Oceans

By Jake Johnson | – A federal judge late Thursday blocked the Biden administration’s massive oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico, a significant win for environmentalists as they work to prevent the Interior Department from handing public lands and waters over to the fossil fuel industry. In his 68-page decision (pdf), […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Emergency Parable: Mammoth Iceberg that broke free from Antarctica Dumps 168 billion tons of Water in South Atlantic

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Anne Braakmann-Folgmann et al. in an article for Remote Sensing of the Environment observed by satellite the now-disintegrated Iceberg A68A over its 3.5-year life since it hived off the Larsen-C Ice Shelf in Antarctica in 2017, and found that it dumped 168 billion tons of fresh water into the ocean […]

Climate Crisis

Ocean Heat is at Record Levels, with Major Consequences

The Conversation

By Kevin Trenberth | – The world witnessed record-breaking climate and weather disasters in 2021, from destructive flash floods that swept through mountain towns in Europe and inundated subway systems in China and the U.S., to heat waves and wildfires. Typhoon Rai killed over 400 people in the Philippines; Hurricane Ida caused an estimated US$74 […]

Climate Crisis

Antarctica’s ‘doomsday’ Glacier: how its Collapse could trigger global Floods and swallow Islands

The Conversation

By Ella Gilbert | – The massive Thwaites glacier in West Antarctica contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by 65cm if it were to completely collapse. And, worryingly, recent research suggests that its long-term stability is doubtful as the glacier haemorrhages more and more ice. Adding 65cm to global sea levels would be […]

Climate Crisis

A Rise of average world Temperatures by 2.3° C. (4.2° F.) will degrade the quality of life in every country on Earth

Alfred W. McCoy

By Alfred McCoy | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – When midnight strikes on New Year’s Day of 2050, there will be little cause for celebration. There will, of course, be the usual toasts with fine wines in the climate-controlled compounds of the wealthy few. But for most of humanity, it’ll just be another day of adversity […]

Climate Crisis

Alarming Loss of Sea Ice diminishes the Arctic’s ability to cool the Global Climate

The Conversation

By Matthew Druckenmiller, Rick Thoman, and Twila Moon | – The Arctic has long been portrayed as a distant end-of-the-Earth place, disconnected from everyday common experience. But as the planet rapidly warms, what happens in this icy region, where temperatures are rising twice as fast as the rest of the globe, increasingly affects lives around […]

Climate Crisis

Arctic Ocean started getting warmer Decades earlier than we Thought

University of Cambridge Research

By Sarah Collins | – The Arctic Ocean has been getting warmer since the beginning of the 20th century – decades earlier than records suggest – due to warmer water flowing into the delicate polar ecosystem from the Atlantic Ocean. An international group of researchers reconstructed the recent history of ocean warming at the gateway […]

Environment

Plastic trash in the ocean is a global problem, and the US is the top source – a new report urges action

The Conversation

By Matthew Savoca, Anna Robuck, and Lauren Kashiwabara | – Plastic waste of all shapes and sizes permeates the world’s oceans. It shows up on beaches, in fish and even in Arctic sea ice. And a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine makes clear that the U.S. is a big […]

Climate Crisis

Can the Collapse of West Antarctica’s Ice Sheet and massive Sea Level Rise be Avoided?

The Conversation

By Dan Lowry, Mario Krapp, and Nick Golledge | – ( The Conversation) – Rising seas are already making storm damage more costly, adding to the impact on about 700 million people who live in low-lying coastal areas at risk of flooding. Scientists expect sea-level rise will exacerbate the damage from storm surges and coastal […]