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The Coastal Northeast Is A Hotspot | Earth Wise

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Global warming is, obviously, a world-wide phenomenon.  When the concept of a 2 degrees Celsius temperature rise is discussed, it refers to the average global temperature and the effects that would have on such things as sea level rise and weather patterns.  But the effects of the changing climate are not homogeneous.  Very different things can happen and are happening in different places.

One such place is the coastal northeastern United States, which is a global warming hotspot.  The region is heating faster than most regions of North America and, indeed, 2 degrees of summer warming has already happened in the Northeast.

New research led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst has determined that this heating is linked to significant alterations in the ocean and atmospheric conditions over the North Atlantic.

Several studies have found that the Atlantic Meridional Circulation is slowing down.  The AMOC conveys warm, salty water from the tropics north towards Greenland, where it cools and sinks.  The cooled water than flows back south as deep-water currents.  As the warming climate melts glaciers in Greenland, the circulation slows down, less cooled water arrives in the south, and there is more heating of the ocean off the Northeastern coast.

At the same time, the North Atlantic Oscillation, a weather phenomenon that governs the strength and position of the winds that blow from the U.S. over the Atlantic, has tended to settle into a pattern that enhances the influence of ocean air on the eastern seaboard climate.  Warmer ocean air being blown over the region has led to rising temperatures in Boston, New York, and Providence, Rhode Island.

As the average temperature of the world rises, some places will warm more quickly and others more slowly.

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The Coastal Northeastern U.S. Is A Global Warming Hotspot

Photo, posted August 8, 2010, courtesy of Doug Kerr via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Weather Disasters On The Rise | Earth Wise

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It seems like the news is always filled with stories about storms, heatwaves, drought, and forest fires.  This is because these things are happening with unprecedented frequency.

According to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization, weather disasters have become five times more common since 1970, in large part a result of climate change.  Extreme weather, climate, and water events are increasing and are becoming more frequent and severe in many parts of the world.

Between 1970 and 2019, there were more than 11,000 reported disasters attributed to weather, resulting in over 2 million deaths and $3.64 trillion dollars in economic losses.

Storms and floods were the most prevalent disasters.  The five costliest disasters ever are all hurricanes that have struck the United States over the past 20 years.

Droughts accounted for the greatest number of human losses, with severe droughts in Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Sudan responsible for 650,000 deaths.

About the only positive news in the report was that even as disasters have grown more prevalent, deaths have declined, dropping from about 50,000 a year in the 1970s to fewer than 20,000 in the 2010s.  This is a result of better early warning systems.  We have gotten better at saving lives.  But early warning systems are woefully insufficient in much of the developing world, where more than 90% of disaster-related deaths occur.

Of the 77 weather-related disasters that struck between 2015 and 2017, 62 show the influence of human-caused climate change.  With the pace of climate change now accelerating, there are likely to be more frequent catastrophic disasters in the years to come.

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As the Planet Has Warmed, Weather Disasters Have Grown Fivefold, Analysis Shows

Photo, posted September 16, 2021, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Emissions From Global Computing

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A recent study from Lancaster University in the UK has concluded that global computing is likely to be responsible for a greater share of greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought and that share is continuing to grow.

Previous calculations of the contributions from information and communications technology (or ICT) estimated that globally it accounts for 1.8 to 2.8% of total emissions.  According to the new study, these estimates likely fall short of the sector’s real climate impact because they only show a partial picture.

Prior estimates do not account for the full lifecycle and supply chain of ICT products and infrastructure.  They do not include the energy expended in manufacturing the products and equipment, the carbon cost associated with all the components in the products, and the operational carbon footprint of the companies producing those components. 

The study argues that the true contribution of ICT to global greenhouse gas emissions could be between 2.1 and 3.9%, which is more than the aviation industry.  Furthermore, the study warns that new trends in computing and ICT such as the use of big data and artificial intelligence, the so-called Internet of Things, and the use of blockchain and cryptocurrencies, risk driving further substantial growth in ICT’s greenhouse gas footprint.

It has been a commonly held believe that ICT and computing technologies lead to greater efficiencies across many other sectors, leading to savings in net greenhouse gas emissions.  According to the new study, the historical evidence indicates the opposite.  ICT has driven wide-ranging efficiency and productivity improvements, but the net result in emissions has been that they have been growing steadily.

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Emissions from computing and ICT could be worse than previously thought

Photo, posted March 13, 2018, courtesy of Flickr.

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Bitcoin And Energy Use | Earth Wise

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In recent years we’ve heard more and more about cryptocurrencies.  They are digital currencies managed by a decentralized network of users.  No country, person, or other entity controls the value of a cryptocurrency.  Some people think that they will ultimately replace traditional currencies.

The eventual status of cryptocurrencies can be debated endlessly but there is one thing that is certain:  in the process of simply existing as they do today, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin consume astonishing amounts of electricity.

Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, uses about half a percent of all the electricity consumed in the world.  The process of creating Bitcoin consumes over 90 terawatt-hours of electricity annually, which is more than the entire country of Finland with its 5.5 million people.  Where does all the energy go?

The answer is something called Bitcoin mining.  It is the process by which new Bitcoins are created.  It is something like playing a lottery.  Miners effectively have to guess an extremely long number called the “target hash” in order to be awarded Bitcoins.   There is no magic formula to finding the answer.  It isn’t really advanced math; it is brute force searching among trillions of possibilities.  Specialized computer equipment is designed to make as many guesses as possible as quickly as possible.  The faster the electronic circuits and the more of them there are, the better the chances are of beating out other miners to win the mining lottery.  As a result, the amount of power-hungry computing equipment dedicated across the globe to mining Bitcoins has mushroomed.

Whether it pays to be a Bitcoin miner is increasingly difficult, but those that are doing it are consuming extraordinary amounts of energy in the effort to make a few more digital bucks.

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Bitcoin Uses More Electricity Than Many Countries. How Is That Possible?

Photo, posted February 14, 2018, courtesy of Stock Catalog via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Wildfires And The Climate | Earth Wise

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Scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research recently published a study analyzing the events that influenced the world’s climate in 2020.  Among these were the pandemic-related lockdowns that reduced emissions and resulted in clearer air in many of the world’s cities.

While this was a significant event, the study found that something entirely different had a more immediate effect on global climate:  the enormous bushfires that burned in Australia from late 2019 to 2020, producing plumes of smoke that reached the stratosphere and circled much of the southern hemisphere.

Those fires sprung up in September 2019 and lasted until March 2020.  The fires burned more than 46 million acres (about 72,000 square miles), which is roughly the same area as the entire country of Syria.  Thousands of homes and other buildings were lost.

Major fires inject so many sulfates and other particles into the atmosphere that they can disrupt the climate system, push tropical thunderstorms northward from the equator, and potentially influence the periodic warming and cooling of tropical Pacific Ocean waters known as El Nino and La Nina.

According to the study, the COVID-19 lockdowns actually had a slight warming influence on global climate, as a result of clearer skies enabling more heat to reach the earth’s surface.  In contrast, the Australian bushfires cooled the Southern Hemisphere because the atmospheric particles reflected some of the incoming solar radiation back to space.

This summer, there have been raging wildfires in the western US and Canada, which have affected air quality in many parts of the nation and have been a serious health hazard.  Undoubtedly, these fires are influencing the climate system as well in ways that we are still trying to understand.

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Bushfires, not pandemic lockdowns, had biggest impact on global climate in 2020

Photo, posted January 18, 2020, courtesy of BLM-Idaho via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Understanding Geoengineering | Earth Wise

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The most recent report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change includes discussion of a number of extreme and untested solutions to the climate crisis.  Among these are solar geoengineering – modifying clouds or spraying tiny reflective particles into the upper atmosphere in order to block some of the sun’s light and thereby cool the planet.  The underlying principles are relatively straightforward.

There have been various models that predict the extent to which solar geoengineering would lower the earth’s average temperature.  What hasn’t been modeled to any real extent is what other effects it would have.

The new report discusses the results of models that predict how temperatures would vary at different latitudes and how geoengineering would affect rainfall and snowfall.  According to the models, releasing sulfate aerosols into the upper atmosphere to block sunlight would lower average precipitation.  But every region would be affected differently.  Some regions would gain in an artificially cooler world, but others might, for example, suffer by no longer having suitable conditions to grow crops.

The drop in temperature would allow the planet’s carbon sinks (plants, soils, and oceans) to take up more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.  However, as long as people continue to pollute, carbon dioxide would continue to make the oceans more acidic, causing significant harm to marine ecosystems.  Furthermore, solar geoengineering would have to be an ongoing process that would go on indefinitely and if it were to suddenly stop, it would lead to rapid warming.

The more we learn about geoengineering, the more it becomes clear that there would be many side effects as well as serious moral, political, and practical issues.  Society has to consider if all these things represent too much danger to allow us to seriously consider such a strategy.

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In the New UN Climate Report, a Better Understanding of Solar Geoengineering

Photo, posted September 9, 2012, courtesy of Kelly Nighan via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

July Was A Scorcher | Earth Wise

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July 2021 has the unfortunate distinction as being the world’s hottest month ever recorded according to global data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.   July is typically the warmest month of the year, but this July was the warmest month of any year on record.

The combined global land and ocean surface temperature was 62.07 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 1.67 degrees above the 20th century average.  This was the highest monthly average since records began 142 years ago.  It broke the previous record set in July 2016 and tied in 2019 and 2020.

The Northern Hemisphere was 2.77 degrees above average.  Asia had its hottest July on record.  Europe had its second hottest July on record.  Places like Africa, Australia, and New Zealand all had top-ten warmest Julys.

Other aspects of the changing climate included the observation that Arctic sea ice coverage for July was the fourth-smallest in the 43-year record.  Interestingly, Antarctic sea ice extent was actually above average in July.  Global tropic cyclone activity this year so far is above normal for the number of named storms.  In the Atlantic basin, the formation of the storm Elsa on July 1 was the earliest date for a 5th named storm.

It remains very likely that 2021 will rank among the 10 hottest years on record.  Extreme heat is a reflection on the long-term climate changes that were outlined recently in a major report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  These latest global observations add to the disturbing and disruptive path that the changing climate has set for the world.

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It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

Photo, posted July 15, 2021, courtesy of Lori Iverson/National Interagency Fire Center via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Pacific Northwest Heatwave | Earth Wise

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The late-June heatwave in the Pacific Northwest shattered temperature records in dozens of locations.  Cities like Portland and Seattle saw historic high temperatures and one town in British Columbia saw temperatures hotter than ever recorded in Las Vegas.

An international team of weather and climate experts analyzed this extreme weather event and came to a preliminary conclusion that it was a 1-in-1000-year event in today’s climate.  “Today’s climate” means the already warmer conditions that the world is experiencing as a result of the changing climate.

If that analysis is accurate, then such an extreme temperature event would have been at least 150 times rarer in the era before global warming.  In other words, they concluded that it would have been a 1-in-150,000-year event, which means that it would have been virtually impossible in pre-industrial times.

Given that they estimated that the extreme temperatures were a 1-in-1000-year event at this point, it would follow that such events are not about to become commonplace any time soon.  On the face of it, that is somewhat comforting to hear.

However, all of this assumes that global warming will not radically change the statistical distribution of global temperatures.  If that assumption fails to hold, then all bets are off.  Perhaps temperatures like those experienced in the Pacific Northwest might be a 1-in-50-year event, for example, but we just don’t realize it yet.  Follow-up studies will be looking for evidence of significant changes in the distribution of weather events.  For now, a 1-in-1000-year event means there is only a 0.1% chance of occurring in a given year.  That’s good news for the residents of that region.

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Preliminary analysis concludes Pacific Northwest heat wave was a 1,000-year event…hopefully

Photo, posted June 4, 2016, courtesy of Jody Claborn via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Record Heat Across the Globe | Earth Wise

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While the Pacific Northwest was setting new records for high temperatures in June, many other places across the globe also experienced unprecedented heat.  Places in Russia and Scandinavia, including locations above the Arctic Circle, set new records for temperature.

The heatwave in Europe was the result of a persistent northward bulge in the polar jet stream.  This blocking pattern in the jet stream has been prevalent over Scandinavia this year and has contributed to unusually warm conditions there.  Further east, similar conditions have created unusual warm temperatures in Siberia.

On June 23, Moscow reached a high of 94.6 degrees, the hottest June temperature on record.  Helsinki, Finland set a record at 89.1 degrees, and both Belarus at 96.3 degrees and Estonia at 94.3 degrees set new records.  The town of Saskylah, north of the Arctic Circle in Siberia, measured almost 90 degrees on June 20. 

High temperature records have been broken in many places.  The all-time record high for June for all of Mexico fell at Mexicali in Baja California on June 17 when the temperature reached 125 degrees.  Palm Springs, California, while known for its desert heat, nonetheless set a new all-time high temperature of 123 degrees and also set a new record for the warmest overnight low temperature for a June night anywhere in North America at an unbelievable 105 degrees.

Stories like this have become all-too common in recent years and are undoubtedly going to occur with greater frequency as the world’s climate continues to react to the growing buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

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A Scorcher in Siberia and Europe

Photo, posted June 8, 2007, courtesy of Niko Pettersen via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Hottest June | Earth Wise

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A series of heatwaves from coast to coast caused June 2021 to be the hottest June on record in the U.S. The average June temperature across the contiguous U.S. was 72.6 degrees Fahrenheit, making it the hottest June in 127 years of record keeping and breaking the previous record set in 2016 by nearly a full degree. Eight states had their hottest June on record and six others marked their second hottest June.

One of the most extreme heatwaves in modern history impacted the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. and western Canada late in the month.  Temperature records were not merely broken in the region; they were smashed over an incredibly hot four-day period from June 26th through June 29th when all-time records over 100 degrees were set at dozens of locations.

Portland, Oregon’s average high temperature over this period was 112 degrees, breaking the previous 3-day record by an amazing 6 degrees.  The high on June 28th was 116 degrees, an all-time record for the city.  Seattle set back-to-back all-time heat records of 104 on June 27th and then 108 on June 28th.  In the previous 126 years, Seattle had only hit 100 degrees three times.  It reached that mark 3 days in a row in June.

Crossing the border, the town of Lytton, British Columbia reached a temperature of 121 degrees on June 29th, the third day in a row in which the town registered a new all-time high temperature ever measured in Canada.  To put this in perspective, this temperature is hotter than has ever been recorded in Las Vegas.

June was a hot month indeed.

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June 2021 was the hottest June on record for U.S.

Astounding heat obliterates all-time records across the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada in June 2021

Photo, posted July 7, 2021, courtesy of Poyson / GPA Photo Archive via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Climate Change And Heat-Related Deaths | Earth Wise

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According to a new study recently published in the journal Nature Climate Change, more than one-third of the world’s heat-related deaths each year are attributable to human-induced climate change. 

Researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK  and the University of Bern in Switzerland analyzed data from 732 locations in 43 countries.  They took observed temperatures and compared them with 10 computer models simulating a world without climate change.  By applying this technique to their data, the researchers were able to calculate for the first time the actual contribution of anthropogenic climate change in increasing mortality risks due to heat.

The research team found that 37% of all heat-related deaths between 1991 and 2018 were attributable to the warming of the planet due to human activities.  This percentage was highest in South America, Central America, and South-East Asia. 

In the United States, 35% of heat deaths were found to be a result of climate change.  New York had the most heat-related deaths at 141, and Honolulu had the highest percentage of heat deaths attributable to climate change at 82%.

But scientists caution that this is only a small portion of the climate’s overall impact. Many more people die from other extreme weather amplified by climate change, including severe storms, floods, and droughts.  Heat-related death figures will grow exponentially as temperatures rise.

According to the research team, the study’s findings highlight the need to adopt stronger climate change mitigation strategies, and to implement interventions to protect people from the adverse consequences of heat exposure.    

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Global warming already responsible for one in three heat-related deaths

Photo, posted April 14, 2017, courtesy of Karim Bench via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Forests And Climate Change | Earth Wise

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A carbon sink is anything that absorbs more carbon from the atmosphere than it releases.  Examples of carbon sinks include the ocean, soil, and plants.  In contrast, a carbon source is anything that releases more carbon into the atmosphere than it absorbs.  Volcanic eruptions and burning fossil fuels are two examples.

Forests are among the most important carbon sinks.  Trees remove carbon from the air and store it in their trunks, branches, and leaves, and transfer some of it into the soil.  But in many regions, deforestation, forest degradation, and the impacts of climate change are weakening these carbon sinks. As a result, some climate activists advocate for large-scale tree-planting campaigns as a way to remove heat-trapping CO2 from the atmosphere and help mitigate climate change. 

But according to a new study recently published in the journal Science, planting new trees as a substitute for the direct reduction of greenhouse gas emissions could be a pipe dream.  While planting trees is easy, inexpensive, and can help slow climate warming, the ongoing warming would be simultaneously causing the loss of other trees.  Instead, the research team says it makes more sense to focus on keeping existing forests healthy so they can continue to act as carbon sinks, and to reduce emissions as much as possible and as quickly as possible.        

But keeping forests healthy will require a paradigm shift in forest management.  Instead of trying to maintain forests as they were in the 20th century, the research team says forests need to be managed proactively for the changes that can be anticipated. 

One thing is clear: We cannot plant our way out of the climate crisis.

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Forests and climate change: ‘We can’t plant our way out of the climate crisis’

Photo, posted August 9, 2015, courtesy of Nicholas A. Tonelli via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Accelerating Global Glacier Loss | Earth Wise

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Glaciers represent the snows of centuries compressed over time to form flowing rivers of ice.  Glaciers always change, accumulating snow in the winter and losing ice to melting in the summer.  But in recent times, the melting has been outpacing the accumulation.

Glaciers are a sensitive indicator of climate change.  They have been melting at a high rate since the mid-20th century – regardless of altitude or latitude. But up until recently, the full extent of glacial ice loss has only been partially measured and understood.

Now, according to new research led by scientists from ETH Zurich in Switzerland and the University of Toulouse in France, nearly all the world’s glaciers are becoming thinner and losing mass.  And the changes are accelerating.  The study, which is the most comprehensive and accurate of its kind to date, is the first to include all the world’s glaciers – around 220,000 in total – excluding the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The research team’s findings were recently published in the journal Nature.

Between 2000 and 2019, the world’s glaciers lost an average of more than 294 billion tons of ice per year.  Between 2000 and 2004, glaciers lost an average of about 250 billion tons of ice each year.  But between 2015 and 2019, ice mass loss jumped up to an average of approximately 328 billion tons annually.    

Glacial melt is responsible for 21% of the observed sea level rise during this two decade time period studied.

This research is just another reminder of how we need to act urgently if we want to prevent the worst-case climate change scenario from becoming a reality. 

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Global glacier retreat has accelerated

Photo, posted September 17, 2015, courtesy of Richard Whitaker via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Dangerous Fire Season | Earth Wise

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The western United States is entering the fire season under much worse drought conditions than last year.  Last year, 15,800 square miles burned in the U.S., mostly in the West.

The western U.S. is in the midst of a 20-year mega-drought.  Rainfall in the Rocky Mountains and farther west was the second lowest on record this April.  The soil in the western half of the country is the driest it has been since 1895.

The situation is particularly bad in California and the Southwest.  In March, less than a third of California was experiencing extreme or exceptional drought.  Now, 73% of the state is.  A year ago, a record-breaking fire season burned 4% of the state and, at that time, only 3% of California was in a state of extreme drought.

A year ago, no parts of Arizona, Nevada, or Utah were in extreme or exceptional drought.  Now, more than 90% of Utah, 86% of Arizona, and 75% of Nevada face severe drought conditions.  At this time last year, only 4% of New Mexico faced extreme drought but 77% does now.

These extreme drought conditions, which are believed to be linked to climate change, are causing increased tree mortality among many species, ranging from junipers in the Southwest even to drought-tolerant blue oaks in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Conditions are extremely ripe for a lot of forest fire this year.  Last year was a terrible year for wildfires in the West and we are heading into a fire season with much drier fuels than there were last year.  The risks of great damage from wildfires are higher than ever.

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US West Enters Fire Season Facing Extremely Dry Conditions

Photo, posted September 18, 2020, courtesy of USFS/National Interagency Fire Center via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Blue Carbon Credits | Earth Wise

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Carbon credits have been around since the late 1990s.  The idea is to offset carbon emissions from some carbon emitting activity – anything from a wedding in California to a factory operating in Minnesota – by buying carbon credits earned from a carbon-absorbing activity, such as planting trees in the Amazon.

Blue carbon credits are credits earned by increasing the carbon stored in coastal and marine ecosystems. Coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, tidal marshes, and seagrass meadows in fact sequester and store more carbon per unit area than terrestrial forests and are increasingly being recognized for their important role in mitigating climate change. 

Blue carbon credit awards have to date been relatively few and far between and have mostly been granted for mangrove restoration efforts.  But mangrove projects are now ramping up dramatically in scope.  Scientists are working hard to analyze the amount of carbon in other ecosystem types – seagrasses, salt marshes, seaweeds, and seafloor sediments – so that these systems can also enter the carbon credit market.

Over the past 20 years, conservation scientists have spread over 70 million seeds in the bays of Virginia to restore over 9,000 acres of seagrass meadows that were devastated by disease in the 1930s.  The restored meadows are absorbing nearly half a ton of CO2 per acre. 

The rules to allow for blue carbon credits are recent and evolving, which is a big deal. The market may currently be small, but it is growing exponentially.  But as important as carbon credits are, it is still paramount to decarbonize before turning to offsets for existing emissions.

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Why the Market for ‘Blue Carbon’ Credits May Be Poised to Take Off

Photo, posted July 2, 2009, courtesy of Nicolas Raymond via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Post-COVID Emissions Rebound | Earth Wise

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The extensive shutdowns associated with the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in reduced activity across many sectors of the global economy.  As a result, global pollution and greenhouse gas emissions also saw lower levels.  As the COVID crisis lessens, an economic recovery is growing and as that occurs, emissions are on the rise.

The International Energy Agency forecasts that energy-related carbon dioxide emissions are projected to increase by 1.5 billion tons this year, the second-largest increase in history.

The emissions increase in 2021 is expected to be nearly 5%, reversing most of last year’s emissions decline caused by the pandemic. This would be the largest annual rise since the 2010 recovery from the global financial crisis.  In many places across the globe, people are making up for lost time and doing more of all the things that cause carbon emissions.

A key driver of the emissions increase is a rise in coal use.  The forecast is that coal-burning in 2021 would come close to the all-time peak of 2014.  Both natural gas and oil use are also expected to increase this year.  These increases are in spite of a predicted 17% increase in electricity generation from wind power and an 18% increase in solar-power generation. 

Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 are now at 417 parts per million and have increased by 3 PPM in the past year.  If human CO2 emissions are not reined in, atmospheric concentrations of planet-warming greenhouse gases could double those of pre-Industrial levels by mid-century, which would have disastrous impacts on the climate.

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Global CO2 Emissions Set to Surge in 2021 in Post-Covid Economic Rebound

Photo, posted October 22, 2020, courtesy of Hospital Clínic Barcelona via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Banning Short Plane Flights | Earth Wise

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Almost everything we do ultimately results in greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere and therefore has an impact on the climate.  But some activities have much more impact than others.  The aviation industry is responsible for about 5% of global warming.

This doesn’t seem like that large a contribution, but only a very small percentage of the world’s population flies frequently and even in richer countries, only around half the population flew in any given year (at least before the pandemic.)

Flying is generally the only practical option for most long-haul trips and unless people give up on seeing the world or conducting global business in person, they are not going to give up taking air trips.

But shorter flights are a different story.  If you are planning to take a reasonably short trip in France, a plane will soon no longer be an option.  The French government says that flights will be banned on any route where the trip could be made on a train in 2.5 hours or less.  The driving force is the reduction of CO2 emissions.  A plane trip emits an average of 77 times more CO2 per passenger than taking a train on the same route.

The Netherlands and Belgium are also considering bans on short-haul flights and Austrian Airlines recently replaced its Vienna-to-Salzburg flights with train service.

Advocates of the flight bans say that not only does taking the train significantly reduce a traveler’s carbon footprint, but it can be cheaper and actually faster than a plane when factoring in the time spent getting to airports, standing in security lines, getting on and off planes, and so on.  Europe’s extensive train system makes this approach broadly practical. Unfortunately, here in the U.S., it is not quite that easy.

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France Will Ban Short Flights That Could Be Replaced By a Train Trip

Photo, posted December 17, 2016, courtesy of Dylan Agbagni via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Should We Block The Sun? | Earth Wise

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There is growing concern that greenhouse gas emissions are not falling quickly enough to avoid dangerous levels of global warming.  As a result, there is the impetus to examine other options.  Among these are geoengineering, which is one of the most contentious issues in climate policy.  Geoengineering embodies many risks that make even seriously considering it seem risky in itself.

Despite this, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine has issued a report saying that governments urgently need to know whether solar geoengineering could work and what its side effects might be.

Solar geoengineering is also called solar radiation modification, which entails reflecting more of the sun’s energy back into space.  This would likely be accomplished by injecting aerosols into the atmosphere, much like what happens after large volcanic eruptions.

Schemes for solar geoengineering raise numerous issues.  Although solar geoengineering might cool the earth’s surface to a global temperature target, the cooling may not be evenly distributed, affecting many ecosystem functions and biodiversity.   It would likely upset regional weather patterns in potentially devastating ways, for example by changing the behavior of the monsoon in South Asia.  It might dangerously relax public commitments to reduce greenhouse emissions. 

Despite these concerns, or perhaps because of them, the committee that produced the report believes that technology to reflect sunlight deserves substantial funding and should be researched as rapidly and effectively as possible.  Once any geoengineering projects get into the hands of policymakers, they may gather momentum that bypasses the advice of scientists.  So, it important to make progress on the science while geoengineering is still only theoretical.

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Should We Block the Sun? Scientists Say the Time Has Come to Study It.

To intervene or not to intervene? That is the future climate question

Photo, posted August 3, 2018, courtesy of Tomasz Baranowski via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Potential For Solar Canals In California | Earth Wise

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California’s network of almost 4,000 miles of aqueducts is the world’s largest water conveyance system.  It serves the state’s Central Valley which produces a quarter of America’s food.  About 20% of the nation’s groundwater demand is pumped from Central Valley aquifers.

A recent study by the University of California Santa Cruz and UC Merced has determined that covering these aqueducts with solar panels could be an economically feasible way to advance both renewable energy and water conservation.  California’s aqueducts might more properly be called canals because they are located at ground level.  

The concept of solar canals has been gaining increasing interest around the world as the changing climate leads to more droughts in many regions.  Placing solar panels above the canals can shade them to help prevent water loss through evaporation.  In addition, some types of solar panels can work better situated over canals because the cooler environment improves their operation.  In addition to the increased solar panel output and the water evaporation savings, shade from solar panels could help control the growth of aquatic weeds, which are a costly canal maintenance issue.

Spanning canals with solar panels can be accomplished either by using steel trusses or suspension cables, either of which is more expensive to build than ordinary ground-mounted solar panel supports.  But the research study showed how the benefits of solar canals combine to outweigh the added costs for cable-supported installations.

Apart from the economic benefits of a solar canal system, producing solar energy in the canal system could eliminate the use of 15-20 diesel-powered irrigation pumps, helping to reduce air pollution in a region with some of the nation’s worst air quality.

Solar canals could be a real winner.

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New analysis shows potential for ‘solar canals’ in California

Photo, posted July 23, 2015, courtesy of Lance Cheung / USDA via Flickr.

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Tropical Species Moving North | Earth Wise

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Climate change is leading to warmer winter weather throughout the southern U.S., providing opportunities for many tropical plants and animals to move north.  A new study by scientists at UC Berkeley looked at the changing distribution of tropical species driven by the warming climate.

Some species are appreciated in their new locations, such as sea turtles and the Florida manatee, which are gradually moving northward along the Atlantic Coast.  Others, like the invasive Burmese python are not so welcome.  That goes double for many insects, such as the mosquitoes that carry diseases like the West Nile virus, Zika, dengue, and yellow fever, as well as beetles that destroy native trees.

The transition zone, northward of which experiences freezes every winter, has always been a barrier to species native to more temperate places.  For most organisms in such places, if they freeze, they die.  Cold snaps like the recent one in Texas usually don’t happen for decades and are now likely to be less and less frequent.  In the meantime, tropical species can get more and more of a foothold and maybe even develop populations that can tolerate more cold extremes in the future.

The warming climate is leading many plant species to expand their ranges, in some cases pushing out native species.  The general story is that the species that do really well are the more generalist species whose host plants or food sources are quite varied or widely distributed and can tolerate a wide range of conditions.  By definition, they tend to be the pest species.

We need to prepare for widespread shifts in the distribution of biodiversity as climate, including winter climate, changes.

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Tropical species are moving northward as winters warm

Photo, posted May 7, 2010, courtesy of Jim Reid / USFWS via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

WAMC Northeast Public Radio

WAMC/Northeast Public Radio is a regional public radio network serving parts of seven northeastern states (more...)