila, Helge Gonnermann, and Josef Dufek, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: NASA’s rapid response plan for gathering atmospheric data amid major volcanic eruptions, paired with efforts to improve eruption simulations, will offer better views of these events’ global effects.… [https://eos.org/science-updates/anticipating-climate-impacts-of-major-volcanic-eruptions] For GSS Energy Flow chapter 2. See also Making the Most of Volcanic Eruption Responses.
<><><><>
2021-09-02. How the “Best Accidental Climate Treaty” Stopped Runaway Climate Change. Source: By Jenessa Duncombe, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: The Montreal Protocol halted the destruction of the ozone layer. In the process, it saved one of Earth’s most important carbon sinks. …The international treaty that phased out the production of ozone-depleting chemicals has prevented between 0.65°C and 1°C of global warming, according to research. The study also showed that carbon stored in vegetation through photosynthesis would have dropped by 30% without the treaty, which came into force in 1989. Researchers from the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and the United States wrote in Nature that the Montreal Protocol was essential in protecting carbon stored in plants. Studies in the polar regions have shown that high-energy ultraviolet rays (UVB) reduce plant biomass and damage DNA. Forests and soil currently absorb 30% of human carbon dioxide emissions. …In the simulation, the UVB radiation is so intense that plants in the midlatitudes stop taking up a net increase in carbon. Plants in the tropics fare better, but humid forests would have 60% less ozone overhead than before, a state much worse than was ever observed in the Antarctic ozone hole.… [https://eos.org/articles/how-the-best-accidental-climate-treaty-stopped-runaway-climate-change] For GSS Ozone chapter 9 and Climate Change chapter 9.
<><><><>
2021-09-08. Inside the Ohio factory that could make or break Biden’s big solar energy push. Source: By Jeanne Whalen, The Washington Post. Excerpt: …First Solar is one of the few U.S. solar-panel manufacturers in an industry dominated by Chinese factories, some of which the Biden administration has accused of employing forced labor. Lately, that has made First Solar particularly popular with panel buyers, which have snapped up the company’s entire production run through 2022. Posters in the factory’s lobby proudly declare that the company is “countering China’s state-subsidized dominance of solar supply chains” while churning out products that are “uniquely American” and “Ohio-made.”… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/08/solar-panels-made-usa/] For GSS Energy Use chapter 10.
<><><><>
2021-09-08. From 4% to 45%: Energy Department Lays Out Ambitious Blueprint for Solar Power. Source: By Ivan Penn, The New York Times. Excerpt: The Biden administration on Wednesday released a blueprint showing how the nation could move toward producing almost half of its electricity from the sun by 2050 — a potentially big step toward fighting climate change but one that would require vast upgrades to the electric grid. …Such a large increase, laid out in the report, is in line with what most climate scientists say is needed to stave off the worst effects of global warming. It would require a vast transformation in technology, the energy industry and the way people live.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/08/business/energy-environment/biden-solar-energy-climate-change.html] For GSS Energy Use chapter 10 and Climate Change chapter 9.
<><><><>
2021-09-08. Komodo Dragons Are Now Endangered and ‘Moving Toward Extinction’. Source: By Marion Renault, The New York Times. Excerpt: A top conservation organization updated the status of the fierce giant lizards on its Red List of threatened species. …Komodo dragons are particularly vulnerable to environmental changes because they inhabit a limited belt of land between the islands’ coasts and steep forested hills. …The International Union for Conservation of Nature warns that suitable Komodo dragon habitat is expected to shrink by at least 30 percent in the next 45 years. Factors driving this habitat loss include the rising temperatures and sea levels associated with climate change.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/08/science/komodo-dragons-endangered.html] For GSS Losing Biodiversity chapter 1 and Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-09-08. The world’s biggest plant to capture CO2 from the air just opened in Iceland. Source: By Michael Birnbaum, The Washington Post. Excerpt: The Orca, an installation built by Climeworks, will capture 4,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year — and serve as a blueprint for similar technology. …A major new facility to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere started operating in Iceland on Wednesday, a boost to an emerging technology that experts say could eventually play an important role in reducing the greenhouse gases that are warming the planet.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2021/09/08/co2-capture-plan-iceland-climeworks/] For GSS Climate Change chapter 10.
<><><><>
2021-09-08. Your Batteries Are Due for Disruption. Source: By Cade Metz, The New York Times. Excerpt: This week, a more efficient type of battery arrives in a wristband fitness tracker. It could soon reach smart glasses, cars and even aircraft. …The battery provides 17 percent greater power density than the battery used by Whoop’s previous fitness tracker. …To improve the efficiency of the battery, Sila replaces graphite with silicon, which can pack more lithium atoms into a smaller space. That means more efficient batteries.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/08/technology/batteries-new-technology.html] For GSS Energy Use chapter 9.
<><><><>
2021-09-07. To Avoid River Flooding, Go With the Flow, the Dutch Say. Source: By Thomas Erdbrink, The New York Times. Excerpt: Extreme rainfall is causing deadly and destructive floods globally. The Netherlands averted disaster this summer by creating flood plains.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/07/world/europe/dutch-rivers-flood-control.html] For GSS Climate Change chapter 9.
~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~
<><><><>
2021-09-04. An Economic Lifeline in South America, the Paraná River, Is Shriveling. Source: By Daniel Politi, The New York Times. Excerpt: The continent’s second-largest river is drying up amid the biggest drought in 70 years, upending ecosystems, trade and livelihoods.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/04/world/americas/drought-argentina-parana-river.html] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-09-04. Ida Reveals Two Louisianas: One With Storm Walls, Another Without. Source: By Richard Fausset, Sophie Kasakove and Christopher Flavelle, The New York Times. Excerpt: A massive flood protection system built around New Orleans helped save it from flooding during Hurricane Ida. Surrounding communities, which weren’t so lucky, want their own system.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/04/us/hurricane-ida-louisiana-levees.html] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8. See also Nearly a Week Without Power, New Orleans Is Facing a ‘Race With the Clock’ and Satellite Images Find ‘Substantial’ Oil Spill in Gulf After Ida.
<><><><>
2021-09-01. Lush wetlands in Arabia lured waves of early humans out of Africa. Source: By Michael Price, Science Magazine. Excerpt: If you know what to look for in dappled satellite images of desert…the dried-up ghosts of prehistoric lakes pop out against the sand fields of the Arabian Peninsula. Eight years ago, one ancient multihued lake in the Nefud Desert caught the eye of researchers. When scientists excavated its ancient shorelines, a new study reports, they found thousands of stone tools—and evidence that multiple waves of Homo sapiens and their relatives have been migrating across the Arabian interior for at least the past 400,000 years. The results bolster the idea that the periodic greening of this typically harsh desert played a pivotal role in humans’ dispersals out of Africa—and provide the best evidence yet that different groups of humans pulsed out of the continent through the Sinai Peninsula…. digging revealed that the paleolakes at Khall Amayshan 4 had formed and dried up six different times; stone tools were associated with five of those long-lost lakes, dating to 400,000, 300,000, 200,000, 100,000, and 55,000 years ago, the researchers report today in Nature. At another paleolake about 150 kilometers to the east, the Jubbah oasis, they found stone tools in layers dating to 200,000 and 75,000 years ago. …researchers found fossilized animal bones at many of the dry lakes, suggesting large African animals like hippopotamuses, elephants, and ostriches also followed this green route out of Africa, at least in the wet season.… [https://www.science.org/content/article/lush-wetlands-arabia-lured-waves-early-humans-out-africa] For GSS Life and Climate chapter 11.
<><><><>
2021-09-03. Bitcoin Uses More Electricity Than Many Countries. How Is That Possible? Source: By Jon Huang, Claire O’Neill and Hiroko Tabuchi , The New York Times. Excerpt: …cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, one of the most popular, use astonishing amounts of electricity. …The process of creating Bitcoin to spend or trade consumes around 91 terawatt-hours of electricity annually, more than is used by Finland, a nation of about 5.5 million.… [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/09/03/climate/bitcoin-carbon-footprint-electricity.html] For GSS Energy Use chapter 10.
<><><><>
2021-09-02. Climate Change Is Bankrupting America’s Small Towns. Source: By Christopher Flavelle, The New York Times. Excerpt: Repeated shocks from hurricanes, fires and floods are pushing some rural communities, already struggling economically, to the brink of financial collapse. …places hit repeatedly by hurricanes, floods and wildfires are unraveling: residents and employers leave, the tax base shrinks and it becomes even harder to fund basic services. That downward spiral now threatens low-income communities in the path this week of Hurricane Ida and those hit by the recent flooding in Tennessee — hamlets regularly pummeled by storms that are growing more frequent and destructive because of climate change.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/climate/climate-towns-bankruptcy.html] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-08-27. Amazon Deforestation and Fires are a Hazard to Public Health. Source: By Elizabeth Thompson, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Deforestation in the Amazon has dropped since the early 2000s, but it is slowly climbing again. A new study shows the impact of that climb on public health—and how much worse conditions could be.… [https://eos.org/research-spotlights/amazon-deforestation-and-fires-are-a-hazard-to-public-health] For GSS A New World View chapter 5.
~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~
<><><><>
2021-08-30. New Report Shows Technology Advancement and Value of Wind Energy. Source: By Berkeley Lab News Release Media Relations. Excerpt: Wind energy continues to see strong growth, solid performance, and low prices in the U.S., according to a report released by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and prepared by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). With levelized costs of just over $30 per megawatt-hour (MWh) for newly built projects, the cost of wind is well below its grid-system, health, and climate benefits. “Wind energy prices – particularly in the central United States, and supported by federal tax incentives – remain low, with utilities and corporate buyers selecting wind as a low-cost option,” said Berkeley Lab Senior Scientist Ryan Wiser. “Considering the health and climate benefits of wind energy makes the economics even better.” Key findings from the DOE’s annual “Land-Based Wind Market Report” include: Wind comprises a growing share of electricity supply. U.S. wind power capacity grew at a record pace in 2020, with nearly $25 billion invested in 16.8 gigawatts (GW) of capacity. Wind energy output rose to account for more than 8% of the entire nation’s electricity supply, and is more than 20% in 10 states. At least 209 GW of wind are seeking access to the transmission system; 61 GW of this capacity are offshore wind and 13 GW are hybrid plants that pair wind with storage or solar. …Wind turbine prices are averaging $775 to $850/kilowatt (kW). The average installed cost of wind projects in 2020 was $1,460/kW, down more than 40% since the peak in 2010, though stable for the last three years. The lowest costs were found in Texas.… [https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2021/08/30/technology-advancement-and-value-of-wind-energy/] For GSS Energy Use chapter 10.
<><><><>
2021-08-25. Deflecting an Asteroid Before It Hits Earth May Take Multiple Bumps. Source: By Katherine Kornei, The New York Times. Excerpt: There’s probably a large space rock out there, somewhere, that has Earth in its cross hairs. Scientists have in fact spotted one candidate — Bennu, which has a small chance of banging into our planet in the year 2182. But whether it’s Bennu or another asteroid, the question will be how to avoid a very unwelcome cosmic rendezvous. For almost 20 years, a team of researchers has been preparing for such a scenario. Using a specially designed gun, they’ve repeatedly fired projectiles at meteorites and measured how the space rocks recoiled and, in some cases, shattered. These observations shed light on how an asteroid might respond to a high-velocity impact intended to deflect it away from Earth. At the 84th annual meeting of the Meteoritical Society held in Chicago this month, researchers presented findings from all of that high-powered marksmanship. Their results suggest that whether we’re able to knock an asteroid away from our planet could depend on what kind of space rock we’re faced with, and how many times we hit it.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/25/science/asteroid-deflection-collision.html] For GSS A Changing Cosmos chapter 1.
<><><><>
2021-08-27. 40 Million People Rely on the Colorado River. It’s Drying Up Fast. Source: By Abrahm Lustgarten, The New York Times. Excerpt: Lake Mead, a reservoir formed by the construction of the Hoover Dam in the 1930s, is one of the most important pieces of infrastructure on the Colorado River, supplying fresh water to Nevada, California, Arizona and Mexico. The reservoir hasn’t been full since 1983. In 2000, it began a steady decline caused by epochal drought. …Like the record-breaking heat waves and the ceaseless mega-fires, the decline of the Colorado River has been faster than expected. This year, even though rainfall and snowpack high up in the Rocky Mountains were at near-normal levels, the parched soils and plants stricken by intense heat absorbed much of the water, and inflows to Lake Powell were around one-fourth of their usual amount. The Colorado’s flow has already declined by nearly 20 percent, on average, from its flow throughout the 1900s, and if the current rate of warming continues, the loss could well be 50 percent by the end of this century. Earlier this month, federal officials declared an emergency water shortage on the Colorado River for the first time. The shortage declaration forces reductions in water deliveries to specific states, beginning with the abrupt cutoff of nearly one-fifth of Arizona’s supply from the river, and modest cuts for Nevada and Mexico, with more negotiations and cuts to follow. But it also sounded an alarm: one of the country’s most important sources of fresh water is in peril, another victim of the accelerating climate crisis.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/27/sunday-review/colorado-river-drying-up.html] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~{_}~~
<><><><>
2021-08-23. Tennessee floods show a pressing climate danger across America: ‘Walls of water’. Source: By Sarah Kaplan, The Washington Post. Excerpt: …More than 17 inches of rain fell in a single day on Saturday, overtopping the region’s many rivers and submerging places not previously considered floodplains within a matter of hours. …At least 21 people are dead, hundreds of homes are in shambles and the wreckage of people’s lives is strewn across the landscape. …Tennessee’s flash floods underscore the peril climate change poses even in inland areas, where people once thought themselves immune. A warmer atmosphere that holds more water, combined with rapid development and crumbling infrastructure, is turning once-rare disasters into common occurrences. Yet Americans, who often associate global warming with melting glaciers and intense heat, are not prepared for the coming deluge.… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/08/23/tennessee-floods-show-pressing-climate-danger-across-america-wall-water] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-08-20. It Rained at the Summit of Greenland. That’s Never Happened Before. Source: By Henry Fountain, The New York Times. Excerpt: The showers are another troubling sign of a changing Arctic, which is warming faster than any other region on Earth.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/20/climate/greenland-rain-ice-sheet.html] For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><>
2021-08-17. Scientists map urban heat islands—and track how communities are affected. By Anil Oza, Science Magazine. Excerpt: Scientists have known about urban heat islands since the 1880s, when they noted temperatures in London were higher than in surrounding areas. Cities are typically warmer than their suburban and rural counterparts because they lack green spaces, which mitigate the heat radiated by human-built structures made from asphalt, concrete, and brick. New York is one of 12 cities participating in this year’s mapping campaign, which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has run for the past four summers in dozens of cities. The teams record morning, afternoon, and evening temperatures on one of the hottest days of the year. The goal is to identify areas with the greatest need for measures—like installing green roofs, operating cooling centers, and planting trees or other vegetation—that are designed to mitigate the effects of the extreme heat.… [https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/scientists-map-urban-heat-islands-and-track-how-communities-are-affected] – For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><><>
2021-08-19. Massive volcanoes could cool Earth more in a warming world. By Paul Voosen, Science Magazine. Excerpt: …Before humanity started in on its planet-altering course, volcanoes were one of the biggest climate players. Over the long term, they belched carbon dioxide from Earth’s interior, causing warming. But in the short term, their sulfur gases often react with water to form highly reflective particles called sulfates, triggering spells of global cooling. Dark smudges of ash littering ice cores—our best evidence of these early eruptions—are a dim reflection of the wild weather left in their wake. But the opposite is also true, it turns out: Climate can have a big impact on volcanoes. In the new study, Thomas Aubry, a geophysicist at the University of Cambridge, and colleagues combined computer simulations of idealized volcanic eruptions with a global climate model. They simulated the response to plumes released from midsize and large volcanoes both in historical conditions and by 2100, in a scenario when Earth is predicted to warm very rapidly. …ultramassive eruptions would still be able to punch through to the stratosphere; what’s more, their gases would actually reach higher and travel faster than in the present climate, amplifying their cooling effect by 15%, the researchers report this month in Nature Communications. The reasons why come down to the bizarro world that is the stratosphere, Aubry says.… [https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/massive-volcanoes-could-cool-earth-more-warming-world] – For GSS Life and Climate chapter 8 and Climate Change chapter 8. See also Eos article – Anticipating Climate Impacts of Major Volcanic Eruptions
<><><><><>
2021-08-11. Specifically Tailored Action Plans Combat Heat Waves in India. Source: By Deepa Padmanaban, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: The frequencies of heat waves and heat-induced mortality have soared in India. Now government agencies and research organizations are developing city-specific action plans to mitigate heat impacts.… [https://eos.org/articles/specifically-tailored-action-plans-combat-heat-waves-in-india] – For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><><>
2021-08-11. Is Your Home at Risk of Experiencing a Natural Disaster? By Sarah Derouin, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: In the contiguous United States, 57% of structures are at risk of experiencing at least one natural hazard—and risk is driven by greater development in hazardous areas against a backdrop of climate change.… [https://eos.org/research-spotlights/is-your-home-at-risk-of-experiencing-a-natural-disaster] – For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><><>
2021-08-12. Wildfires Are Threatening Municipal Water Supplies. By Alex Tat-Shing Chow, Tanju Karanfil, and Randy A. Dahlgren, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Climate change is driving an increase in catastrophic wildfires; consumers see, smell, and taste the effects in their water. Water utilities must prepare for worse times ahead.… [https://eos.org/science-updates/wildfires-are-threatening-municipal-water-supplies] – For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><><><><><><><>
2021-08-16. First-ever water shortage declared on the Colorado River, triggering water cuts for some states in the West. Source: By Karin Brulliard and Joshua Partlow, The Washington Post. Excerpt: …Low water in the Colorado River’s largest reservoir triggered the first-ever federal declaration of a shortage on Monday, a bleak marker of the effects of climate change in the drought-stricken American West and the imperiled future of a critical water source for 40 million people in seven states. Water in Lake Mead, the mammoth reservoir created by the Hoover Dam that supplies the lower Colorado basin, is projected to be 1,065.85 feet above sea level on Jan. 1, nearly 10 feet below a threshold that requires Arizona, Nevada and Mexico to reduce their consumption in 2022. On Monday, it was just under 1,068 feet, or about 35 percent full, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which manages the water that states and Mexico have rights to use. “We are seeing the effects of climate change in the Colorado River basin through extended drought, extreme temperatures, expansive wildfires, and in some places, flooding and landslides,” Tanya Trujillo, the Interior Department’s assistant secretary for water and science, told reporters Monday. “And now is the time to take action to respond to them.”… [https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/16/colorado-river-water-cuts-drought/] – For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><><>
2021-08-17. Laser Fusion Experiment Unleashes an Energetic Burst of Optimism. Source: By Kenneth Chang, The New York Times. Excerpt: Scientists have come tantalizingly close to reproducing the power of the sun — albeit only in a speck of hydrogen for a fraction of a second. Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory reported on Tuesday that by using 192 gigantic lasers to annihilate a pellet of hydrogen, they were able to ignite a burst of more than 10 quadrillion watts of fusion power — energy released when hydrogen atoms are fused into helium, the same process that occurs within stars. …And all of the fusion energy emanated from a hot spot about as wide as a human hair, he said. …But the burst — essentially a miniature hydrogen bomb — lasted only 100 trillionths of a second. Still, that spurred a burst of optimism for fusion scientists who have long hoped that fusion could someday provide a boundless, clean energy source for humanity.… [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/17/science/lasers-fusion-power-watts-earth.html] – For GSS Energy Use chapter 10.
<><><><><>
2021-08-11. California Panel Backs Solar Mandate for New Buildings. Source: By Ivan Penn, The New York Times. Excerpt: LOS ANGELES — California regulators voted Wednesday to require builders to include solar power and battery storage in many new commercial structures as well as high-rise residential projects. It is the latest initiative in the state’s vigorous efforts to hasten a transition from fossil fuels to alternative energy sources…. [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/11/business/energy-environment/california-solar-mandates.html] – For GSS Energy Use chapter 10.
<><><><><>
2021-08-06. Don’t Call It a Supervolcano. Source: By Mary Caperton Morton, Eos/AGU Excerpt: Yellowstone National Park, the world’s first and arguably most famous national park, is home to one of the planet’s largest and potentially most destructive volcanoes. The 50- by 70-kilometer Yellowstone caldera complex is so massive that it can really be appreciated only from the air. But although the caldera isn’t always visible on the ground, it’s certainly no secret: Copious thermal features like hot springs and geyser basins dot the landscape and have attracted people to the uniquely beautiful and ecologically rich area for at least 11,000 years. …Every season, recurring bouts of earthquake swarms trigger sensational stories that Yellowstone could be gearing up for another “big one.” But there’s no need to cancel your family vacation to see the park’s free-roaming bison and grizzly bears: The geologists who keep a very close eye on the Yellowstone caldera system say it’s not going to erupt again in our lifetimes. …The story of Yellowstone begins around 16.5 million years ago, when a plume of magma began fueling intense bouts of volcanism along the border of what is now Idaho, Nevada, and Oregon. This magma plume, like the one that formed the Hawaiian Islands, is stationary, but as the North American plate moves to the southwest over the hot spot, its surface expression migrates, creating a 750-kilometer-long trail of volcanism, including dozens of calderas, across southern Idaho and into northwest Wyoming…. [https://eos.org/features/dont-call-it-a-supervolcano] – For GSS Energy Flow chapter 2.
<><><><><>
2021-08-12. Climate change is drying out many part-time streams in the United States. By Erik Stokstad, Science Magazine. Excerpt: Small streams that dry up for part of the year are easy to overlook. But these intermittent streams are everywhere, making up more than half of Earth’s waterways. They help purify surface water and provide crucial habitat for creatures such as the Sonoran Desert toad, fairy shrimp, and Wilson’s warbler. Now, a study has found that ephemeral streams across the continental United States have become less reliable over the past 40 years, likely as a result of climate change. Some are dry for 100 days longer per year than in the 1980s…. [https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/climate-change-drying-out-many-part-time-streams-united-states] – For GSS Climate Change chapter 8.
<><><><><>
2021-08-12. Ancient supernovae might have upended Earth’s evolution. By Claire Hogan, Science Magazine. Excerpt: When stars run out of fuel, they can collapse under their own gravity, exploding as supernovae that blast debris and radioactive nuclei far into space. Most of these events are too far from Earth to affect our planet. But if one happened nearby, the effects could be dramatic. By studying radioactive isotopes on Earth, scientists have uncovered evidence suggesting two near-Earth supernovae occurred in the past few million years. Some researchers now hypothesize that supernova-generated particles known as cosmic rays might have depleted the ozone layer, increased cancer rates in ancient organisms, sparked wildfires, and even started an ice age…. [https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/ancient-supernovae-might-have-upended-earth-s-evolution] – For GSS A Changing Cosmos chapter 1.
<><><><><>
2021-08-11. ‘Big step forward.’ Energy expert analyzes the new U.S. infrastructure bill. By Robert F. Service, Science Magazine. Excerpt: The U.S. Senate yesterday passed legislation that calls for spending $1 trillion—including $550 billion in new funds—on improving the nation’s infrastructure. Most of the funding will go to upgrading transportation, water, and power infrastructure, as well as expanding broadband internet access. But the bill also includes some money for R&D, primarily for advancing clean energy technologies, including electric vehicles and efforts to trap carbon dioxide produced by power plants before it enters the atmosphere…. [https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/big-step-forward-energy-expert-analyzes-new-us-infrastructure-bill] – For GSS Energy Use chapter 10.
<><><><><>
2021-08-09. Climate change ‘unequivocal’ and ‘unprecedented,’ says new U.N. report. By Cathleen O’Grady, Science Magazine. Excerpt: The report paints an alarming picture but emphasizes there is still time for swift action to mitigate the worst of the projected impacts of climate change. …Too much focus on targets like 1.5°C can backfire if they are seen as precipices beyond which there is no redemption, Tebaldi says: “People feel this sense of disempowerment.” The reality, she says, is that these targets sit on a continuum where “every little bit of warming counts.” For the first time, the report elaborates on the details of how each increment of warming is expected to play out in regional impacts and extreme events such as flooding, heat waves, droughts, and fire…. [https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/climate-change-unequivocal-and-unprecedented-says-new-un-report] – For GSS Climate Change chapter 9. See also Eos/AGU article, What Five Graphs from the U.N. Climate Report Reveal About Our Path to Halting Climate Change. See also article from Eos.org: Climate Change and Extreme Weather Linked in U.N. Climate Report