Climate Change News & Discussions

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Earth 'well outside safe operating space for humanity', scientists find
Source: The Guardian

First complete ‘scientific health check’ shows most global systems beyond stable range in which modern civilisation emerged

Damian Carrington Environment editor
@dpcarrington
Wed 13 Sep 2023 14.00 EDT

Earth’s life support systems have been so damaged that the planet is “well outside of the safe operating space for humanity”, scientists have warned.

Their assessment found that six out of nine “planetary boundaries” had been broken because of human-caused pollution and destruction of the natural world. The planetary boundaries are the limits at which key global systems, such as climate, water and wildlife diversity, beyond which these systems’ ability to maintain a healthy planet is in serious peril.

The broken boundaries mean the systems have been driven far from the safe and stable state that existed from the end of the last ice age, 10,000 years ago, to the start of the industrial revolution. The whole of modern civilisation arose in this time period, called the Holocene.

The assessment was the first of all nine planetary boundaries and represented the “first scientific health check for the entire planet”, the researchers said. Six boundaries have been passed and two are judged to be close to being broken: air pollution and ocean acidification. The one boundary that is not threatened is atmospheric ozone, after action to phase out destructive chemicals in recent decades led to the ozone hole shrinking.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... tists-find

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Earth ‘well outside safe operating space for humanity’, scientists find

Wed 13 Sep 2023

Earth’s life support systems have been so damaged that the planet is “well outside the safe operating space for humanity”, scientists have warned.

Their assessment found that six out of nine “planetary boundaries” had been broken because of human-caused pollution and destruction of the natural world. The planetary boundaries are the limits of key global systems – such as climate, water and wildlife diversity – beyond which their ability to maintain a healthy planet is in danger of failing.

The broken boundaries mean the systems have been driven far from the safe and stable state that existed from the end of the last ice age, 10,000 years ago, to the start of the industrial revolution. The whole of modern civilisation arose in this time period, called the Holocene.

The assessment was the first of all nine planetary boundaries and represented the “first scientific health check for the entire planet”, the researchers said. Six boundaries have been passed and two are judged to be close to being broken: air pollution and ocean acidification. The one boundary that is not threatened is atmospheric ozone, after action to phase out destructive chemicals in recent decades led to the ozone hole shrinking.

The scientists said the “most worrying” finding was that all four of the biological boundaries, which cover the living world, were at, or close to, the highest risk level. The living world is particularly vital to the Earth as it provides resilience by compensating for some physical changes, for example, trees absorbing carbon dioxide pollution.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... tists-find

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August 2023

The August global surface temperature was 1.25°C (2.25°F) above the 20th-century average of 15.6°C (60.1°F), making it the warmest August on record. This marked the first time an August temperature exceeded 1.0°C (1.8°F) above the long-term average. August 2023 was 0.29°C (0.52°F) warmer than the previous August record from 2016, but the anomaly was 0.10°C (0.18°F) lower than the all-time highest monthly temperature anomaly on record (March 2016). However, the August 2023 temperature anomaly was the third-highest anomaly of any month on record. August 2023 marked the 45th-consecutive August and the 534th-consecutive month with temperatures at least nominally above the 20th-century average.

June–August 2023

The June–August 2023 global surface temperature was 1.15°C (2.07°F) above the 20th-century average. This ranks as the warmest June–August period in the 174-year record. The past ten June–August periods have been the warmest such periods on record.

Year-to-date Temperature: January–August 2023

The January–August global surface temperature ranked second warmest in the 174-year record at 1.06°C (1.91°F) above the 1901–2000 average of 14.0°C (57.3°F). January–August 2016—another year with El Niño conditions—holds the record for the warmest such period on record by just 0.03°C (0.05°F) above the current year-to-date anomaly. Global ocean surface temperature during this January–August 2023 period ranked warmest on record. According to NCEI's statistical analysis, there is a 95% probability of 2023 ranking among the two warmest years on record.

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monito ... bal/202308

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Crossing ‘Planetary Boundaries,’ Humans Threaten Earth’s Stability — But Researchers See Hope for Balance
Bob Leal
September 13, 2023

Introduction:

(Courthouse News) — A group of international scientists says humans are transgressing six of nine planetary boundaries that are vital for Earth to maintain the stability and resilience humans need to thrive, according to a study published in the journal Science Advances on Wednesday.

“We know we have issues in all of these individual segments of the Earth system, but this is the only place where we put it all together and say, ‘Hey, you know, we’re not going to make the climate goals if we don’t also respect biodiversity goals and reforestation,” said lead author Katherine Richardson, leader of the Sustainability Science Centre and a principal investigator for the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate at the University of Copenhagen.

“What climate change and the biodiversity crisis are telling us now is that for our own sake, we need to manage our relationship with the global environment. And the 'planetary boundaries' is the framework. It’s a tool to be able to manage that relationship,” said Richardson in a telephone interview with Courthouse News Tuesday.

The planetary boundaries framework defines biophysical and biochemical systems that regulate the stability of the Earth's systems. Boundaries mark points where each system diverges significantly from the period between the last ice age and the industrial era — the “Holocene-like” interglacial state — which the team suggests is the best planetary state for people.

Trained as a biological oceanographer, Richardson got involved with how the ocean affects the rest of the Earth.

Read more here: https://www.courthousenews.com/crossin ... alance/

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New study finds most communities will encounter heavy rainfall, excessive heat under climate change
https://phys.org/news/2023-09-communiti ... ssive.html
by American Geophysical Union

Earth's land masses have a higher chance of becoming wetter than drier as temperatures rise. In a new study, researchers found that co-occurring precipitation and heat extremes will become more frequent, severe and widespread under climate change, more so than dry and hot conditions.

When wet-hot conditions strike, heat waves first dry out the soil and reduce its ability to absorb water. Subsequent rainfall has a harder time penetrating the soil and instead runs along the surface, contributing to flooding, landslides and crop failures.

"These compound climate extremes have attracted considerable attention in recent decades due to their disproportionate pressures on the agricultural, industrial and ecosystems sectors—much more than individual extreme events alone," said Haijiang Wu, a researcher at China's Northwest A&F University and the lead author of the study. The research was published in Earth's Future.

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Sea-ice levels in Antarctica at a 'mind-blowing' historic low
Source: Business Insider

Sep 17, 2023, 6:09 AM EDT

Sea-ice levels in Antarctica reached a record low in mid-September, satellite imagery from the National Snow and Ice Data Center shows. Sea ice, the water that freezes on the surface of the sea in the Arctic and Antarctic hemispheres, has been decreasing in both regions.

In Antarctica, sea ice levels reached record lows at least twice in 2023 after record minimums were detected in 2017 and 2022. "It's so far outside anything we've seen, it's almost mind-blowing," Walter Meier, senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, told the BBC.

An unstable Antarctica could have far-reaching consequences for Earth's climate, forcing global temperatures to rise with potentially devastating consequences for humanity, scientists warn. Understanding the extent of climate crisis in Antarctica has been challenging for scientists. The region is 1.5 times the size of the US, and there's a lack of historical information.

"When I started studying the Antarctic 30 years ago, we never thought extreme weather events could happen there," Prof Martin Siegert, a glaciologist at the University of Exeter, told the BBC. But scientists seem to be changing their mind.

Read more: https://www.businessinsider.com/sea-ice ... low-2023-9

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Earth 'well outside safe operating space for humanity', scientists find

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New Weekly ENSO just came out


Niño 4 1.1ºC
Niño 3.4 1.6ºC
Niño 3 2.2ºC
Niño 1+2 2.6ºC


https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/ ... ts-web.pdf

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Ponds Release More Greenhouse Gas Than They Store
September 19, 2023

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) ITHACA, N.Y.- Though human-made ponds both sequester and release greenhouse gases, when added up, they may be net emitters, according to two related studies by Cornell University researchers.

The studies begin to quantify the significant effects that both human-made and natural ponds have on the global greenhouse gas budget, measurements that aren’t well understood.

“Global climate models and predictions rely on accurate accounting of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon storage,” said Meredith Holgerson, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Cornell and senior author of the studies. Nicholas Ray, a postdoctoral researcher in Holgerson’s lab, is a co-author of both papers.

Holgerson and colleagues have previously estimated that ponds ¬– defined as 5 hectares (12 acres) or less and of which there could be 1 billion on Earth – may contribute 5% of the global methane emissions to the atmosphere. But without accurate measurements across many water bodies, the true number could be as little as half or as much as twice that percentage. At the same time, very few estimates of carbon burial rates in ponds exist.

One paper, “High Rates of Carbon Burial Linked to Autochthonous Production in Artificial Ponds,” published Aug. 18 in the journal Limnology and Oceanography Letters, examines how much carbon is sequestered in 22 Cornell Experimental Ponds. The identical ponds – there are 50 – constructed in 1964, provided highly controlled environments, with detailed records from previous studies. The data allowed Holgerson and Ray to evaluate how management activities contributed to carbon storage.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1002061