My Climate Change News

Sea ice forms during the Antarctic winter and retreats during the warmer months. Such freeze-thaw cycles have no impact on sea levels since they happen within the ocean. However, Antarctic land ice has seen a net decrease, resulting in a significant increase in fresh water flowing into the sea. That does affect global sea levels.

The behavior of Antarctic land ice varies from region to region. In particular, the West Antarctic Peninsula has seen drastic ice retreat. On the other hand, East Antarctica's land ice has remained relatively stable to date. But if global warming crosses a specific threshold, serious loss is expected to occur. The planet has already moved a third of the way towards that threshold and will pass it within a century, if fossil fuel burning continues unabated.

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NASA has finally heard back from Voyager 1 again in a way that makes sense.

The most distant spacecraft from Earth stopped sending back understandable data last November. Flight controllers traced the blank communication to a bad computer chip and rearranged the spacecraft's coding to work around the trouble.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California declared success after receiving good engineering updates late last week. The team is still working to restore transmission of the science data.

It takes 22 1/2 hours to send a signal to Voyager 1, more than 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away in interstellar space. The signal travel time is double that for a round trip.

Contact was never lost, rather it was like making a phone call where you can't hear the person on the other end, a JPL spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Launched in 1977 to study Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 1 has been exploring interstellar space - the space between ...

Existing methods to estimate the amount of Li in batteries rely on capacity measurements, describing how much charge a battery can hold, and coulombic efficiency values, which indicate how much charge a battery retains during cycles. Yet these measurements are not always accurate, as they do not account for unpredictable side reactions, self-discharge, and other effects affecting a battery's performance.

"The primary objective of our study was to find a reliable methodology to compare battery testing data and operating results from various sources and conditions, as this could help to advance battery technology and development," Boryann Liaw, co-author of the paper, told Tech Xplore.

"The conventional battery capacity analysis is empirical, heavily relying on test protocols and conditions, lacking a reliable framework for comparison. This work provides a thermodynamic framework and methodology that can compare data from across the board ...

The latest research paper from environmental anthropologist and University of California, Santa Cruz Professor Andrew Mathews explores these issues in the Monte Pisano region of Central Italy. The paper is published in the journal Ambio.

In particular, Mathews found that peasant women, who historically collected leaf litter in the forests, and shepherds, who grazed their flocks and conducted occasional managed burns, were critical in maintaining fire-resistant landscapes. Yet the social status of these groups meant the importance of their work went unrecognized.

In Monte Pisano and much of the broader Mediterranean, forests and other plant communities have been shaped by thousands of years of intensive human management of the land. But migration to cities since the 1960s has left rural lands increasingly abandoned. And without people to maintain them, local forests have become overgrown with highly flammable brush.

At the same time, many traditional rural ...

Join Bob Henson and attribution science experts for a webinar on Friday, May 3 at 12 p.m. Eastern.

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Yale Climate Connections

“A climate-driven migration has already begun,” writes climate change journalist Abrahm Lustgarten in his must-read book, “On the Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America,” which I reviewed in my previous post. And few places in the U.S. will likely see more climate migrants than Atlanta, which lies close to coastal areas of the Southeast U.S. where sea level rise can be expected to displace millions of people this century. Through the eyes of Jairo Garcia, former director of climate policy at the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability and Resilience, Lustgarten tells Atlanta’s climate change story.

Every city will face enormous ...

Gov. Gavin Newsom said on April 25 that California continued to rapidly add the battery storage that is crucial to the transition to cleaner energy, but admitted it was still not enough to avoid blackouts during heat waves.

Standing in the middle of a solar farm in Yolo County, Newsom announced the state now had battery storage systems with the capacity of more than 10,000 megawatts - about 20% of the 52,000 megawatts the state says is needed to meet its climate goals.

"This is critical to how we achieve 100% clean energy by 2045," Newsom said. "Batteries allow us to use clean energy captured by solar and other renewable sources at all times of the day, especially when solar generation drops after the sun goes down."

The ultimate goal, he said, is to slow climate change.

"As the hots get hotter, the drys get drier, the wets get wetter, simultaneous droughts, and rain bombs, we have to address these issues with a ferocity that is required of us and we're ...

A cat went missing after hiding in an Amazon return package. Then her Utah owner got a call - from hundreds of miles away - that "changed everything."

On April 10, Galena the kitty "vanished" from her home in Lehi, her owner, Carrie Stevens Clark, said in an April 21 Facebook post.

Clark said she searched "every nook and cranny" in the home before flooding the neighborhood, a suburb of Salt Lake City, with fliers and posting on social media.

"Nothing made sense!!," Clark said.

Then came an unexpected breakthrough. Seven days later, Clark got a call saying Galena had been found in California and identified with her microchip, she said.

Galena, it turned out, had jumped into one of Clark's Amazon return packages and was shipped back to the return center in Los Angeles, about 700 miles away from her home, she said.

Brandy Hunter, an employee at the Amazon warehouse where the cat was found, said in an April 17 Facebook post that she received a ...

Just like the animals on Noah's Ark, the corals arrived in a pair. On Monday, divers with gloved hands gently nestled the self-bred corals from the World Coral Conservatory project among their cousins in Europe's largest coral reef at the Burgers' Zoo in the Netherlands.

"This is the first project where we started to keep these corals with a known origin. As we know exactly where they're coming from, they have the potential to be placed back into the wild. … So it is very important to keep these corals, as it's going not very well in the wild," Nienke Klerks, a biologist at the Royal Burgers' Zoo in Arnhem, told The Associated Press.

It's among several projects worldwide seeking to address the decline of coral reef populations, which are suffering from bleaching caused by rising sea temperatures. Corals are central to marine ecosystems, and while these projects won't stem the tide of damage from human-caused climate change, they are seen as part of broader ...

Scientists have shed light on a new, transformative approach that could help resolve a dispute over the Nile river's water resources.

The Nile is one of the longest rivers globally and spreads over 11 countries in East Africa, supplying water, energy production, environmental quality and cultural wealth. However, the use of Nile resources has been a long-standing source of tension, often overshadowing opportunities for cooperation and mutual benefit.

But as the demand for energy, water, and food in Africa is steadily increasing, the study, led by The University of Manchester in collaboration with regional organizations, offers a glimmer of hope at a resolution.

First author Dr. Mikiyas Etichia from The University of Manchester, said, "Traditionally, water disputes in transboundary river basins like the Nile have been approached through a water-centric viewpoint. However, sharing benefits of water resources, such as hydro-generated electricity, crops and ...

He has called for increased oil production and said that electric vehicles will result in an 'assassination’ of jobs.

Former President Donald J. Trump has vowed to “cancel” President Biden’s policies for cutting pollution from fossil-fuel-burning power plants, “terminate” efforts to encourage electric vehicles, and “develop the liquid gold that is right under our feet” by promoting oil and gas.

Those changes and others that Mr. Trump has promised, if he were to win the presidency again, represent a 180-degree shift from Mr. Biden’s climate agenda.

When he was president, Mr. Trump reversed more than 100 environmental protections put in place by the Obama administration. Mr. Biden has in turn reversed much of Mr. Trump’s agenda.

But climate advocates argue a second Trump term would be far more damaging than his first, because the window to keep rising global temperatures to relatively safe levels is rapidly closing.

“It would become an all-out ...

Herds of endangered hippos stuck in the mud of dried-up ponds are in danger of dying in drought-struck Botswana, conservation authorities told AFP Friday.

Southern Africa has been affected by severe drought, caused by the El Niño weather phenomenon, which has threatened harvests and plunged millions into hunger. Several countries in the region have recently declared a state of national disaster.

Near the vast wetlands of the Okavango Delta in northern Botswana, the dried-up Thamalakane River has forced herds of hippos to head for natural water reserves close to the tourist town of Maun.

"The river system dries up and animals are in a compromised situation," said Lesego Moseki, spokesperson for Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) in Botswana's capital Gaborone.

Botswana is home to one of the world's largest populations of hippos living in the wild, estimated at between 2,000 and 4,000 by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The polarization of politics means that rules are imposed, gutted and restored with each election. Experts say that’s bad for the economy.

The Biden administration’s move on Thursday to strictly limit pollution from coal-burning power plants is a major policy shift. But in many ways it’s one more hairpin turn in a zigzag approach to environmental regulation in the United States, a pattern that has grown more extreme as the political landscape has become more polarized.

Nearly a decade ago, President Barack Obama was the Democrat who tried to force power plants to stop burning coal, the dirtiest of the fossil fuels. His Republican successor, Donald J. Trump, effectively reversed that plan. Now President Biden is trying once more to put an end to carbon emissions from coal plants. But Mr. Trump, who is running to replace Mr. Biden, has promised that he will again delete those plans if he wins in November.

The country’s participation in the Paris climate accord ...

While heat is the leading cause of weather-related illnesses and deaths in both Canada and the US, companies can explore nature-based solutions to help reverse this trend and foster spaces where people can thrive.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that 2023 was the warmest year on record, recognizing many significant climate events. In Canada, communities were devastated by record-breaking heat.

Dense urban environments, along with outdoor workers, are disproportionally affected by extreme heat. Heat is the leading cause of weather-related illnesses and deaths in both Canada and the United States. While this data is troubling, companies can explore nature-based solutions to help reverse this trend and foster spaces where people can thrive.

Green spaces and trees can help counteract the causes and consequences of excessive urban heat. In fact, national collaborative projects such as the NOAA Urban Heat Island mapping ...

In Florida, swaths of coral paint a colorful landscape across the ocean floor and serve a key role in its ecosystem.

But last summer, amid the longest marine heat wave in decades, many were scorched - drained of color and their survival left in question. It’s a scenario becoming much more common.

KEY LARGO, Fla.

With milk crates of corals in hand and scuba tanks strapped to their backs, Sam Burrell and his team disappeared under the water’s choppy surface. Heavy, breaking waves crashed against the charter boat anchored miles off the coast.

With each breath they let out, they descended beneath the surface and felt a sense of relief: On this November morning, they were finally returning hundreds of corals pulled out of the water earlier in the year after one of the hottest marine heat waves on record threatened to wipe them out. For months, the corals sat in temperature-controlled tanks in the shadow of the gulf’s bay until the waters were cool enough for ...

The Climate United Coalition has billions of dollars to give out to advance decarbonization. Here’s how to qualify.

Invest in urban decarbonization. Graphic: Sophia Davirro

The Environmental Protection Agency recently announced the nonprofit organizations that will receive some of its $20 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, including $6.97 billion to the Climate United Coalition.

Comprising Calvert Impact, Community Preservation Corporation and Self-Help, Climate United specializes in making green loans to fund specific decarbonization projects while also transforming existing traditional mortgages and project financing markets into greener transactions.

"Once the EPA put out the [NCIF] framework in April 2023, we then got to work in creating what we thought was the best structure and strategy to apply for the program," said Beth Bafford, Climate United CEO and vice president at Calvert Impact.

That was when Calvert Impact made the decision to ...

California may be a leader in the fight against climate change, but the state is years, even decades, behind other states when it comes to granting environmental rights to its citizens.

While a handful of other state constitutions, including those of New York and Pennsylvania, declare the people's rights to clean air, water and a healthy environment, California's does not.

That could change as soon as November. Under a proposal moving through the Legislature, voters would decide whether to add one sentence to the state constitution's Declaration of Rights: "The people shall have a right to clean air and water and a healthy environment."

The proposed green amendment could be seen as a well-meaning but symbolic change in a state that, despite tough environmental rules, struggles to address deep environmental problems like air pollution, contaminated drinking water and the worsening impacts of climate change.

But there's a reason that powerful business ...

Comment: Mining companies have been offered a path to sustainability but few are taking it – Indigenous people need to be at the table demanding change

Members of Indigenous organizations in the province of Cotopaxi protest against mining in their territories, in Latacunga, Ecuador, March 27, 2024. (Photo: REUTERS/Karen Toro)

Rukka Sombolinggi, a Torajan Indigenous woman from Sulawesi, Indonesia, is the first female Secretary General of AMAN, the world’s largest Indigenous peoples organization.

Gathered in NYC in mid-April, 87 Indigenous leaders from 35 countries met to hammer out a set of demands?to address a common scourge: the green energy transition that has our peoples under siege.?

Worldwide, we are experiencing land-grabs and a rising?tide of criminalization and attacks for speaking out against?mining?and renewable?energy projects?that violate our rights with impacts that are being documented by UN and other experts. Their research confirms ...

In August of 2005 when Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana and Mississippi, the combination of torrential rain and flawed infrastructure proved deadly. More than 1,800 people died and the price tag for the damage quickly rose to the tens of billions of dollars. In the chaotic disaster response that followed, several communities were disproportionately vulnerable to discrimination during recovery. Among them: LGBTQ residents. They were often overlooked in local and national relief efforts, which routinely failed to recognize households of same-sex couples as “families.” Some LGBTQ families faced separation during resettlement. Many more people struggled to apply for relief aid, especially because churches and religiously affiliated organizations so often provided the relief. And these challenges largely went unnoticed in media coverage and subsequent research, as written about here.

As extreme weather events - including increasingly powerful storms - become more ...

Comment: Representatives of groups hardest-hit by the climate crisis say restrictions on their participation at the fund’s first board meeting set a worrying precedent

Youth and other civil society groups hold a protest calling for a full, funded and fair transition away from fossil fuels at the COP28 climate summit venue in Dubai, UAE on December 12, 2023. (Photo: Megan Rowling)

Isatis M. Cintron-Rodriguez is a Puerto Rican climate scientist and staff associate at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. Liane Schalatek is associate director at the Heinrich Boell Stiftung Washington with expertise in UN climate funds and finance. Lien Vandamme is senior campaigner for the Climate & Energy Program at the Center for International Environmental Law.

Imagine losing your home to catastrophic floods, your loved ones to unprecedented hurricanes, your livelihood to raging wildfires, or your ancestors’ graves to rising sea levels.

Then, to add insult ...

Due to the changing climate, young herring arrive in the Wadden Sea earlier and earlier in spring. That is shown in a new publication by NIOZ ecologists Mark Rademaker, Myron Peck, and Anieke van Leeuwen in Global Change Biology.

"The fact that we were able to demonstrate this was only due to very consistently - for more than 60 years - and continuously sampling the fish every spring and every fall with exactly the same fyke [net] every time," Rademaker says. "Recognizing this kind of change requires extreme precision and endurance."

Since 1960, NIOZ, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, has been measuring the number and species of fish that swim in the Marsdiep, between Den Helder and Texel, day in and day out, using a standard fyke, in spring and fall. These measurements show that the peak of the number of young herring swimming into the Wadden Sea since 1982 comes at least two weeks earlier now.

"Such a calculation is difficult with a species of ...