Climate Change News & Discussions

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Warming causes more extreme rain, not snow, over mountains. Scientists say that's a problem

A warming world is transforming some major snowfalls into extreme rain over mountains instead, somehow worsening both dangerous flooding like the type that devastated Pakistan last year as well as long-term water shortages, a new study found.

Using rain and snow measurements since 1950 and computer simulations for future climate, scientists calculated that for every degree Fahrenheit the world warms, extreme rainfall at higher elevation increases by 8.3% (15% for every degree Celsius), according to a study in Wednesday’s journal Nature.

Heavy rain in mountains causes a lot more problems than big snow, including flooding, landslides and erosion, scientists said. And the rain isn’t conveniently stored away like snowpack that can recharge reservoirs in spring and summer.

“It is not just a far-off problem that is projected to occur in the future, but the data is actually telling us that it’s already happening and we see that in the data over the past few decades,” said lead author Mohammed Ombadi, a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory hydrologist and climate scientist.

https://apnews.com/article/warming-snow ... 2f39cf27fb

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China on course to hit wind and solar power target five years ahead of time

China is shoring up its position as the world leader in renewable power and potentially outpacing its own ambitious energy targets, a report has found.

China is set to double its capacity and produce 1,200 gigawatts of energy through wind and solar power by 2025, reaching its 2030 goal five years ahead of time, according to the report by Global Energy Monitor, a San Francisco-based NGO that tracks operating utility-scale wind and solar farms as well as future projects in the country.

It says that as of the first quarter of the year, China’s utility-scale solar capacity has reached 228GW, more than that of the rest of the world combined. The installations are concentrated in the country’s north and north-west provinces, such as Shanxi, Xinjiang and Hebei.

In addition, the group identified solar farms under construction that could add another 379GW in prospective capacity, triple that of the US and nearly double that of Europe.

China has also made huge strides in wind capacity: its combined onshore and offshore capacity now surpasses 310GW, double its 2017 level and roughly equivalent to the next top seven countries combined. With new projects in Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Gansu and along coastal areas, China is on course to add another 371GW before 2025, increasing the global wind fleet by nearly half.

“This new data provides unrivalled granularity about China’s jaw-dropping surge in solar and wind capacity,” said Dorothy Mei, a project manager at Global Energy Monitor. “As we closely monitor the implementation of prospective projects, this detailed information becomes indispensable in navigating the country’s energy landscape.”

The findings are in line with previous reports and government data released this year, which predicted that China could easily surpass its target of supplying a third of its power consumption through renewable sources by 2030.

China’s green energy drive is part of its effort to meet dual carbon goals set out in 2020. As the world’s second largest economy, it is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and accounts for half of the world’s coal consumption. The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, pledged in 2020 to achieve peak CO2 emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060.

The report attributed China’s remarkable progress in expanding its non-fossil energy sources to the range of policies its government has implemented, including generous subsidies to incentivise developers as well as regulations to put pressure on provincial governments and generating companies.

Read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... rgy-leader

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