Heatwaves that used to arrive once every 20 years or so could become annual events by 2075 across almost two-thirds of the planet’s land surface – if humans go on burning ever more fossil fuels and releasing ever more greenhouse gases. Claudia Tebaldi, visiting scientist at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, and Michael Wehner, senior staff scientist at […]
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What happened A United Nations panel of the world’s leading environmental scientists issued its most dire warnings on the dangers posed by climate change, saying global warming is already affecting every continent and threatens to devastate food supplies, cause mass extinctions of plants and animals, worsen droughts, and raise the risk of wars over resources. The longer society holds off […]
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Back in 2015 British researchers have reinforced recent evidence that melting in the Antarctic caused by the warming of the Southern Ocean could ultimately lead to global sea levels rising by around three meters. Their findings were in line with the results of a study that said six more decades of ocean warming could destabilize the ice beside the Amundsen […]
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“It has happened,” said Philip Bump. For the first time in human history, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels hit a daily average of 400 parts per million (ppm) last week. “There is now more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than at any point since 3 million years ago.” Back then, global temperatures were about 7 degrees higher, the Arctic was ice-free, […]
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Scientists have found telltale evidence that an asteroid twice as large as any previously known smashed into Earth about 300 million years ago. Previously, the largest asteroid impact was believed to have occurred 66 million years ago, when a massive space rock hit what is now the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, causing such havoc that it led to the extinction […]
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Global warming hits plateau. . . What does that mean for the threat of catastrophic climate change? Why has the warming trend slowed? Climatologists aren’t sure. What they do know is that the average air temperatures at the earth’s surface have risen only about 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit since 1998—the hottest year of the 20th century—even as humanity has continued to […]
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As the planet faces the dawn of a sixth mass extinction, scientists are searching for clues about the uncertain road ahead by exploring how an ancient ecosystem collapsed and bounced back from traumatic upheavals. A new study follows the lengthy collapses and revival of South African ecosystems during one of the “big five” mass extinctions, the Permian-Triassic event, revealing unexpected […]
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Second-generation biofuel made from natural grass species challenges ethanol derived from maize crops as the US seeks to reduce its fossil fuel use. LONDON, January, 2016 – In tomorrow’s world, it won’t be just the corn on the great American plains that is as high as an elephant’s eye. It will be the elephant grass as well. To deliver on […]
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India has been told that it cannot go ahead as planned with its ambitious plan for a huge expansion of its renewable energy sector, because it seeks to provide work for Indian people. The case against India was brought by the US. The ruling, by the World Trade Organization (WTO), says India’s National Solar Mission − which would create local […]
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In 2016, a Canadian novelist, Craig Russell — who is also a lawyer and a theater director in Manitoba — wrote an environmental cli-fi thriller titled “Fragment” about a major calving event along the ice shelf of Antarctica. The Yale Climate Connections website recently recommended the novel, published by Thistledown Press as a good summer read. Ironically, scientists in Antarctica are […]
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