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©Ashley Cooper
August 4, 2022 Climate Change / Environment / International / News & Updates / Public Health / Science & Society
Mapped: How climate change affects extreme weather around the world

Known as “extreme event attribution”, the field has gained momentum, not only in the science world, but also in the media and public imagination. These studies have the power to link the seemingly abstract concept of climate change with personal and tangible experiences of the weather.

Scientists have published more than 400 peer-reviewed studies looking at weather extremes around the world, from wildfires in the US and heatwaves in India and Pakistan to typhoons in Asia and record-breaking rainfall in the UK. The result is mounting evidence that human activity is raising the risk of some types of extreme weather, especially those linked to heat.

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August 3, 2022 Air Pollution / Environment / Environmental justice / Forever Chemicals / International / News & Updates / PFAS / Plastics / Science & Society
It’s Literally Raining ‘Forever Chemicals’, And The Storm Could Last For Decades

Humans are filling the world with trash, but not all of our waste is visible to the human eye.

While plastic litter on the beach is easy to spot, microplastics and ‘forever chemicals’ have leached far and wide without our barely noticing.Both forms of pollution are now so ubiquitous in the environment, they are falling with the rain. But while the potential threat of microplastics is a regular point of discussion, some researchers argue the spread of other persistent synthetic compounds is comparatively overlooked.

A team of scientists in Europe are now worried we have crossed a critical line. They argue the presence of forever chemicals in our hydrosphere at values that exceed key guidelines means we have entered an unsafe operating space from which there is practically no return.

The warning comes on the heels of another cautionary paper, which argues the world has breached the safe planetary limit for synthetic chemicals.

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July 22, 2022 Climate Change / Correcting False Information / Environment / Environmental justice / International / News & Updates / Public Health / Science & Society / Time for Action is Now
Catastrophic weather: The ghost of summer future

Climate-change-denying politicians love to attack the IPCC as alarmist. It pleases the fossil fuel barons who fund them. But if anything, the IPCC has likely underestimated the role climate change is playing in the increase in persistent weather extremes we’ve seen in recent summers.
One of us has collaborated on research investigating how the asymmetric pattern of the warming of Earth’s surface (wherein the polar regions have warmed more than the middle latitudes) alters the behavior of the summer jet stream. Specifically, it favors a tendency for high-amplitude meanders of the jet stream that remain locked in place, leading to highly persistent deep high and low-pressure centers associated, alternately, with extreme heat, drought, wildfire or extreme flooding.
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July 21, 2022 Climate Change / Environment / International / IPCC / News & Updates / Science & Society / Time for Action is Now / Video - Documentary
PBS Video: The Doomsday Glacier Is Collapsing… Who Is Most at Risk?

“These currently elevated rates of ice melting may signal that those vital arteries from the heart of West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) have burst, leading to accelerating flow into the ocean that is potentially disastrous for future global sea level in a warming world.”

Scientists studied both the Thwaites Glacier (nicknamed the “Doomsday Glacier” for the potentially devastating impacts if it melts) and the neighboring Pine Island Glacier on the western side of the continent, which are both vulnerable to melting from warm water flowing underneath them.

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May 9, 2022 Climate Change / Future Costs / International / News & Updates / Science & Society / Time for Action is Now
More difficult than expected for glaciers to recover from climate warming

ce shelves are floating extensions of glaciers. If Greenland’s second largest ice shelf breaks up, it may not recover unless Earth’s future climate cools considerably. This is the result of a new study, published in Nature Communications.
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“Even if Earth’s climate stopped warming, it would be difficult to rebuild this ice shelf once it has fallen apart,” says Henning Åkesson, who led the study at Stockholm University.

“If Petermann’s ice shelf is lost, we would have to go ‘back in time’ towards a cooler climate reminiscent of the period before the industrial revolution to regrow Petermann,” Åkesson says.

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